MIA

Yes, I have been missing in action for at least the past week. But I do have a good reason,  this past Friday and Saturday, our community pool hosted the county wide swim meet. Matt and I both were heavily involved in both the planning and working at the event both days. In fact, I probably spent more hours at the pool in the past week then the entire summer of 2012. I am glad to say that we survived and thrived!   To give you an idea of the size, between the two day there were a total of 385 swimmers and I would estimate over 1000 people in attendance.  Haley came on Friday morning and spent most of the day, guarding the parking gate and then selling t-shirts and heat sheets. Amanda came after she finished work to help sell t-shirts, heat sheet and then she helped Zach drive the golf cart to shuttle people back to their cars. The temperature was HOT HOT HOT!  If you would like a little more information check out the website .

Both Lily and Kendall swam on Saturday which was the day for swimmers younger than 10 years old.  The girls both swam their hardest and I am so proud of their efforts.  Lily won a heat for freestyle which is no simple task and Kendall placed 6 of 18 girls in the Backstroke and also received an ribbon for 3rd place with her freestyle relay team.Lily county County swim meetMy goal is to post everyday to catch up!  Lots of fun and interesting things have also been happening!

Saving on Saturday! Happy Fourth of July

We spent around 7 hours enjoying the pool today. For dinner, we participated in a potluck which was awesome! Total spent ZERO!

Random Thursday Thoughts

  • Matt and I have survived our first week of car sharing. Because we do not feel comfortable driving the white van and the truck does not have working air conditioning, we have been car sharing.  The current plan is continue for at least 2 more weeks.
  • My summer clothes shopping is finished. I was able to purchase 2 pair of shorts for myself, a t-shirt for Matt, a shirt to match a skirt for Lily, a pair of short for Lily and 3 pair of shorts for Kendall today all for $92 or about $11.50 each.
  • We will be increasing our food budget to $700 a month starting in July. Today I used our rewards coupon from Costco help us stay on track for the budget for June. We only needed 3 items but decided to go ahead and buy some extra produce and a couple of fun food items as well. Out of pocket was $23 for 22 items at Costco or $1 an item. No way to match that!
  • We are suppose to close on our new mortgage next week so I plan to share more detail and our new budget some time after that.
  • I am already working on the new budget but had to adjust both the water and electric bill higher than I anticipated due to the extreme heat (above 90 for the past 10 days with prediction of another 10 days). At this point if we do not water the garden will be start to lose anything that we have. I had planned to water every third day but I may have to alternate every other day in hopes to still get a decent harvest.
  • Tonight we made the tough decision to skip a practice. We are in week 3 of 8, with 4 night a week swim practice in addition to cheerleading and piano. Because we have been car sharing, everyone has been out to at least 8:30 each night this week. I am tired and so are the kids, which is evident by attitudes so Zach, Kendall and I stayed home while Lily  went to cheerleading only.
  • Amanda is planning to bring a camper over next week and stay the week allowing the kids to sleep outside in the camper with her a couple of nights. I am not sure how this will work out but everyone is excited so at least it should make for some good stories in the future.

5 things Friday

1. I sent my list of “sit down” dining reservations over to our travel agent this morning. She will be making these on Sunday! It is so exciting!

2. Today is our 11th anniversary. We celebrated by adding on to the square foot garden.

3. I made our first official harvest of the year, 1 small squash a ziplock gallon bag of dill and another bag of cilantro.

4. We are waiting not so patiently for our house appraisal so that we can refinance.

5. Swim season has officially started with practice 3-4 nights a week. This week I have been working until 6:30 then picking up Zach and Kendall from swim practice before coming home. I really dislike this schedule!

Saving on Saturday

sosThis week saving is not exciting but still saving so I am sharing. First up hang clothes on the line instead of the dryer.

IMG_1795Currently on the line we have our sheets and comforter, a load of dark clothes and a load of light clothes. We love the smell of clean sheet that dry outside so I try to do these all year around. The clothes are a different story, I don’t mind hanging out outer clothes it is just a matter of timing. My goal is to get into a routine so that I can save at least 3 hours a week of dryer time during the summer. I refuse to hang out towels and underwear so those will continue to be thrown in the dryer. My only debate is the kids clothes, currently they place their clothes in their own laundry basket and after being washed they are taking out of the dryer and putting all away. It would take a lot more effort for me to hang out their loads in addition to trying to keep things separate  between Kendall and Lily.

Next up is home car repair. Our white van is continuing to give us problems. Today, Matt changed out the fuel filter which cost a total of $11 and his hour of work.

Finally is a fun activity for the kids that saves at least $10 a vehicle, home car washing!  The kids are having a ball and do a fairly good job!

5 Things Friday!

1. We are in the process of refinancing our home. This time we are getting a whole new mortgage. By completing this we will be dropping 7 years off our current mortgage schedule and reducing the interest rate by over 2%. So far the process has been time consuming but not difficult. Our closing is tentatively scheduled for the end of June. I will share more details once a couple of issues are settled. The first of which is the appraisal of the house which is schedule next week.

2. The end of the school year is getting closer. I honestly think it is more heavily scheduled than Christmas. Sunday-was a piano recital, Tuesday night-Lily chorus performance, Wednesday night-Ending Party for Church Kid’s club. In addition to cheerleading tryouts on Monday and Thursday.

3.Our community pool opens this weekend, with swim team practice starting on Tuesday. Zach is planning to swim this year and I am so excited just to get him in the water on a regular basis!

4.Kendall is star student next week so I am scrambling to get some picture found and printed so we can make her poster on Sunday.

5. I am officially on call for Monday, so I may have to work a couple of hours but that means that I will get a 4 day weekend for the Fourth of July!