Vacation Itinerary

Friday: Fly to California

Saturday: goof off in Los Angeles, get use to the time change and go watch Fireproof

Sunday: board the Carnival Pride and set sail by 4pm

Monday: fun day at sea

Tuesday: fun day at sea

Wednesday: Puerto Vallarta 8am - 10pm

Thursday: Mazatlan 9am - 6pm

Friday: Cabo San Lucas 7am - 4pm

Saturday: fun day at sea

Sunday: arrive in Los Angeles at 9am, and fly home

And the Coupon Winners Are...

I decided to pick 3 names instead of 2...

Karen, Sandy and Richelle

Congratulations!

Coupon Giveaway

I went through several weeks of coupons and realized I have lots of coupons that will expire the first 2 weeks of October. So instead of all my coupons sitting on my table until they expire, I thought I would give them away. I probably have enough that I can pick 2 winners... So leave a comment before midnight tonight and I will pick the winners tomorrow. Sorry it's such short notice but I want to get it in the mail in time for you to use the coupons.

Happy Saving!

Cruise Countdown & Giveaway

Counting today, we have 3 more days until vacation starts. The cruise we are going on this year is a 7 day Mexican Riviera. We fly out to Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, have a day to adjust to the time change and start our journey on Sunday. We will be visiting the following ports: Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.

I know you are probably not as excited as I am about my family vacation so I have some news that you can get excited over. My sister Kathy is having an awesome purse giveaway. Kathy loves purses and she gets the really nice ones. All you have to do is go to her blog and leave a comment and you will be entered for a chance to win this beautiful Dooney & Bourke purse.

Back from Camp

Camp was great... this is the second year of having church family camp and we enjoyed it just as much (or maybe even more) than last year. We had a wonderful time of fellowship, refreshing our spiritual walk with the Lord and just plain old fun.

I had the opportunity to shoot 3 different types of hand guns. I've never shot anything before in my life so this was something very new to me. Mike, being a former Marine, has had lots of experience around guns.During one of our free times, Mike and I enjoyed our first paddle boat ride together.

The camp also has canoes and kayaks but I don't feel comfortable enough to try one of those.

Scripture Sunday - Romans 12:2

Romans 12:2

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Christie at Divine Calling to list 5 things I love, excluding family. Although I must apologize to Christie for not responding to her tag much sooner, I would still like to participate.

1. I love nature. God's awesome work is just breathtaking. For our honeymoon we went to Yosemite and for our 5 year anniversary Mike surprised me with a trip to Niagara Falls. When I look at these magnificent beauties I wonder how anyone says there is no God.

2. I love children. Last year six ladies at our church had babies. This year those babies are now 1 year old and it is so much fun to watch them, to play with them, to just enjoy them. Praise the Lord for Children.


3. I love singing. I have great memories of singing. I think one of my favorite times was singing when we were in the car. Another favorite of mine is singing with my Mom and my sister. Normally I listen to my Mom and sing what she sings and Kathy (my sister) sings in harmony. She is very talented. I always love the way it sounds when she sings harmony.

4. I love God's grace, love and mercy that saved my soul. If it weren't for His grace, mercy and love for me I wouldn't be the person I am today. He opened my eyes so I could see I am a sinner, so I could repent and follow Him. Grace that is greater than all my sins!

5. I love making things... cooking, crafting...anything!

Here are the 5 people I tag... if you don't respond to the tag don't feel bad. I took almost 2 months before I responded.

• Mike
• Kathy
• Aunt Kim
• Aunt Rita
• Rebecca

Cruise Time

Our family cruise is quickly approaching and I can't wait. I made the lanyards for everyone. Although they aren't the cutest I've ever seen, they will serve it's purpose. I have all our cabin number on the back so we can easily remember where everyone is staying.

Camp Card

I thought it would be nice to present a thank you card to the Camp staff at the end of our stay. They cook all our meals for us and do an excellent job! I have had this camping stamp set "Happy Camper" for at least a year and I've never used it until today. This card is one of my large cards so that every family that attends this week can sign it.

I'm Back

I am back but not for long. I got back from the conference on Saturday afternoon. Now I am packing for our church family camp starting Wednesday.
I was able to catch up on my sleep and the laundry and I am very thankful for that.
The conference was awesome. I took lots of notes and once things slow down here I will start posting all the notes I took and tell you about what the Lord is doing in my heart and life.

Going Away

I am heading out the door to attend a 3 day Lady's Conference in Toccoa GA. I am really excited to see how the Lord is going to use the 2 speakers to challenge me.

To remind Mike that I love him and think of him often while I am away, I made these cute little "sour cream containers" filled with chocolates that will be hidden all around the house.

What have you done lately to show your love to your husband?

I'll be back on Saturday and I look forward to catching up on my blog writing and reading.

Shopping Weekend - North GA Outlet Mall

Saturday Mike went skeet shooting with my brothers and some other guys and I went to the North GA Outlet Mall. I have never actually walked up and down and looked at all the stores so my plan was to walk the entire Mall.

I found this kitchen store called Le Gourmet Chef. They were having this huge BOGO (buy one, get one free) sale of all their clearance priced items. I must have spent atleast an hour in this store alone. There were alot of things I would've loved to buy but I tried to control myself.

Those spatula looking things are called Switch Its and they are wonderful. Bread Beckers sells them for $10 each and I haven't found many places that carry them. I bought those 2 for $2.50 each.

The See & Store boxes are the coolest thing. I have been wanting these for my craft room but I never wanted to spend the money. Well they were clearance priced at $12 so I got them for $6 each. Now I can try and get all those little pieces organized in my craft room. I am on the lookout for more. One can never have too many of these.

Since they only had 5 See & Store boxes I needed to buy something else for the BOGO deal. So I looked and looked and looked. I did want a popcorn popper so I got the one they had on clearance.

I was very happy with my many treasures I found. I decided to slow down after that. So I walked a few more stores (avoiding the other kitchen stores) and then went to the food court to wait for Mike. I never actually finished walking the mall in fear of finding more good deals and spending more money.

Shopping Weekend - CVS

I think CVS offers the best deals out of all the stores. My problem is finding everything in stock but this weekend wasn't a problem at all. We went early Saturday before Mike went skeet shooting and I went to the Outlet mall.

Here is what I got
6 bottles of Suave body wash (Buy one, get one free coupon, 2 $1 coupons)
1 Dawn Botanical (50 cent coupon)
2 Tylenol Extra Strength (2 $1 coupons)
1 Goody's 4 count (CVS coupon that printed out for me when I scanned my card)
2 Covergirl lipgloss (Buy one, get one free coupon)
I had $15 ECBs from my last trip

All of this for $2.98 OOP (out of pocket) and I walked away with $9.99 ECBs for next trip.

Shopping Weekend - Walmart

We went to Walmart on Friday night to pick up a few things. I got a GREAT deal on veggies. I had 2 printed $1 coupons for Green Giant Steamer frozen veggies. Walmart had those on sale for $1.23 a bag so I got 2 bags of veggies for 46 cents.

Mike was still shopping around looking at things, so I decided to do the same thing. I know, bad mistake right. Well I did get some good deals... you just have to keep telling yourself, "you have to spend money to save money" right :-)

I found a George Foreman grill (that I have been wanting for a while now) for only $15. I had looked at a few other stores and they were always $25 or more for the same size grill.

Then I found these really neat plastic plates, bowls and cups. The colors were awesome and I thought it would be nice to have when we wanted to do a cookout with family or friends. They were on sale for half off which made it a pack of 4 for $1. So I bought a pack of plates and bowls of each color purple, green, pink and blue. When I got to the cups I realized there were no green cups. I bought purple, pink and blue and I am hoping to get to another Walmart soon so I can find a pack of green cups which will then complete my new set of plastic dishes.

In Sympathy & Friendship

A family at our church just lost one of their cats. It got killed by a dog, so the sudden death of the cat really hit hard. I wanted to make a card of encouragement. I don't have any cat stamps so I went online and found a picture I could print. Then I stamped the words "In Sympathy & Friendship" I think it turned out really good and the More Mustard Stampin' Up card stock I used matched perfectly with the cat.

Hiccups

Yesterday morning I woke up with hiccups and I had them all morning long. I don't really know when they finally went away but I was so happy... later in the afternoon I got them again. This time I didn't want to have them as long as I did in the morning so I needed to figure something out. I thought about the different things people tell you to do when you have hiccups and I remember once someone told me to eat a spoonful of peanut butter. I decided it wouldn't hurt to try and guess what... they went away... not even a single hiccup after the peanut butter. Can you believe it? Talk about a great home remedy.

Mosaic Meme

1. Elizabeth

2. corn on the cob

3. Fort Lauderdale High School

4. Purple

5. Dick Van Dyke

6. Sweet Tea

7. Log Cabin

8. Key Lime Pie

9. a Mom

10. my husband

11. helper

12. horse

This was a fun meme I found at The Homespun Heart, here are the details if you want to make your own!

Here’s how it works:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker. Choose 3 columns with 4 rows.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to? (or, What year did you graduate high school?)
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. (kid version: favorite animal?)

What do you collect?

Update - Mike and I also collect coke points. We have been able to enjoy a few date nights for free because of coke points so to us it's worth collecting.

I started collecting Precious Moments when I was about 10 years old because the figurines were so cute and I loved the little sayings that came with each one. Most of my Precious Moments were birthday gifts. A few years ago Mike was sweet enough to inventory all my Precious Moments figurines.
Note to self: Update inventory list and clean/dust each figurine.

Around ten years ago I was at my grandparents house and I saw some PA and Alaska license plates. I thought it would be really cool to start collecting license plates and hang them up in my garage. So far I have 51 license plates, although most of them are from Florida.
Note to self: Work on getting at least one license plate from each state.

Mike collects the state quarters that started coming out in 1999. This is the last year of new quarters coming out. I really want to focus on getting his books completed. He has 2 books and they each hold 2 quarters for each of the 50 states - one for each mint (D and P)
Note to self: Find the quarters Mike is still missing.
Updated 12/9 - All books holding the state quarters are now complete thanks to you all!

I am thinking of starting a new collection. This one will be lots of fun. I want to make a recipe book of family favorite recipes... my family, your family, all favorite recipes. Anyone care to share a delicious recipe with me? I already have a list started of recipes I want to get from my mother. She and my grandmother are awesome cooks.
Note to self: Get recipe from Mom for caramel popcorn, chicken corn soup, chicken pot pie, ham chowder, easy pie crust
Updated 12/9 - As a Christmas gift my Mom gave us all books with family recipes, something to treasure forever!
I decided to create a cookbook of recipes from the ladies at our church. I am happy to report that this project is now done also! PTL!

Project of the Week - Master Bathroom

Update - Here are the pictures I promised... I also wanted to say that I have the most wonderful husband in the whole wide world for letting me go on this adventure that my sister has planned.
Back in May I painted the spare bathroom and it was time to get the master bathroom done. Today was that day. I got started after breakfast and got it all done by 2pm. I have a few spots on the ceiling that I need to touch up but everything else looks good. It's drying right now and I hope to get all the decorations up tomorrow. I will take pictures and update this post tomorrow.

PS - I just got a call from my sister. She asked me if I could go out to Vegas October 22nd and she told me I needed to bring my passport. When I questioned her why she wouldn't tell me, however she did tell Mike. So now Mike knows what she has planned and I have a trip to go on the end of October. I am excited to go see my sister and spend time with her. Did I mention I have the best sister in the whole wide world.

Happy Labor Day

Mike decided it would be nice to have a picnic at a park today. We found Yahoola Creek park about 15 minutes away from home. I packed sandwiches, carrots, watermelon, pretzels and cookies to eat. Some water to drink, books to read and the camera so we could take lots of pictures.

The weather was so beautiful, nice and cool, which worked out perfectly because when we got to the park we saw a hiking trail. We decided to do that first before the day got too hot. We saw lots of flowers, trees, plants and we even stumbled across this old cabin built in 1866.

There's a section of this park that some volunteers have built up and made a garden. They had strawberries, eggplant, beans, leaf lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, sweet peppers. Some of the plants had died but most looked great.

Spinach (above) Leaf Lettuce (below)