Clover Beach

My friend, Maren, introduced me to this awesome county park in Linden, MI. It has a nice beach on one side of the road and on the other side, an awesome playground. My mom and sister, Lauren, came up for the day to hit up the beach with us. The weather was very warm and humid which demanded water be a vital part of the day. Here are pics of my cute girls enjoying the sun. They are so sweet and happy little creatures who fill my days with joy and laughter (and frustration sometimes too, as children also do.)

Target Balls

I don't know what Kira's obsession is with these things, but whenever we go to a Target with the big red balls outside, she must sit upon one. She is a hoot!

Batteries

I know this is dorky, but I have to tell you all that I got all these batteries for $1.50. They were on sale for 5/$10 and I had $1 off coupons, which were doubled by my awesome Kroger store, so I paid $.06 per pack (tax). Sweet!

No More Mullet!

For those of you that have known Kira all her little life, she has never really had much hair. She is probably at least a year behind where her sister was at her age when it comes to hair growth. So these little piggies are a milestone for us. Up until a week or so ago I was just sticking to one ponytail on top of her head. This was cute except, her mullet was starting to grow back... I didn't want to cut that off again, so I tried pig tails and voila! Her hair was suddenly long enough! (As long as the pig tails are placed just right.) And my goodness, does she look adorable with her little pig tails! No more mullet! Hooray!

Mackinac Island

We took a little trip to Mackinac Island since Adam had this last week off. We thought a little celebration for officially finishing his 3rd year of med-school was very appropriate. We also brought along our nanny (the girls call her Grandma) while Grandpa stayed at our house with our dogs. Thanks Dad!

The weather wasn't all that great, but didn't ruin the trip by any means. It was about 60 and drizzly all day. We never really got wet though, just a bit damp.

For those of you reading this that don't know about Mackinac Island, it sits in the Straits of Mackinac, or the water between Michigan's lower and upper peninsula. There are no motor vehicles on the island at all so people either use horses or bicycles to get around. It was so cool to see stores unloading their shipments off of a horse-drawn cart.

We got to do 2 really fun things when we were there: rent a drive-yourself horse and buggy and ride around the entire island (8 miles) on rented bicycles. Sally was the mare that was so gracious to take us around the island in our very own buggy. Adam drove! That was hilarious. My mom and I rented a tandem bike (don't let her steer, we almost crashed multiple times) and Adam pulled the girls behind him in a Burley bike trailer. The nature views were fantastic and the houses around the island absolutely gorgeous. Did I mention the fudge, peanut brittle and saltwater taffy is all to die for?

Kira's First Shiner

With the attitude she's been throwing around lately I wouldn't doubt that she really did get in a brawl with another neighborhood kid, but that's not how this happened! We went to the Dog Bowl last Saturday with my parents in Frankenmuth, MI where tons of dogs take part in silly competitions like the long and high jump (into water off of a dock), frisbee catching, Weiner dog races, silly tricks... We were watching the doggie long jump and Kira got hit square in the eye by a fly away frisbee. Ouch. Poor girl! It was swollen for 2-3 days, then the dark bruising set in. This is a picture of her eye just the day after the collision. She's been a trooper about it and has also enjoyed the well-deserved attention. :)

Why Not?

I am not a coupon lunatic... but today I felt like one. This all began 6 weeks ago when I decided to pay $12/month for the Detroit Free Press to be delivered to my door 3 times per week. Coupons come Sundays, so that's the paper I really care about. (Other than coupons I take advantage of the puzzle page for my own enjoyment.)

Before I took that plunge, I had some encouragement from a few friends/family members of mine, namely Valerie, Jen Squire and my Aunt Tammy. They do "the coupon thing" so I thought that I might as well order the paper and try to save some money.

So yesterday I clipped ALL the coupons from the many coupon booklets that I had lying around. I learned that you are supposed to clip ALL the coupons out of the booklets, not just what you normally use. I hadn't been doing that for the last 6 weeks... oops. So I got caught up and organized them all in an empty 4x6 photo album.

So this morning I was all geared up and ready to go to Kroger, where all coupons $1 and under are DOUBLED. Yup. That is sweet, if you didn't know. Call your local grocers to see if any do the same. So the stuff in the picture above is worth close to $125. I paid $25. It seems too good to be true, really, but it does happen!

Two amazing deals that I found today were for the men's Speed Stick and the Loreal Vive products. They were Buy One Get One free (BOGO). Each item was upwards of $4 each, so with Kroger's sale they were 2 for $4 (or $2 each). Not bad! BUT for these brands I had coupons for $1 off 2 items, which were doubled b/c Kroger is awesome, so I paid $2 for 2 of them (or $1) each! That is 75% off!

Another one of my favorite items is Suave shampoo, which for a small bottle is only $1.07. I had quite a few $1/2 (that means $1 off 2 items), which is doubled to $2/2, so I pay $0.14 for the 2 bottles. Nice. (Last week these were on sale even more for $0.88 a bottle, which means that they would have been free with overage.)

Those Buddies soaps that you see on the right are $0.99 each. I had a $3/3 Johnson's products, so I got 3 of these babies for free, and the register always prints me out another coupon for $2.50/3. So I keep getting 3 buddies soaps for $0.50, over and over and over again!

Another thing... I had 3 coupons for Scott brand TP, but they were for the expensive kind only, Scott Naturals. So I looked at the first 5 or 6 digits under the bar code on both the coupon and the regular 4 packs of Scott and they matched. The coupon worked like a charm. As long as the first set of numbers match, the coupon will work!

So this really isn't hard! I was discouraged at first, trust me. It can take a few weeks of Sunday papers to come to get your coupon stock up. Let me give you all a few basic pointers that I have learned:

- Only use coupons on things that are on sale. Be patient and wait for things to match up.
- Clip all the coupons out of the coupon booklets and...
- Organize them well! You can use a binder, photo album, or accordion coupon folder.
- Try not to pay more than $1 for things that you are using coupons for. This won't always happen, but often it will.
- Always get the highest percentage off. If you need baby shampoo and you have a coupon, buy the smallest/cheapest bottle to get the deepest discount, instead of buying the bigger bottle you usually would buy.
- You can buy coupons on eBay. Yes, its true.
- You can combine store coupons with manufacturer coupons.
- If the first numbers match under the bar codes on the item and the coupon, the coupon will work, even if it describes or pictures a different line of a product. (They like to write/picture the more expensive item to get you to spend more.)

There are tons of coupon blogs that people use. I find it overwhelming. Maybe this is silly of me, but I just go to Kroger (b/c they double their coupons) and walk down every isle and look for yellow tags representing sale items. Then I look to see if I have a coupon. I usually remember my coupon inventory, which makes this matching up a lot easier.

My hope is that you will be inspired to save some cash and use coupons too! Don't pay retail for anything ever again! Especially toiletry items!

Almost Ready

Kira has had quite an interest in the potty lately. Well, she has more of an interest in doing everything that her bigger people around her do, hence, the potty. This picture is classic and describes her potty experience thus far to a tee. She likes it, tries it, but doesn't take it very seriously.

Adalin was 2 yrs. and 4 months old when she was officially potty trained. I am hoping that Kira will be done at the same age, in July.

Marta's Visit

We got to see Adam's sister, Marta for a day this past weekend! It was so great to get to visit with her, even if it was only for a day. We ate Cafe Rio, grilled out (amazing Middle Eastern marinated Kabobs that were to die for, see my cooking blog soon for the post), went to church together, sat in the sun for Sunday lunch, watched funny YouTube videos and relaxed.

Horrible picture of Adalin...

A Trip Back to Kirksville

Adam had to go to Kirksville last week for a test and I told him that we were coming too. We had a great trip back to the 'ville. We stayed with some great friends, the Jensons, and got to see so many others: the Wards, Nugents, Mr. Flammer, Miss Heino, Schuermanns, Petersons, Haas, TCC folk, Meg Sorhus, Ruth and Anngel (very briefly), Lofleys, Powells...

I had a chance to do some reflecting while driving around my old little town. I really didn't realize how much I grew while I lived there. I acquired a new puppy (Yukon), had a baby, bought my first house, sold my first house, met and kept so many great friends, learned how to be a good neighbor and better friend, learned the value of serving others, how to be independent, what being a single mom would feel like, how to support a medical student, how to grieve for a worn-out medical student, how to tend strawberries, planted my first vegetable garden, found my first slug, had a bat, bunny and mouse in my house (all on different occasions), painted my first house, had my first robbery (our camera was jsut stolen out of our car), learned the art of quilting, decoupage and bow-making, organized a community 5/10K...

This is where the first 2 years of our medical school journey took place. Overall, I think pleasant thoughts when I think of living in Kirksville, as long as I don't delve too much into my memory bank... It was hard. I have talked about how challenging medical school is before. I have said that other programs are also hard for many people, but I can't believe that anything is more difficult for a student than medical school. Some come close or may even equal the demand. We made it through though. The bookwork and exams were brutal. We survived. I really don't know how! As with many things in life, we often forget how hard things really were, how much pain we endured. I think back and often don't think it wasn't that bad. But then I dig deeper and remember the emotions of loneliness and grief that I felt so often then and I wish to never remember them again! All I can say is that I am glad its over!

As for our trip:

We were only about 1 hour away from Kirksville when we stopped to stretch our legs. The girls wanted to sit in the trunk and thought that it was so funny.

We had a chance to visit Meg, Indi's breeder. She showed us her miniature Jersey calf that was only a week old! She also worked with Indi a little bit, preparing him for the conformation ring. I got some great tips and pointers.

Here she is! This is our old house!

Our great friend, Elina, who we were so lucky to see a few times when we were in town. She lives in PA and was in town as well for her testing. I love this picture.

Kira at the beach throwing rocks. She has an obsession with rocks.

The Point Shelter. We had many a BBQ here when we lived in Kirksville.