Friday, February 27, 2009

Quote of the Day

Just a thought that came to mind this morning, thought I'd share:

"A friend is like a good bra- hard to find, supportive, comfortable, and always close to your heart!"

Hoping that you have someone in your life that fits this description.
Happy Friday!

And to my in-laws: Happy Anniversary today! (My father-in-law is a faithful reader of my blog!)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Grocery Bill Slashed in Half

OK, so I have tried shopping everywhere since we moved back to the states from Europe, literally everywhere. Yes, even the commissary on Post, and yes by using the sale papers and by clipping coupons, I have always been a coupon user. But you know where I've been shopping for the past month and a half.........ALDI! Yep, I was so happy when I found that they have one here, it feels just like being back in Germany when I go there to shop! You have to put your quarter in the buggy in order to get a buggy to use(just like Germany except you use a euro), and the checker sits at the register just like in Germany and the cash register drawer pops up just like in Germany, plus you must bring your own bags or buy them just like in Germany!

I LOVE ALDI!!! My grocery bill has been slashed by at least half since I have been shopping at ALDI! I am very happy about that. And the kicker is, I buy NO processed food at all, all of my food is fruit and vegetables....fresh things. I only spent $160.00 today and that will last for two weeks, besides that staples like bread and milk. Why is it so cheap...........the overhead, generic brands, sometimes you'll find a namebrand name, they don't take coupons either because there prices are already cheap.

So if you have an ALDI by you, try it, and I bet you'll love it!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Back to "Normal"

I havn't posted in over a week, but I assure you that I do have an excellent excuse, several to be exact. But who cares, I'm blogging today and today is a new day. As I sit at the computer and type this it is 8:30 am and I am enjoying the wonderful sunshine that is coming into my FROG window. Today looks like it is going to be a nice, sunny, beautiful day. Last night was real stormy, I do not like stormy weather and living here we will have lots of stormy weather and will probably most likely have lots of tornado warnings too.......my most scarey thing to me in the whole world! Last night, in fact for the past two nights, our dog has been right in the middle of the Hubby and I in bed, she too is scared of thunderstorms and it was stormy the past two nights!

So, I can say that today is finally a "normal" day in our home. I say this because we weren't home this past weekend. We went to see the Hubby's parents who live about 6 hours away from us. It really isn't a long, bad drive to where they live, it was nice to make a road trip and to get out of our town for a view days. We had a nice visit with them and we were able to enjoy some nice quality time with them. The Princess and the Bookworm had a wonderful time as well. They loved going bowling with Granma and Granpa. We ALL bowled and had a fun time. We also went to a Colonial House not too far from their home. It was a wonderful thing to see, and we enjoyed a great tour that one of the lady's gave us at the Colonial home. The kids also enjoyed it. The Bookworm had just finished studying the time period in school/homeschool, so he was so amazed at actually being able to see pieces that he had just studied. For instance he had just learned about indigo and hornbooks, and he got to see both of them firsthand! Thanks Granma and Granpa for a fun weekend!

We were back home on Sunday evening due to the fact that the kids had to go to school on Monday. They were suppose to have Monday off, but since it snowed a few weeks ago and they got a snow day, they had to make it up! URG, thanks school board! The next time the kids get a vacation will be for Spring Break, and unfortunately the Hubby doesn't get off then! Anyway, we get home and the Princess starts to get a temp on Sunday evening and her throat begins to hurt. Monday morning she is a high temp girl, 101.6 and so she stays home from school. Tuesday, I call the Family Care Center on Post to get an appt. to take her in and guess what, they are booked(whats new!). So I have to take her in to the UCC(Urgent Care Center) on Post, for those that think oh well, military you get free health care, wait a minute, there is a price that we have to pay and here it is..........We waited 2 and 1/2 hours before we saw a doctor and even then he was a doctor, he was a PA, he looked at the Princess for less than 3 mintues and that was it. Diagnosis tonsilitesis(but I already knew this because I looked at her throat with a flashlight at home) yeah, the PA asked me how I knew this and I told him that I looked in her throat at home with a flashlight! DUH! I am not stupid, I do have a medical background also! Anyway, getting a school excuse was an act of congress, and lets just say my fuse shot that day with him and the nurse and the LT(lieutenant) that was "in Charge". So out of there we left, and I will never be going back to the UCC unless someone has a broken limb! Then it was on to the pharmacy!

The pharmacy, hummmmm, when it comes to Army Posts here in the states and their Pharmacies I can get on my soap box really fast! Lets just say that we waited another hour and a 1/2 to get all four of the Princess's prescripions! That's right! Here is my thing with this Post Pharmacy stuff. They have a supposed "system". You walk in and you have three choices to choose from, 1 being active duty(the Hubby), 2 being dependent(me and kids) and retiree, and 3 being outside prescription from another doctor. Here goes the kicker! Active duty soldiers can ONLY pick up their own medicince, they CAN NOT pick up their dependents medicince, dependents and retirees are on the same level along with outside prescriptions. And Active duty always go ahead of everyone else. So from what I observed on Tuesday is: that you can literally sit in the Pharmacy on Post ALL day long waiting for your number to get called in order for you to get your prescripion. Why, because as long as an Active Duty person comes in, you get bumped lower and lower in the system. I really do not think that it is fair how they have this system laid out. Plus you get the retirees that come in and they have like a years worth of medicine that they are there picking up, and what about the ones that have little kids or kids in general, how do you entertain kids for that amount of time?! My solution: they have 8 pharmacy windows(not all are open), split them between Active, Dependents and Retirees and yes, in that order. Have so many windows for each group. I believe that this would eliminate the wait time. I know that there are some who are saying, well, Active Duty should go first they are the most important. Let me just say that I do not disagree with you, I agree, but the Military has got to wake-up and realize that most Active Duty have families and that families need to start getting better care and stop being treated like we are just a number. Do you know how many times we will probably get to see our supposedly PCM(primary care manager) you know our, "doctor" probably none! Why, because they always give other people appts. with them who don't have them as their PCM! I could go on and on but I want! And yes, I did put in a comment card into the ICE box on Tuesday, one for the Pharmacy and one for the UCC.

So yesterday the Princess was still home from school(day3), she was better with her temp, but had to have the antibiotics in her for a full 24 hours before she could go back. I could tell that she was starting to feel better yesterday, she wanted to practice her flute. She loves her flute, and when she doesn't practice, you know that she isn't well! She did take a long nap yesterday afternoon, which she NEVER does, not since she was 3 or 4 years old. Yesterday marked 11 years since she had her open-heart surgery. She was only 18 months old when she had her surgery. Time has really flown by.

So today, today the Princess was ready to go back to school, with her excuse in her hand! I am sure that she will come home with mounds of make-up work and she already knows that she has a Science test tomorrow. But for me and my home, it's finally back to "normal"!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Shadowing Day


This past weekend was our second quality time weekend with only one kid. This weekend the Princess went and stayed with Nana and Poppy from Thursday night until Sunday. Her school was having Shadow Day on Friday where 7th graders were able to go to work with a family member and Shadow them for the day. She decided that she wanted to go to work with my Aunt, her Great-Aunt. She is a Veterinary Assistant........how cool! So the Princess Shadowed her at work from 7 am til 7 pm, talk about a long day! She can't stop talking about all of the experiences that she had on that day, she really had a great time. And she enjoyed spending the rest of the weekend hanging out with Nana and Poppy and of course the puppy, Comet. In the above photo, the Princess is up and dressed waiting on her Great-Aunt to pick her up for "work". She received two nice scrub tops from her Aunt, she's wearing one of them.


We were able to spend some one-on-one quality time with the Bookworm. We took him to dinner, and to a movie. He had a really fun time as so did the Hubby and I. He missed his sister, and we noticed that last weekend, the Princess missed her brother. They are really close to eachother and really are sort of lost without eachother!


This weekend were all back together, we were hoping to go somewhere since the Hubby has a 4 day weekend, but the kids unfortunately do not and Monday was suppose to be a day off from school for them, but since they missed a day of school due to snow, they now have to make Monday a make-up day. Looks like their next break want be until Spring Break, but then dear Hubby can't take leave, so maybe the kids and I will venture somewhere just the three of us, who knows!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Family Photos

We recently had family photos taken. We did it a little differently this time, we went outside and with a new photographer also. My sister-in-law(or I'd like to think, sister-in-love) is a Photographer. She has her own photo business called City View Photography in Chicago, Illinois. She is a wonderful photographer and all of her clients just love the photographs that she takes for them.




This Thanksgiving she took family photos for us and when I got the CD, I fell in love with all of the pictures that she took of our family, we even managed to get our dog in the family photo also! It was a lot of fun and it was really a lot of fun having an outside set!




I wanted to share some of the wonderful photos with you and if you'd like to know more you can go to: http://www.cityviewphoto.com/


Hunting for Quail




The last two weekends have been kind of interesting and fun for us. We have been able to spend quality time with each kid alone. This was really rare for us in Europe, in fact, it NEVER happened unless one of the kids were staying at a friend's house for the night. As many of you know we live only aobut an hour and a half from my parents and the kids absolutely enjoy going to their house, as do the Hubby and I. My parents live in the country and the kids have their own clubhouse/treehouse that looks like a miniature beach house, plus for Christmas my parents got them their own four wheelers.......what kid wouldn't enjoy that! Oh yeah, plus my Dad has beagles that he raises and uses to hunt deer, so the kids love getting the dogs out and playing with them, especially the puppies! And one has caught both of their hearts, a little white beagle that they named Comet. I have to admit that he is pretty cute and if we didn't have a dog already, we would probably still him from my Dad!

Anyway...back to the Blog. So last weekend, the Bookworm got to spend the entire weekend with Nana and Poppy. He was not feeling to well last weekend, but Nana and Poppy said come on to their house, he could feel sick there just the same as here! Even though he wasn't feeling to good, he still had a great time. They went Quail hunting and boy did he love it! He told me yesterday that he would rather quail hunt than any other kind of hunting! He carried his own gun and he actually shot 3 quail all by himself! My Grandaddy would have loved to have seen the Bookworm hunting quail.

So while the Bookworm spent time at Nana and Poppy's we spent some one on one quality time with the Princess. She didn't know how to act with all of the attention just on her! We took her out to lunch at California Dreaming, we took her to Pucknel Music(a Big Music store here) where we got her some music for her flute plus a toner/metrodome, andwe took her to see a movie that she had been wanting to see. She had a great time and we enjoyed time quality time with her.
I encourage everyone to take the time to take quality time with each of your children. They need that time alone with Mom and Dad. I'm not saying that we never talk to the kids by themselves or never play a game with them by themselves, we do and all the time, but sometimes it's nice just to have Big quality time alone with each of them. We have been blessed with our children. Both of them are a blessing from God.

The above pictures are of the Bookworm and his Poppy hunting for Quail and one of the Bookworm with his quail that he shot!