7/1/12

Sundays are always a little tricky when you're on vacation. As Mormons, we believe in keeping the Sabbath Day holy. We try to make Sundays different than all the other days of the week....HOLY. It's easy to do at home but vacations are trickier. We actually LOVE going to church when we're traveling. It's been so cool do visit different wards all over the world and see that while the people are different, the gospel is the same. We want our girls to know that we think it's important!


Our goal when we travel is to find a church and attend sacrament meeting. We don't always stay for all three hours. But usually, if the meetings are in English, we try to stay.


So this week we attended church in Park City. It happened to be fast Sunday. Who fasts on vacation? Not me certainly! Afterall, we're going to church. Isn't that valiant enough?!? Well, this Sunday we decided there were some important things we needed to fast for so we ran it by the kids and being the awesome girls they are, they agreed. To fast. On vacation. Wow.


After sacrament, tons of visitors started to leave the building and even though we had decided to stay for all three hours, my oh so weak self wondered if we couldn't maybe leave as well. Luckily, we decided against it and stayed.


I believe Heavenly Father blesses us when we're trying to do what's right even if it's something little like staying for all our church meetings. Well Sunday, he blessed us. I went to Relief Society (which I never do because I serve in Young Women and I always go to YW even when we're traveling because I love being with the YW). Anywho, a woman bore her testimony on prayer and it was SO touching. The spirit was so strong and touched me deeply. I was so grateful that we had stayed and that I was able to hear that touching testimony.

We received another little blessing as we left the church building and met Sister Mary Cook (1st Counselor of the General Young Women Presidency of the church). She was amazing! She stood and talked to the girls for about 20 minutes. She was so nice and down to earth and it was such a treat to meet her. It was just a cool little tender mercy that reminded me how present God's hand is in our lives and that He blesses us when we are where we're supposed to be, when we're supposed to be there.

The rest of our day included:

-Cousin bonding over crumb cake and goblets of milk.

-A relaxing Sunday afternoon with no meetings and no responsibilities.

SO awesome!

-Ash doing a little photo shoot for her cousin's senior pictures.

-And the manly Mr. and I going for a leisurely walk and talking and resting on a patch of grass under the ski lifts. 

It was a perfect day.

6/30/12

Does it seem like the only thing I ever blog about is vacations?!?

That's NOT because all we ever do is travel. Although if we could, we would.

It's mostly because the only time I ever have TIME to blog is when I'm ON vacation!

Cuz at home I'm driving kids to Irish dance 3 days a week, tennis 3 times a week, piano 2 days a week,

Doctor's appointments, young women meetings and activities, drop-offs and pick-ups from 3 different schools and doing laundry, dishes, etc., etc., etc.

If and when I ever finish all my stuff (which I never do), I want to do something mindless that requires absolutely no brain power. Pinterest is usually my chosen end of the day mindless activity.

I must say though, that our vacations keep us sane! If I never got a break from the insanity that is our life, I might crack. Seriously.

Saturday we started off our week in the best possible way....at the Bountiful, Utah temple 

to see Joel and Nikki sealed.

It was a beautiful sealing. I love to see the beginning of eternal marriages and to be reminded of my own 20 years ago.

Max & Ash at the wedding luncheon.

 Me and the manly Mr. 

(He informed me he wanted a more manly name on my blog. Studmuffin and "The Stallion" were thrown out there as possibilities, but ultimately I decided to give "the manly Mr" a try. Since he never reads the blog, we'll just let him think he won and is being referred to as "The Stallion".

And yes, he's still as manly as they come EVEN THOUGH he watched two seasons of "Downton Abbey" with me in Paris and REALLY liked it.

 My two cute babies

After the wedding festivities we headed down to Utah County to see 5 of my nieces and nephews in an amazing choir performance. I've never seen anything quite like it. They sounded AMAZING!

After the performance, we got "Cafe Rio" to eat at the park and had a fun time visiting and playing.

After a very long day with LOTS of driving, we arrived at our condo in Park City.

P.S.

Dear guy who bought this Marriott time share, then couldn't use it

and sold your week to us for super cheap on "Redweek",

THANK YOU! This place rocks!!!

We love this city!

Of course he came prepared with a padlock (that he engraved himself) to hang on the "bridge of love" in Paris. It is tradition for lovers to put a padlock on the fence over the bridge and then throw the key into the river as a symbol of unbreakable, eternal love. So we did just that. I know, super mushy but it was awesome! Can't wait to bring my girls here some day and show them our padlock on the bridge.

I made the smooching picture small so as to not traumatize the children.

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"The Hamlet" at Versailles. We felt like we had walked into 'Pride and Predjudice' or some kind of amazing fairytale when we got here. So beautiful, so amazing, SO romantic.

Our girls would have LOVED this place.

One thing we have embraced fully while in Paris is picnicking Parisian style. They picnic in an awesomely no fuss way. You simply stop by the store and grab a baguette, lunch meat, cheese, fruit, pastries and wine (or in our case, a nice bottle of water).

Then you go find a beautiful place to picnic (very easy in Paris). You wash the fruit with your bottled water, tear pieces of bread off with your hand and stuff meat and cheese in your fresh bread. Then you talk and laugh and think how nice it would be to do this every day of your life.

I plan on continuing to picnic Parisian style back in Southern California.
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"Rue Cler" is the perfect place to pick up picnic supplies. Absolutely beautiful.

We just happened to see on Facebook that my cousin Wendy (Blue Lily Photography) and her two adorable children were in Paris for some photo shoots. So we met up in Luxenbourg Gardens to....picnic of course. We had a great time eating and chatting and watching the couple in the background to Tai Chi for two solid hours. 

The beautiful Seine river in Paris.

This is how we got through some gates at the airport that weren't opening when we put our tickets in. My studly husband jumped over, lifted all of our luggage over, helped me over and then hopped back up with another man to assist some older German women over as well. It was quite a hilarious little adventure.

We love going to church whenever we travel. It is so cool to see the church in different parts of the world. No matter where we go, it is still the same true church.

Picnicking in the Louire Valley while on our way to see a castle.

What this picture doesn't show is the laptop we set up a while later to watch an episode of "Downton Abbey".  And no joke, that was HIS idea. I know.....

A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

There are flower stores EVERYWHERE you turn in Paris. I will miss that so much.

Hands down, my favorite activity was riding these bikes all over Paris. We've had so many adventures on these awesome little bikes. We even biked home from church on them while I tried to hold my skirt down hoping to not traumatize any Parisians walking by.

Need to sleep

I need to post more pics for my girlies but it will have to wait till tomorrow. We stayed up till 3 a.m. last night (I may have gotten Jeff hooked on Downton Abbey) and we can't do the same tonight. We are not being very disciplined about going to bed. Isn't that the fun of being on vacation though?!?

We biked ALL over today and happened onto a beautiful church which we went in to see. There was a orchestra and about a hundred member choir rehearsing when we went in. They were absolutely amazing. We sat and listened for quite awhile and considered it a gift that we had stumbled into that lovely church when we did.

(Best crepe maker in Paris and trust me when I say, we just about tried them all)

We stopped by the little crepe stand right outside our hotel tonight for a farewell crepe. When we walked up, the guy smiled real big and said, "banana Nutella crepe??" Yes, we're regulars now. We will sure miss this place.

We're getting up early to go to church in Paris before we head to the airport to grab a rental car and drive to the countryside. Should be a great adventure.

More pictures tomorrow sweet girlies.....

Love you!

Day 3 in Paris

"The Hamlet" at Versailles. Amazing.

View of the Eiffel tower from the boat on our nighttime river cruise.

In front of the Louve

Romantic Paris

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Wow. Today was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Turns out this place IS quite romantic and awesome. I was served breakfast in bed consisting of yogurt, granola and a chocolate filled croissant. Yum. Then it was off to the Louve & Arc de Triumph. Those were both cool but of course we always prefer the less touristy things. Favorite parts of today: afternoon bike ride through Paris, listening to incredible Jazz band outside the park behind Notre Dame, lounging on a blanket in the park and our 10:00 p.m. river cruise.

The Venus de Milo was my fav at the Louve.

The coronation of Napoleon was hubby's favorite ("because there are no naked guys in it")

Inside the pyramid at the Louve

Resting on a blanket in the park

Biking outside the Louve

Delicious AND artisitc gelato!

View of the Eiffel tower from our river cruise tonight.

Notre Dame at night

Twenty years of marriage and it just keeps getting better.

I so LOVE this man.

20 Years

This summer we celebrate 20 years of marriage. The hubby decided there was no more romantic place to celebrate our anniversary than Paris, so here we are.

Biked to Notre Dame Cathedral and went to part of a mass.

Biked back to hotel in the rain. :)

Right outside our hotel

The item my hubby will be eating 4-5 times a day while we're here. He only fit two in yesterday.

Long week.....

So it's been a long week. Even though the week I'm referring has only been two days so far. But week sounds better than, "it's been a long two days", don't you think?

Hubby is in China. Things never seem quite right when he's gone. To console myself, I bought myself a new two-pack of pens at Target today. I LOVE them. Paper Mate InkJoy 700 RT - 1.0 mm M. Do you think "InkJoy" is a corny name for a pen?!? I think not. They ARE pure joy to write with. I'm totally serious. It almost made my husband being in China ok. Almost.

So some days while I'm doing laundry, I listen to conference talks, Education Week talks, Podcasts or TV shows on Hulu. When my husband is out of town, I should probably stick to uplifting talks and Podcasts. Today while I folded, I watched one of those FBI shows (can't remember the name). It was about some guy who broke into people's homes after he cut the power and phone lines and killed the entire family. They finally caught him after he killed about five different families. Not the best show to watch while the hubby is out of town you say? Yes, I would agree.

After a morning of frightening laundry folding, I went to pick up the kids from school. Suddenly every scary movie I've ever seen starts replaying in my head. Like the one where the bad guy was hiding in the back of the lady's car as she pulled out of the garage unknowingly. Or the one where as she pulled into the garage, he slid under the garage door as it was closing. Or the true story from Oprah where while the wife is out gardening, a man enters her side (unlocked) door, kills her husband and waits for her to come in. He then rolls her up in a carpet (if I remember correctly), backs his car into the driveway and throws her in the trunk. I won't even tell you what happened after that.

So with all this running through my mind, I took the extra precaution of locking the door between the house and the garage so no boogie men could enter while I was picking the children up and taking them to piano. My paranoia turned out to be a pretty big bummer when 3 minutes later, I had to return for the piano bags I had forgotten and found myself locked out of the house. I brought the set of car keys that doesn't have a house key attached. Sigh.

Maybe there is a door unlocked? Fat chance!! Thanks to said paranoia, the house is locked up like Fort Knox. After trying all the doors, I found an unlocked window (which totally freaked me out but also made me happy as I had no idea how I would ever get in again). I removed the screen and crawled (very un-gracefully) in through the window, grabbed the piano books, locked the window up tight and ran back out, now late, to pick up the kids.

I am now in bed. The car doors are locked (even though it's parked in the garage). The house is locked up and every window has been checked. And I may or may not be sleeping with a bat.

I just remembered one time when he was out of town in the summer and it was so hot and I just couldn't bear to close and lock the window so I set an elaborate trap in front of the window so if someone tried to crawl in during the night, things would go tumbling down, make a lot of noise, wake me up, at which time I would leap from my bed, grab my big, heavy Mag Light and charge said intruder in my undies to knock him out with my weapon?!?! What the heck was I thinking?!? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have ended happily.

And now it's time for some "InkJoy" love to forget all my scary thoughts and hopefully get some sleep.

I couldn't agree more.
Everyone should see this:
Things as they really are

Frugal not Cheap

You know those articles you always read: "How to Save $20 a Week!" or "Living Well on Less"?? I always read them but never actually find something in the article that I don't already do. I can't give up the daily Latte at $5 a pop because I drink water. I can't cut the weekly manicure because I don't get them. I can't swap out a movie night for a video night because we don't go to the movies (talk about a rip off!). You get the drift. I cut my dryer sheets in half, make homemade pizza instead of ordering it, I'm a pretty frugal gal.
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A few people over the years have made the mistake of calling me cheap?!? only to have to listen to a long lecture from me about the difference between cheap and frugal. Frugal people are careful and wise about how they spend their money. Cheap people are, well, cheap. They are cheap with themselves and everyone else too.

I actually LOVE being generous. I love giving to a cause I believe in or surprising someone with something totally unexpected. The more frugal I am, the greater ability I have to be generous. Win-Win!!

I dislike the title of this book (The Tightwad Gazette), but I still bought volumes one and two, have read both, and as you can see, marked them up pretty well. I also own Dave Ramsey's 'Total Money Makeover' (my favorite) and Clark Howard's book below. I love listening to Dave Ramsey's podcast on iTunes as well. I'm weird that way. I like being frugal and reading about how to be even more frugal.

So recently a friend asked me what we've done to cut back due to the uncertainty of the economy. The hubby is self-employed. So, monthly paychecks in a certain amount are not guaranteed. Therefore, we try to save and be careful so if his work slows down, we're still ok. Here are some of our recent cuts:

The Sunday paper. This was a hard one. I LOVE looking at the ads. The kids loved the funnies. The hubby loved the sports section. But most of it can be seen on-line. Sigh. It's not the same but we'll survive.

Monthly Savings:  $8.00

Netflix.  Not as hard as losing the Sunday paper but still a bummer. We are pretty busy and therefore don't watch a lot of tv. But it was fun watching movies on the weekend. But silly Netflix doubled their price. They should know me better. Of course I have to cancel when someone doubles their price.

Monthly Savings: $15.00

American Express Annual Fee:  We love our AmEx because we use it for our normal expenses, pay it off every month and rack up frequent flier miles we can use to travel. But when the statement came with the annual fee of $95.00, I just couldn't do it. I called and told them we were cancelling to use a card with no annual fee. Because they love me (and my money) so much....valued customer blah blah blah...they WAIVED my fee for the year. Woo Hoo.

Annual Savings: $95.00

Halloween costumes: We're recycling this year. Every year, AFTER Halloween, I scan the 90% off clearance rack and get costumes to throw in the costume bin for next year. Many costumes have been worn by several or all of my daughters. I don't believe in buying new costumes for my kids every year. I don't really even like Halloween but hey, I still go with it for my kids' sake. This year we have a Diva vampire, a dead ghost bride and two undecideds. But they will inevitably come up with something from an item they find in the costume bin. Most Moms I know spend AT LEAST $20 per kid making or buying costumes. O.k., I did have to spend $1 on plastic vampire teeth.

Annual Savings: $79.00

Dustbuster:  We use it constantly and recently, it broke. My genious hubby found a replacement part on-line and fixed it rather than buying a new one.

Savings: $80.00


Satellite T.V.: The hubby, bless his heart, loves BYU football more than life itself. I would LOVE to cancel our satellite t.v. but I also love keeping him happy. The compromise, we switched to the lowest, cheapest package available. 


Savings per month: $20.00


"Airport Express": We currently have our home internet service and separate hubby's back yard office internet service. We recently found this little dream device at the Apple Store. It boosts our wireless internet signal from hubby's office into the house so we can CANCEL our home internet service. The Airport Express cost $100 so it will pay for itself in under 3 months!

Monthly Savings: $35.00

New Car: We drive a 2001 Honda Odyssey with almost 150,000 miles. My daughter recently told me we needed to buy a new car because the C.D. player was skipping. I explained to her that the CD player was fine, it was her CD that was scratched. Said she, "we should still buy a new car. This one is old!" Sure, a new car would be nice. But this one works perfectly fine. And thankfully we buy foreign cars that run forever so we'll talk after another 50,000 miles perhaps.

Yearly Savings: $35,000.00

Food: We NEVER buy our kids fast food and we rarely eat out as a family. None of us buy or drink soda, ever. My kids think it's a really special treat to go to the drive through at McDonalds and get a .50 cent ice cream cone. Hubby and I try to use coupons to eat out on date night and our weekly family meals consist of homemade meals with food that was purchased on sale. I hardly ever buy something just because it sounds good. It HAS to be on sale. Even when we travel, I pack and bring lunches so we don't have to buy airport food. That's just the way I roll.

Monthly Savings: A LOT

Total yearly savings:
$36,190.00

Living frugally brings peace and makes it so we can do awesomely fun things like taking our kids to Europe to see their cousins this year.  

F.U.N.N.E.S.T. thing we've done as a family E.V.E.R.! 
And in my opinion, one of our best investments to date!

We could lose the house, the cars and the money....but the memories are OURS FOREVER.