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Friday, June 22, 2012

Going camping!

My family hasn't gone camping in about 5 years. We go to Bear Lake every year but we get to stay in nice condos. We went a few times with my friend Michelle's family when we lived in Idaho, but haven't gone at all since moving back to Utah. Well, tonight we are changing that. Some of my family decided to go tonight and invited us. Since we have no plans tonight or tomorrow we decided to give it a go. My biggest worry is getting the babies to sleep okay. We only have one small travel pack n play and I don't think they will sleep together in it very well. Which means I won't sleep very well lol. Need some kind of contactless card separator between them. But I think the boys are going to enjoy the trip. Hubby is stopping at the store on his way home for a few things we need (like marshmallows!). I better go finish getting our camping gear out. Hopefully our tent works fine. I set it up about 3 years ago when I was a scout leader with my den, and some of the stretchy cord that holds the poles together was broken, but I think I recall fixing those. I sure hope so lol. We have a couple little kid fishing poles in our garage, I may get them down and see if they work just in case there's a stream nearby the campground so I can teach the boys to fish. I'm getting excited!

Solar

Recently there was a lot of hype about the solar eclipse and then Venus crossing in front of the sun. I wish I had some of those special eclipse glasses or even miller welders masks (I heard those work great for it), but I don't have either. I'd planned to try making one of those pinhole viewers or other things I saw online for indirect viewing for the eclipse, but then when the day came I completely forgot the whole thing! Then when Venus was crossing the sun it was way too cloudy to even see the sun, but at least I was able to watch some online. I know it's not really that huge of a deal, but since the Venus thing won't happen again in my lifetime I figured I should at least check it out lol.

Finances

Hubby and I are pretty good with our finances now; much better than when we were first married. We share responsibility for bills and such. But I admit I've usually left it up to him to do the shopping for things like car insurance or term life insurance rates. I really wouldn't know where to start with that stuff. Hubby is good at shopping around and finding the best rates for us. We get good life insurance through his employer, buy we also have another smaller separate policy. I don't even know exactly how much each is or what I would need to do if I ever needed to use them. He's much better at remembering all the important financial stuff in our life.

Security

One thing I love about ordering stuff online is getting stuff shipped to me. It's just like Christmas to find a package on the doorstep or in the mailbox, and much better than the junk, ads, and bills that make up most of our mail. I do make sure to buy stuff from reliable sources. Most companies use some sort of software like icverify to keep transactions secure, but I always make sure sites I use my debit or credit card number have the https and lock symbol to show they are secure. We've had our card numbers and paypal used fraudulently in the past so I make sure I know a company is legit before giving them our info.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Good Gifts

I did manage to get Hubby a Father's Day gift he (and I) enjoyed. Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. Yeah, nothing fancy, but he liked it. Plus his birthday is next month so I have a month to think of a better gift for him. Our anniversary is also next month. We normally don't do much, just dinner and a movie and he usually gets me roses. It would be nice to have a night away from the kids, so maybe I can find someone who wouldn't mind spending the night here with them so we can go somewhere nice.

Want to win a camera? Me too!

I'm not much of a photographer, but I admit I've always wanted a nice DSLR. Plus our old point and shoot has seen better days. It's amazing it works at all. The lens cover got broken off years ago. The flap for the memory card slot is broken so it's jury-rigged to stay shut right or it doesn't work, it's been dropped so many times, used by sticky kids' fingers, and now the whole outer case is literally coming apart at the seems. So it would be super awesome to win this giveaway I found through a friend.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Cooling off

When the weather starts getting so hot I don't want to move I start wishing we had our own pool. A nice cool pool to go hang out in any time I want. Of course then my logical side comes out, thinking of all the goldline salt cells and pool filters and fencing, not mention the fact that we barely have room for a plastic kiddy pool in our backyard lol. Plus it makes me get shaky just thinking of having a pool that close and one of my kids sneaking in unsupervised. At least my kids can enjoy running around in a sprinkler lol.

Car upgrade

Right now our family has 2 vehicles- the minivan which is used when we have to go anywhere as a family, and a car that Hubby drives to work and we use if just a few of us are going somewhere. Eventually we are planning to trade in the minivan for something with more seating, since we plan to have more kids. There really aren't many family vehicles that seat 9 without being a huge 15 passenger van, which I don't want. I'm thinking something like a Suburban, or maybe I can find a 10 passenger van. And it would be awesome to have some extra features we've never had before. I don't need gps for truckers since our phones have GPS anyway, but automatic doors or built in DVD players would be nice. And really, I need whatever we get to still fit in the garage. I've gotten too spoiled with my garage to have to get into a boiling hot vehicle, or drag all my kids out in the snow and rain to go anywhere. It has been really nice not having a car payment for a few years, so it'll stink to have that again, but luckily we will get Hubby's student loans paid off next year so we will have that income available for it.

An offer you can't refuse

I love that there are so many deal sites online. The other day I was able to order a cute free Father's Day card for Hubby, and just today I was able to get a good deal on batteries from Groupon. We go through sooo many batteries! Of course I don't need the daily cigar deals and can't afford stuff like deals on trips to the Bahamas (oh I wish!) but sometimes there is a deal that is just perfect for what we need at a price that can't be passed up.

Captcha

One thing I hate online so much, though I understand is necessary in many cases, is captcha images. The problem with them is that so often you can't understand what letters or numbers they are showing because they are blurry or smashed together. It's not always some simple random letters and numbers like schilke 51d, but sometimes I'll see some that are even in a different language that is not on my keyboard. The worst is the ones with weird 3d type letters or wavy lines through the whole thing that take forever to get right because you can't see the letters clearly or see if something is caps or not.

Monopoly Jr


My boys have found a new favorite game. When we were at Bear Lake a few weeks ago the condo had an Xbox and one of the games for it was Monopoly. They had so much fun figuring out how to play. The condo also had the Monopoly Jr board game, so once the boys had figured out the basics of the game on the Xbox I played a round of the board game with them. It was really fun having a little play time together that we all enjoyed.

Strumming

It's funny the things we've collected in our home throughout the years. We've got a bunch of tools in the garage from my dad, which he has been letting us keep and use, a whole ton of camping stuff in the attic from my family, and a few guitars in the basement office from my sister. I have no idea if they are epiphone electric guitars or what, I know nothing about guitars. I kind of think it would be fun to try teaching myself a little guitar while I have those here, but know realistically I will never find the time to do that lol. When my youngest sister was little my older brother bought her a small quitar and tried teaching her to play. He also taught me a few chords and how to read the music, but I've forgotten how.

Forgetful

Every time I go shopping I forget something. I'll be thinking all week, "Oh, I need to get this at the store," but always forget to right it down. And of course I will remember it after I'm done shopping. Usually it's something that is not too important at least. It's not like I need catering equipment and forget it. I try to keep up with my list throughout the week, writing down things I think of on a pad on the fridge, but sometimes I'm busy or just think there's no way I'd forget that. There's something I was telling Hubby last night that I needed to remember to put on the list for shopping today, but now I can't remember what it was. I need to go wake him up and see if he remembers. We take turns doing the weekly shopping and take one of the kids with us. I think it's Nathan's turn to go with me today, and I may take my nephew with us.

My jewels

I'd love to have some jewelry, a necklace or bracelet, with my kid's birth stones. Or, since I have so many kids and plan more, maybe it would be cheaper and lighter to use sapphire, pearl, topaz and Garnet Beads instead lol. Or maybe a simple ring with tiny gemstones around it for each one. A charm bracelet would work good so I could add on any more kids we have. I've just never bothered getting something like that because I rarely wear jewelry besides my wedding ring.

Ride em comboy

When I was a teenager my dad bought our family a horse. He was big, I think 15-16 hands tall, and beautiful. His name was Red Dancer but we just called him Red. Red was a bit stubborn though. He didn't really like most people to ride him, the only ones he let ride him regularly were my dad and me. He actually threw one of my brothers off and almost stomped on his head, that was scary. I never had any equestrian apparel or anything special, but we had the basics and although it was work to go over to the pasture and feed and brush him and dig the ice out of his hoofs in the winter, it was fun too. Unfortunately we didn't get to keep him long. For a while my birth mom kept him, because she had a small corral area, but eventually it got too expensive and he was sold. One day I'd love to have a horse again.

Boys will be boys

My cute little nephew spent the night at our house last night. He is 6 months younger than Nathan and they play really well together. He is so adorable. He loves super hero stuff like Captain America and the Avengers. He brought a Superman cape I made him for his birthday last year and runs around with it on saying he has super powers. And at breakfast with his Bumblebee transformer (that is missing one wheel that looks kind of like avon motorcycle tires), he was telling us how Bumblebee has muscles and punches the bad guys in the face. This little guy is 1000% boy and so much fun. :) I'm glad my boys have one cousin close in age who's a boy, the others near their ages are all girls.

IT...have you tried turning it off and on again?

A couple days ago my laptop went crazy. The night before it had installed updates and then the next morning it would not start up. It would get the the black Windows symbol screen and then just sit there forever. I think one of the updates was messed up. I was finally able to get it running in safe mode so I could get my pictures and documents backed up first, just in case, then started working on it to try to find the problem. After hours of work I finally disabled some application and it works mostly normal now. I don't know what the problem with that app is, but hopefully it's not too necessary since it'll remain disabled. I don't want to completely delete it because I think some of my other programs might get messed up if I do. Would have been easier if I'd had a backup point to restore to, but I don't. I need to create one in case I have other problems sometime. The last time I had to do a restore was a couple months ago and one of the kids pulled the plug as it was finishing so that restore point got messed up (luckily after the info had been backed up at least).

Friday, June 15, 2012

Furnished

As the years have passed, we've morphed from the poor college student mismatched furniture to more new pieces that go together, but if you look around the house a bit you will see things that don't quite match. In the living room we have matched couches with a coffee table and end table set. And then there's the old nightstand in place of another end table. It almost matches in color so it can get overlooked unless you are trying to point it out. It would be nice to find matching small end tables at EndTables.com, but we just live with it for now because it's not a priority. And in the family room we have mismatched furniture: a black and chrome desk, a dark reddish wood TV stand, a lighter wood sewing desk, a dark changing table, and a white bookshelf. Nothing really matches at all lol. But again, it's all functional as is, so not a priority. We definitely have more furniture than we started out with almost 9 years ago!

Father's Day is coming

I have never been great at picking out gifts for people. For Hubby it seems easy, he has a knack for remembering things I've mentioned or noticing things I could use. I lack that inspiration. With Father's Day coming up in a few day I admit that I still have not got him anything. I've tried to look up awesome fathers day gifts, but nothing has really stuck out. I feel bad just asking him what he wants because there in no surprise. I guess with just over a day to figure it out I better think hard. I'm going shopping tomorrow and hopefully something will stand out.

Home

Recently one of my brothers and his wife bought a house, and one of my sisters and her family have been house-hunting as well. It reminds me of the excitement and stress we went through buying our home in ID and then here. I remember one in ID that was nice a big and had cool checkered garage flooring, but reeked of cigarette smoke. It was also up some winding hills that would have been crazy in winter. Another we never even went in because just seeing the neighborhood was enough to send us running. We didn't see any terrible ones here in UT, but a lot of them were just too small, tiny kitchens, and not enough room for the large family we want. Both in ID and here, when we finally saw the house we wanted we knew right away it was the one and immediately put offers in and got them. It's worth it to check out lots of houses to find just the right one.

Summer break

It has been so nice to have a break from school. I'm glad I didn't decide to take any classes this semester. Next semester I'll be taking Calculus 2 and two more computer classes. I'll be gone a little more because I will have 2 classes Mon/Wed and 1 class Tue/Thur. Last semester I just had the 2 Mon/Wed and 1 online. It'll be weird to be there more often. And Hubby will have to start getting home earlier those days. But luckily I don't have to worry about all that for 2 more months. :)

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Toothy

Lately I've been going to the dentist a lot. I've always had horrible teeth and always have cavities that need filled. This last time I went I had more cavities than I normally have. I won't say how many, but I will say I have my 3rd appointment for fillings tomorrow, and will probably have one more appointment after that. Plus I need to get my top wisdom teeth pulled and I need 3 crowns. Ugh. I'd rather fill out title loans Louisiana paperwork than do all that dental work. I'm not sure if I'll get the wisdom teeth and crowns taken care of this year or wait until next, may wait until after our tax return next year. I really hope my kids get Hubby's teeth genes and not mine!

Saturday, June 09, 2012

New kitty

A few weeks ago we got a new kitten, her name is Patriot. She is so dang cute but I kind of feel bad that she gets mauled by the kids so much. Poor Nathan is just covered in scratches, bruises, and his eczema. I don't have any scratch and eczema pictures of his legs but I should take some. Looks like he was crawling through rocks and briars or something lol. Doesn't stop him from playing with the kitten though. And Caleb just loves her so much. He likes to hold her and hug her. We have to be careful that he doesn't squeeze her neck. She is a fun addition to the family.

10 years

This weekend I went to my 10 year high school reunion. Yep, I'm that old. It was really nice. Yesterday we had a family picnic at the park, and tonight was an adult only dinner. It was really nice to see some old friends that I haven't talked to since high school. They played a slideshow of pictures from high school, but I wasn't in any of them. Not really surprised since we had a class of almost 700 and I wasn't super popular and I didn't send in any of the pics I have. Kind of sad that most of the people I used to hang out with weren't there. But a guy Hubby works with is married to one of my classmates so we sat with them and it was fun to chat.