For Chelsea, Love ya girl!!!

So as you can tell I am into the coupon thing. I have always clipped coupons from the Sunday paper and used them. I go through phases with coupons. It is a lot of work to keep up on all the deals. There was a time when I would clip coupons, go through adds, match the coupons to the stores and then go shopping. That got old. To much work. I did however save lots of money and get lots of things for free. I loved the Walgreen's rebate book. Free stuff every month. About a month ago I started searching on line for coupons and offers. This is the first time I have used the computer for coupons. I was pretty happy with the results. There are a lot of coupons out there. I also discovered that there are people with blogs that love to share their money saving information with others. I was also happy to discover that you don't have to mail the Walgreen's rebate in any more. You can do it right on line. Beautiful!!!! Anyways that is what I have been up to lately. Coupons, rebates, CVS extra bucks and grocery shopping!!

Work sucks. It's so hot and it's about to kill me. I am strong though, I will survive!!!!! They hired a new aide that started the third day of school. After 7 days she quit. A new one started the 29th. I like her. I think we work well together.

Tyler is still happy with the new school. He has made a lot of new friends. On Wednesday he started the Mad Science program after school. He loves science so we sign him up for the program when it comes to the schools.

Last weekend we went camping. We went up near Mormon lake. It's so beautiful up there. We found a new camping place called Gooseberry Springs. I would go there again. Friday and Saturday were wonderful, Sunday was a whole different story. It was the worst day I have ever had camping in my life. It rained all day. Not just a drizzle it was a flood. It rained so hard we could not even pack up to go home. I was so done with it all that I took Tyler and His friend Dylan into the tent and we went to bed at 6:30. The rain, wind and lightening continued through the night. At one point I looked over at Dylan and the tent poles on his side had been blown apart because the wind was blowing so hard. The whole back side was laying an inch from his head. Todd had to get up and go to Patti and Brads tent and wake Brad up. They fixed it and back to bed. The kids never woke up. Then Dylan started coughing so I woke him to give him some cough medicine and before I knew it he was throwing up. He threw up 3x's. The tent was leaking and the whole inside was damp. My pillow was wet and so was my hair. I was freezing and the wind was blowing the wet cold tent on me every 5 minutes. I prayed that some hunter would accidentally shoot me to put me out of my misery. We packed up first light and were on the road home just after nine in the morning.

The kids got to spend some time at the lake. They fished and collected snails.

That about sums it up!!!! Nothing exciting to report. Just livin life..........

Back to work for me and back to school for Tyler

It seems like since my birthday I have been so busy. I have had so much going on. We had to get everything ready for school. Supplies, clothes and bedtimes. I am going to start from yesterday and work backwards. I started back to work yesterday. It was awful. Our school hours changed so we start 45 minutes earlier. Normally that would be great but this year they changed the school boundaries and Tyler is going to a new school. His school starts at 9am. We are both so bored in the morning. We are all ready and have to wait to leave. Stinks. My hours for this year are 9-2 again. This is because of Tyler's schedule. I will not go to work until I know he is safely on the bus. The bus stop in on the corner of our house so it is perfect!! Here are the pics from his first day of school....

He loves the new school. I must say that I was impressed when I walked in the door. I took him the first day because we missed meet the teacher night. We were out of town. His teacher seemed nice. Tyler said "She looks pretty nice". The school is only 3 years old now. He said even the playground is better. He has come home with a big smile the past 2 days. I wish I could say I was coming home with a big smile. I am not. I am coming home HOT, TIRED & SMELLY!!!!! It is so hot outside. I hope I can make it. I am afraid I am going to have a heat stroke out there and the kids are going to just leave me there on the field to die. I don't have anything positive to say about work right now so I will skip to the next subject. The doggie door!!!!

Holy cow what a job that was. Todd installed a doggie door for Daisy. It was a long hard project to say the least. We spent a great deal of the weekend doing it. Well about 8 hours between the two days. It was a huge pain to do but well worth it. We installed it in Todd's poker room downstairs that way when we are not home we can put her in the room and shut the door. She can still be inside where it is cool (or warm) but can go outside to take care of business. The first day she went right through it with no problems, pooped and came back inside! Yeah Daisy!!!!

We went to Tucson last week. Todd has a conference he has to go to every summer there. This is the ninth year we have made the trip down. We did skip last year because Tyler had his tonsills out but Todd still was able to go. Todd gets to go listen to a bunch of lawyers talk for three days and Tyler and I hang out by the pool. This year the conference was at a new resort. It has always been at the El conquistador in Oro Vally but this year it was at the Westin La Paloma. It was nice there. The pools and slides were much better. Tyler was most impressed with the swim up bar. We sat there one day and had smoothies and nachos. He loved eating in the pool. I must admit I thought it was kinda cool also. Here are the pics....

This kid loves the water. He makes friends everywhere he goes so it's no surprise he would find them at the pool. We had a great time.

I have recovered from the two crowns I got and will be getting the other two before the end of the month. The calender is empty for the rest of the month. We are going camping for Labor Day weekend but that's about it. With school starting we wanted to keep things low key.

Are you smart enough to be a citizen??

Click on the link below and take the test. I took it and got a 95%. I got 19 out of 20 right! I guessed on one and it was a lucky guess!!!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25461301

The Shout! House

What an awesome time we had Saturday night! Myself along with 24 of my friends celebrated my birthday at The Shout! house. That place is soooo fun! They played so many fun sing along songs. We were hardly able to sing by the end of the night our voices were so hoarse. We reserved 6 tables. We were lucky because they put us right in front of the pianos. Best seats in the house. They have 2 pianos going at all times. They also play some drums and a guitar for some songs. There are 4 people total that take turns performing throughout the night. We had so much fun we were there until they closed at 2am. We went to Humberto's on the way home because nothing tastes better than a burrito from there when you are out late!!!! I love it now that you cant smoke in bars and restaurants. It was nice to come home and not reek of smoke. I can't believe I am 36 already! It seems like yesterday I was in high school. I would not go back for the world. There is something to be said for getting older.

They called me up to the stage and had 5 of the guys that were with our group come up and sing to me. They sang the song from Top Gun "You've Lost That lovin Feeling" It was so funny!!! And so hot up there on that stage. The theme of the night was lets call the birthday girl up to the stage and sing to and embarrass her!!! It was fun.

After they were done singing the piano player called me over and slapped a Shout House bumper sticker on by BIG old butt!!!! Nice panty line don't ya think? He needed 2 to cover my cheeks!

On stage again.

Singing our hearts out and then doing the chicken dance.

Billy and Michelle. So glad they came. Don't get to see them often enough. Todd and Billy grew up together and I went to high school with Billy and Michelle.

Veronica, Michelle & Patti. These girls love to dance and have their pictures taken.

Max and Gio!

Gio, sandy and Sandy's sister. Love Gio and Sandy. We meet them when Todd was working for the city of Peoria. Very fun to go out with. Gio on the right and her hubby serge are awesome salsa dancers. We always have a good time with them!

My best friend Traci and her hubby Kris! Love you guys!

Karen and Kelly! Love em. Thanks Karen for paying the piano players to play brick house and dedicate it to me. Nothing like a 600 pound woman shaking her brick house for all to see!!

Ya make me wanna SHOUT!!!!!
Come on now SHOUT!!!!

I love my birthday!!!!

The three amigos. J.R. Billy & Todd. All three grew up together and were in our wedding!

Brad heard "we need volunteers from the audience" That's all he needed to hear. He was on the stage in 2 seconds. Can't remember the song they were singing but I remember is was funny!!!