Busy Day

This morning I went for a walk by myself. This is quite unusual because there are usually two little boys following me. But my husband was kind enough to let me enjoy the morning by myself.

This Tuesday morning there have to be tons of garbage cans swarming our neighborhood because it is a popular day for pick-up. There are non-stop garbage trucks all morning and afternoon. Crazy.

So on my morning walk, since it was garbage day, I stumbled upon this Little Tykes playhouse. It was all broken down, so I had to get the car to come back and get it. It was really dirty, and needed a good cleaning.

I took it upon myself and my little boys to give this little house a good cleaning and see if it had all it's pieces. I hate to see things thrown away when they can be re-used and even sold again.

Here's a picture of the house we cleaned up:

Another busy day with the Fishers, looks a little like this:

We have a 3 door garage, and there were no cars/trucks filling the space today!! We used that to our advantage, and made a race track in our garage. The boys LOVED it! They found all their favorite toys and went at it. All I had to do was draw a track and move some heavy things out of their way, and they played for a couple hours in there. What a great time they had!

Goodwill and Home Depot Trip

It has been a long time since I've been to the Goodwill in town, so today, I left my husband with the kids (while they were napping) and took off. I was in luck because they had ladies sleeveless shirts 75% off! I found these 3 tank tops for around 60 cents each!

I also searched the pants section and found this Calvin Klein jean skirt hiding in the rack. It fit! I spent $3 to get this skirt.




Also in my time away from the boys, I had this coupon for being a part of the Home Depot Garden Club. It was a buy one get one free coupon for Spring bulbs. I had been saving my monies that I had made from odd jobs, and so I used that extra money on the bulbs. I paid $18 for the two packages below. Hooray for new flowers in the Spring!

Colorado Vacation Adventures

I now know that I have visited the most beautiful place in the United States, Estes Park, Colorado. It was seriously the most gorgeous place I have visited. We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies, and this was the view from our cabin:

Here's a photo of our cabin that we shared with 4 other families.

This is our group of friends from Greenville College, and have been meeting together for the past 8 or 10 years (I can't remember). It was great to catch up with everyone and see how life is going. Luckily all the kids were in bed when we took this photo, otherwise it would have been crazy.

We had planned beforehand that the girls would have a day out without children, and then vice-versa, where the boys would have a "guy day." The girls decided to go out and get a 1/2 hour massage, while the boys went on a "hike.".

Here's a photo of me relaxing on the hammock before our massage.

While the girls were out window shopping, we spotted an elk that was eating out of a dumpster. After a car made him move, he headed our way. We were so close! This photo is without the zoom!

Here's my husband and our boys on a day hike with the guys. Isn't it just beautiful?

So, overall, our vacation to Colorado was so much fun and we'd recommend the YMCA of the Rockies to anyone! It's good to be home at the same time, and back to our normal routine.

Green Hour

I've checked out a new book from the library, and it's titled The Green Hour, A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids. This book is written by Todd Christopher, creator of the National Wildlife Federation's, GreenHour.org.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this book, I just know that I should take my boys outside more often. It has been so terribly hot and humid out here in central Illinois, that it's so tempting to stay inside in the nice, cool air conditioning. But, alas, I know that my boys need to be out in nature, even if we are sweating by the time we get home.

So to share with you what we did today for our hot and humid green hour....we rode our bikes to a local pond! It was really great, because there were lots of trees to give us shade. And every once in awhile there was a breeze to cool us down.

I took some pictures to inspire you to get outside for an hour and spend some time with nature.

My Avocado Pit

I've always wondered if I could grow an avocado tree from an avocado pit. I looked it up online while my sister was here (since that's where I got the pit from), and it's totally possible. So here's what has come of the avocado pit. It's growing! I will have to pot it soon, because I don't know how much longer it will survive in that little cup.

I'm excited to grow my own tropical tree indoors. Even if I don't even like avocados!

Reusing Water

I have come to decide that my family and I are very much into reusing water. Which is a great thing! I think this is one of our passions, because we know that there is so little fresh water left on this Earth. So here's some of the things that we do to save or even reuse the water that we use.

Take for example this summer and filling up our pool...it takes ALOT of water to fill it up, so when we are done playing in it for a couple of days, what do we do with that water? Reuse it!

Our car has been dirty for awhile now, so the boys were excited to help us peel the bugs off!

Z-man was getting frustrated when we filled up a huge water gun for him...it was too heavy. We used that water gun to rinse the car off.

We have about 10 of these 5 gallon buckets around the house, to catch rain water, to pull weeds, or whatever we need them for. They are also great for watering flowers!

So this is just one way that we try to reuse the water that we use. Do you have any ways that you try to reuse things lately?

Grocery shopping this week = $41.75

Target = $4

I got the pizzas and Clean and Clear wash for free.

The Peanuts were $3, and the gum was $0.99.

County Market = $17.74

I used a lot of in-store coupons from a mailer this week.

The 8 lb. bag of potatoes were Free with $10 purchase!

Cereal was 3/$9, and that produced a $3 off coupon on fresh fruit.

IGA = $13.89

Lots of meat on sale this week, so I stocked up!

Aldi = $6.12

I needed to stock up on a couple of things.

Total spent for this week = $41.75