Date Night

I feel that in order to have a successful marriage/family it is necessary to allow the kids to spend the night with Grandma and have a date night. This particular date night is on an island off the coast of California. We are here for a friends wedding. The rehersal dinner and showers are over and the ceremony is tomorrow night so I am with the hubby in at Luau Larry's and having a great time. I am not a big drinker but I am excited to announce that my one fruity drink also comes with a straw hat. I am officially on island time and enjoying every second. Oh, and the diet... Well lets just say there are no scales. I wish you all a great date night.

Perfection of Children

I love to watch my kids play.  They have wonderful imaginations and such a passion for life.  They are untainted by the stresses of jobs, finances, mean people, and education with standardized testing.  They truly love their family, their friends, and play.  I am currently an audience to my daughters concert; consisting of her self-created lyrics and dancing.  I love that her dreams for the future are constantly changing with each new exciting activity that she is exposed to.  Currently, she aspires to become a rockstar.  My son being younger just enjoys toddling by her side and assisting her on her many play adventures.  Their interactions are priceless.  I laugh listening to them.  The other day while driving in the car my daughter is in the backseat teaching my son to argue.  I hear her stating now I am going to say "no" and you say "yes".  They then proceed to argue while hysterically laughing at each other for the next 15 minutes.  I try to find different family activities for us to do together and the current favorite is tennis.  We are fortunate to have a court near our home and we play some what regularly.  I worry when others attempt to use the court next to us because I am still working with the kids on simply hitting the ball, not necessarily over the net.  They love this but there is the occasional scream of warning to others on the next court to watch out.  So far the other players have all been understanding and take it with a laugh and throw our ball back to us.  The kids think this is great.  Maybe it's me that is being fooled and they are hitting the ball over there on purpose to interact with other players.  I wish that I could come back to this time and place when I am having a rough day because just watching or playing with them brings such joy to life.

Discount Disney

      My family loves Disney!  My children love to watch it on television, we occasionally wear Disney t-shirts, and we all LOVE to travel to Disney World or Disneyland.  We live in Florida and are not too far from Disney World so due to traveling expenses alone we make regular trips to Disney World.  We have purchased the annual passes which, I won't lie is quite the initial investment but if you are planning on spending 5 days here or more they will pay for themselves quickly.  We have sampled almost all of the Disney resorts but typically stay in one of their value resorts.  Disney provides free parking or transportation to and from their resorts to all their theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney.  Being an annual pass holder also entitles you to discounts when booking Disney resorts.  We can purchase a value resort for $75-$120 a night depending on the time of year.  Even though they are value resorts they still include amazing amenities such as incredible pools, arcades, restaurants, and entertainment.  This last trip we made we wanted to relax, so we spent a few hours in the Magic Kingdom before heading back to the resort.  When we arrived we were just in time for BINGO down by the pool.  My daughter won the very first game and got to choose a prize out of their treasure box.  Even though the trinkets were simple it completely made her day!  Disney has a way of making young and old feel special.
     We will soon be making this trip with my grandparents and will need to rent a motorized scooter.  Do not rent these from Disney.  If you google scooter rentals there are tons of companies that will deliver right to the hotel and only charge $20 a day for the rental.  All Disney buses are scooter friendly and it is only a fraction of what the park will charge for a comparable scooter.
    It is also wise to stop at a grocery store or convenience store on the way to the park/resort.  All Disney resorts now have mini-refrigerators so you can bring snacks or things to make breakfast.  Packing a book bag with water and snacks will save you tons of money throughout the day.  Bottles of water can run you more than $2 each.  Snacks are even more but sometimes you don't want to pass up the chocolate mickey shaped ice cream bars and who could blame you.  When you do decide to go shopping if you are an annual passholder Disney offers a 10% discount on many items.
     When dining in Disney whether it be at a park or resort if you have the Table of Wonderland card you will save an automatic 20% on every meal.  There is a $75 initial investment to purchase the card but I have already made that much money back and saved an additional $300 in the last four months.  It has been completely worth it!
     There are relatively new dress up activities such as bibbidi bobbidi boutique or Pirates League.  If you choose to indulge your family is sure to love it and to cut down on some of the costs you can wear your own costume or dress up clothes you do not need to purchase the clothing that Disney sells.
      I hope you find these tips helpful.

Addicted to Iphone

I have come to the realization that I would be hopelessly lost without my Iphone.  My husband decided that we would try a different carrier to lower the monthly expense of our cell phone bill.  I agreed to give it a try as Iphone is costing us nearly $220 a month for just two phones.  After walking around making calls on my blackberry and using my unconnected Iphone for the apps my husband agreed that I was unable to disconnect from my phone.  He hated that I carried both and I felt like I was missing something if I left my unconnected Iphone at home.  After a week of this behavior and a frustrated spouse, I was once again a connected Iphone user.  I did my best to give it a try but will from this point on consider that my guilty pleasure.

Incase you were wondering the Apps on my top 10 list:
Watch Disney Junior
PBS Kids
LoseIt
Smurfs (Don't judge me, its addicting)
DrawSomething
WordsWithFriends
All my many banking Apps
Blogger
Hotels.com App
Cheapoair.com App

Weight loss Update...I have a terrible scale but estimated to have lost .4lbs!! Yeah

The Fixer Upper

My home is definitely a fixer upper.  I have a list of projects including: gutter installation, exterior painting, landscaping, jungle gym for the kids, resurface all cabinets, upgrade all counter tops, redo all flooring, purchase area rugs, and find pirate furniture for my son's bedroom.  I am open for any and all suggestions that you may have as I am obviously feeling overwhelmed and my husband is now reminding me that he did not want this home he bought it for me.  I love you dear. XOXOXO

I feel like I need a place to begin so my plan is curb appeal first.  I have found a lovely company to install gutters and hopefully will be able to afford the install sometime in August.  We will see if I can wait this long or if I find additional projects to add to my list.  Like my house, I am a work in progress or simple a piece of work.

Summer Time Fun

If I have not mentioned before I am an educator and being that it is currently summer vacation I am constantly on the lookout for fun, free, exciting, educational activities to do with my family.  Thus far I have managed to locate parks that are not too far away (minimal parking fee), summer movies for the kids (Regal only charges $1), and playing outside my home.  After this afternoon I feel all 29 years of my life.  My daughter loves Tennis, my son loves the playground, and mommy gets to walk or pull them in the kid trailer on the back of my bike.  I am not sure who is exhausting more energy me or them.  With this in mind I am loving every second of this time together and cherishing it as it is already going by so quickly.  My daughter will be entering kindergarten this year and it is bitter sweet.  I am thrilled and excited for this new path in her life but also mourning that my first born, my baby is all grown up.  She impresses me every day with her wit, vocabulary, and imagination.  She is truly ready to begin kindergarten.

As a side note my weight loss is nonexistent so I have crazily tried to amp it up by adding a few extra supplements.  I am now including 7-keto, Green Coffee Bean, and Green Tea Extract (thank you Dr. Oz).  I am hoping as is everyone I am sure to loose that hideous baby fat in the tummy area.  I do not have the jitters but I do have energy to keep up with my kiddos.  Stay posted :)

Human Guinea Pig

My husband and I will be traveling to California for a wedding in 2 weeks and I have decided to loose those "last 10 pounds".  It is difficult because I am a self-titled foodie and struggle with giving up desserts.  When I go to work my co-workers have much more self-control than I do in that they are all size 0.  I am not huge but have remained a size 6 since the birth of my second child. I am as active as I can be and exercise when time allows.  So I went searching for a little assistance.  One of my size 0 friends informed me that she was seeing a doctor for weight loss and that she has been taking calcium pyruvate to help her. She looks fantastic so I decided to give it a try.  I am on day three now and have remained the same weight so far.  However, what has been impressive is that without working out I have managed to maintain with one of those three days included an all you can eat buffet and another day containing Father's Day festivities.  I indulged, so maybe there is some truth to this supplements claims.  I'll keep you posted.

Balancing Act

As my title implies I am the mother of two. I live for them and try to constantly do right by them.  I find myself in the same daily struggles as most in that I work, try to keep house, monitor finances, make all sports practices on time, and try to have QUALITY time with the family.  Currently I find myself in a situation where when I am at work all I want is to be at home with the kids but when work is complete and I head home I have no energy.  I want to feed them, bathe them, and tuck them in so that I can get some ME time.  I feel guilty about having these feelings and thus have mommy guilt.  On weekends when I have all the time I want with them I feel that I must find fun and creative outings for us to go on.    Unfortunately, most of these outings cost money therefore not satisfying my budget ie husband.  I also (forced as my husband recalls) persuaded my husband to buy a home so that we could leave the world of renting behind us.  We found a great bank owned fixer upper that I new would be perfect but now realizing that neither myself or husband actually know how to fix anything am finding myself calling contractors to get estimates on repairs only to irritate my husband more as to how much this house is actually costing us.  I almost forgot...I have this passion for travel.  As soon as I have two cents to rub together I feel the need to make reservations.  This desire instills an instant need for my husband to work overtime to feed my reservation habit.  I love him for doing whatever is necessary to provide for our family but find myself resenting him at times for not spending more time with us when deep down I know that it is my need for travel that is pushing him out of the house and into work. This blog will explore our highs and lows as we work on our family, jobs, house, and fabulous vacations.