Oh yeah, I forgot about collages....

Here we are at Zion National Park

And this is the famous pond in Bunkerville. :) We rock it Hillbilly style!! Love it!

Mini-vacay

A few pictures of what we did this weekend! Too tired to blog. Enjoy!

8 Years and Going Strong

Darrell and I celebrated our 8th anniversary this weekend. Technically our anniversary is Monday the 17th, but Darrell flew out today. We took the boys to the Mayan Adventure restaurant. They have an indoor waterfall where they have divers do a show where they dive off the cliffs. It's pretty cool. The boys just loved it.

It was so dark inside when the show was going so I didn't really get very good pictures. This is the waterfall.

The cutest boys I have ever seen!!

This is one of the divers getting ready to jump off. Very cool!

After lunch we went and walked around IKEA. I was getting some decorating ideas for the house that we don't own yet. I love their kids stuff and their organization ideas.

After that we went to a yummy ice cream store that is near our home, but we had never been to before. So good! I, of course, got the raspberry cheesecake cone.

It was such a fun, relaxing day. We just took our time and enjoyed each other's company. I love my little family. One of the best anniversary's ever. I get to hog Darrell all to myself on Friday and Saturday next weekend so it was fun to share the day with the boys.

A Lesson in Couponing

I took my friend, Lydia, on her first coupon adventure yesterday. She had only been collecting coupons for one week so I gave her a bunch of mine to get the ball rolling. I wish we had more because the Albertson's sale is going on next week too. I had lots of fun helping her learn the ropes and I hopefully didn't overwhelm her. It's a lot to take in, but once you figure out the lingo and a few tricks it's easy as pie. Check out the amazing deals she got:

Smiths:
4 - 50 oz tide
4 - 13.5 oz. aussie conditioner
4 - 16 oz. Ken's dressing
5 - 6 oz. Beechnut baby food
3 - 5 oz. packages tuna fish
6 - 4 oz. cans green chilies

Total Value - $62.30
I spent - $16.90 at Smiths.

Albertsons
9 - 1 lb. 10 oz. ragu spaghetti sauce
8 - 10 oz. vaseline intensive care lotion
2 - 30 oz. best foods mayonnaise
4 - 300 count Q-tips
8 - 15 oz. skippy natural peanut butter
5 - 8 oz. bags chex mix
9 - 16 oz. wishbone dressings
2 - 3.1 oz. Betty Crocker warm delight brownies
3 - 8 pouch fruit roll up/ fruit gusher/ fruit by the foot combo boxes
1 - 8 pouch fruit roll up
6 - 12.25 oz. boxes Honey Nut cheerios
5 - 11.23 oz boxes cookie crisp
8 - 12.8 oz. boxes cinnamon toast crunch
3 - 18 oz. suave body wash
3 2.6 oz suave deodorants
1 - 17.5 oz. Betty Crocker choc. chip cookie mix

Total Value - $287.75
I spent $44.19
Plus I have $19 cash back to spend the next time I go to Albertsons.

So.... essentially I spent $25.19 at Albertsons.

Better Than Albertson's??

I think it might be true. Smith's is having a huge coupon doubling sale! I took a picture of everything I bought and instead of having my SD card in the camera it went onto the hard drive (which we never use and only holds like 20 pictures) and I have NO IDEA where the cord is to download it!! Anyway I will do my best to list what I bought.
5 bottles of Tide
5 boxes of 18pk Tampax
1 bottle of Cascade dishwasher soap
5 Crest toothpastes
1 Kids Colgate toothpaste
5 Covergirl Mascaras (My favorite!)
4 4pks of Dannon Yogurt
5 3pks of Extra gum
1 M&M's - had a free coupon for it
5 bottles of Pert 2 in1 shampoo (Love the 2 in1 kind for Collin)
4 cans of Ortega green chilis
2 bottles of Clean & Clear face wash
1 pack of AA Batteries
and one more mystery item that I couldn't make out on the receipt! :)
The total before coupons and handing over my Fresh Values card - $177.32! That's what my receipt says, but the screen I thought it said $180+
ANYWAY......I paid $40.41!! Wahoo! 45 items so just less than a dollar per item! I got so many toiletries that really eat up your budget. Don't you just hate paying money for Tampons? Somebody should be paying us right!?! I also earned my 15 cents of fuel reward. I like Albertson's fuel rewards better because you can earn up to $1.50 per gallon off and Smith's maxes out at 15 cents off, but I will take what I can get.
So excited! Darrell was with me and I was joking that he was having a heart attack when we saw our total. He's ok though once the total went down 79%! Did I ever mention I like coupons?

Meats and Treats

I bought my $30 in meat yesterday and sent in my $10 rebate. All the meat was on sale at Macey's for $1.69/lb. Including the garbage bags and ziploc freezer bags we spent about $38. Everything else in the picture is from Albertson's for $10! Can't beat that deal on feminine products and lots of Pop Tarts. Oh yes, and bananas - a staple at our house. Oh and the best part was that I got my first rebate back for $7.50 so I cashed that check and paid for most of my Albies trip! FREE!!!

Today Smith's was having a one day sale today on Kellogg's and Keebler products. Also they had a great Proctor and Gamble deal going so I got lots of shampoo, conditioner, and hairspray. After coupons everything came to $27.49, but I had a cash card from some cereal a while back worth $5. So I paid $22.29 for all that shampoo and cookies! My receipt says total savings of 73 percent and that doesn't deduct the $5 because that was technically a form of payment, not a coupon. Darrell loves those Rice Krispies, so he will be so happy when he sees them. He's taking a nap! I wish!