Anybody else's husband LOVE watching weird shows on PBS. Jeff does and some of them I just don't get into. So I blog instead. One time he stayed up until the wee hours of the morning watching some show about wild horses. The next morning he went on and on about each horse and their personalities and...it went on and on. Okay, so I totally have to laugh right now. I was writing the last few lines, Jeff flipped the channel to PBS and sure enough, a big white horse is galloping across the screen and the title comes on. "Majestic: The White Horses of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna". It is about the Lippezanner and honestly I think those horses are beautiful and talented. It reminds me of ballerina's but horse form. Anyway, Jeff also talks out loud randomly about what he is watching which cracks me up. As if I am really listening and paying attention. Something else that we both love watching late at night during the weekends is The Closer. I love that show. We will also watch an old Closed Case once in a while. I love these types of shows. Gunnar will see one coming on and get so excited that daddy's shows are on. What!? Just dad's shows? I like them too. Wonder what he thinks "my" shows are? May So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Biggest Loser...
Something exciting happened today. Albertsons right now is having this big giveaway game thing. There are lots of prizes to win such as $250,000, a boat, a car, a backyard makeover, an IPAD, a camera and lots of other smaller cash prizes. You need to collect these little game pieces and have to buy things there to earn them. Attached to the little game pieces are also random coupons. But sometimes you get lucky. Instead of a coupon there is a coupon for something free like donuts, canned vegetables, extra game pieces, toilet paper, pop, etc. I've earned about 3 or 4 donuts and a few extra games pieces. That's it until today. I completed a section on the board and WON! Well I only won $2.00 but I was so excited and so was Gunnar. He loved that we won something. The $2 section was the prize that they give the most away of but I was just so excited to win anything. There are so many people playing and so many people that have yet to win a single thing. Mindy and I talked about it not too long ago about not knowing anyone that has won. Granted I would love to win something a little bigger, I was happy with my $2. I had to laugh because they asked if they could announce my win over the entire store PA system. Sure why not. And they were funny about not mentioning exactly what I won. Nobody needed to know that it was just $2.
Anyone else playing the game and won anything? I figured I do all of my coupon shopping there, why not play the game.
Last week my friend and I took our kids to a benefit steak fry that she had tickets for. I need gas before we went so I headed to Flying J. It totally brought back a memory that I forgot about. One day, years ago, I got home from work to find a note on our front door. It stated that a police officer was trying to get a hold of us about gas. We could not figure out what it was about. Jeff called the officer back and discovered that he had not paid for his gas at Flying J. They identified his truck and licence plate from security cameras. He was in such a hurry to get to work when he was in construction, he forgot to go inside and pay! I had to go back and talk to the grumpy lady that whipped out a large book of non payers. I paid the bill and we were good to go. Maybe that is why you now have to prepay for gas. People like Jeff were coming through and not paying.
During the spring/early summer, one of ours trees blooms large flowers. How neat is that. It is not a magnolia. I don't think. I don't really know what it is but it sure is pretty. Six years ago when we moved here, the tree didn't do that. The older it gets the more it blooms.
So we are still watching the show about the Lippezanner horses and it is a pretty interesting PBS show. These horses are quite fascinating. The training they go through is extensive. It just ended.
This last weekend I went yard saleing and hit it big on everything that I found. I was quite happy. I found a 3 burner propane Coleman camping stove for $20 in great condition. I asked him to consider less but I was comfortable with the asking price anyway. I know how much they are originally and this one was the 3 burner and in really great shape. He even threw in a propane bottle. We used Mindy and Rillz's when we went camping and those things are quite amazing. They can bring water to a boil in like 3 seconds flat. I knew we needed one for future camping trips. We were also in need of PFD's for our canoe. Jeff and I didn't really have any and we needed to be a good example to our boys plus they are good to have. I found a yard sale selling several. The most awesome thing is that they were selling a higher end Kelty. After our most recent camping trip and Jeff wearing the baby backpack where the buckle was in the middle of his back, I was thinking of getting something different. So I found this Kelty. The man wanted $20 for it. That is actually an awesome price for it. So I ended up getting 2 adult PFD's and a child's along with the Kelty. He wanted $45 for all. I had a $20 bill but needed more money. He was out in the country so I headed to the closest gas station for more money. The stupid thing was that they didn't offer cash back on purchases but did have an ATM. So dumb! I pulled out $20 realizing that I couldn't get $5 from the machine. I headed back, risking him wanting it all, and he accepted $40 instead of $45 for all 4. I was stoked! But I later realized he probably wondered why I didn't get out another $20 to pay for the overage. I honestly didn't think about it. I was so fixated on the $5 only. At another yard sale I ended up getting Gunnar school uniform clothes for 2 years away for cheap. I had shown up at that yard sale earlier but they weren't "open" but the guy let me browse around anyway. So I did and scouted out what I wanted. I wound up getting Cami $2 Children's Place snow pants (which are awesome!) and Gunnar a $5 Columbia snowboard coat. At other yard sales I got 4 shirts for me at $.50 a piece, a pair of really cute winter boots for $4 and a skirt for something. Can't remember what I paid...I know it was cheap. Saturday my friend and I went out and stumbled upon this yard sale so late in the afternoon where the lady just wanted to get rid of things cheap. She used to be a manager at The Children's Place so she had the best clothes from there. Her little boy was just a little younger than Gunnar so we didn't find any boy things that would work but we found the cutest things for Cami and my sister in law that will be having a girl this fall. We got it all for $3 and I had a huge armful of things. Jeff told me about another yard sale around the corner from us that he went by to work. I got a few things for my sister in law from that one too. They people were preparing to move and wanted to unload. Gunnar also got something there but it will have to have its own post.
One of the best things that I found was this Ruff Wear dog pack. I have been looking for one of these for Diesel for about a week. I narrowed it down to this particular brand for several reasons but they are spendy!! Saturday night I was getting ready to bid on one on Ebay but decided to randomly search for one again (I did this search everyday for the entire week) and sure enough one popped up at a yard sale in Boise. What do I do? I dispatch Mindy on the task. It was already late in the afternoon and thankfully it was still there! They wanted $20 and Mindy offered $15 which is an AWESOME deal for these but later we realized we should have low balled them at $10. I bet they would have taken it. Especially since they mentioned that whatever they didn't sell would be donated. She was there like an hour before their quitting time. There are two different packs from this maker. The mainstream version and then to Cadillac of packs version. This turned out to be the Cadillac of packs version called the Palisades! I was even more excited. The kicker is that these packs are $124 new! Can you believe that. Used on Ebay, there are still going for $70-80. I could not believe it. Diesel looks so responsible with it on. In the comments section about the product on their site, so many people were buying packs to give their dogs a "job" on their walks. It tires them out more and they are not so crazy hyper. Cezar Milan, the dog whisperer, does this. It totally works! The last couple of nights he has worn this and gets so serious. It makes me laugh. When other dogs are near, he totally ignores them and keeps moving on. He has a job to do people. He loves it and so do we.
The other great thing we bought from craigslist this weekend was an REI Kinder Cone sleeping back for Gunnar. My friend had mentioned that they wanted to get a nice sleeping bag for their daughter that Gunnar is buddies with. I remembered seeing someone selling two of these REI bags. We ended up dispatching Mindy on these as well for pickup. The kiddos were so excited and these bags are awesome. They are originally $60 for a kids sleeping bag that we got for $20 a piece. They were in mint condition and just awesome little mummy bags. In order to get them home, we sent them through the Heidi Express. Heidi takes the money with her to work, Mindy drops them off at her work down the road from her house and picks up money, and Heidi delivers them to my house when she picks up Gunnar for preschool/work. I never left my house start from finish! I love my sisters and any one of us would do this for each other. Overall I had a really fun shopping weekend. I can't believe I actually found some awesome things that we were looking for anyway.
I was missing a magnet thingamajig to get the lids out of the hot water and a jar lifter. I went EVERYWHERE for that stupid (sorry Gunnar for saying that-he thinks it is a bad word) jar lifter. Nobody had it and I mean nobody. I went to Winco (found the magnet thing there but not the other), Shopko (sold out of everything canning and wasn't getting more), Ride Aid, Albertsons, Walmart, Kmart (this poor lady with 2 kids was also looking for the same thing, I told her to trust me that I searched everywhere, I regret not telling her that I had one more place to try around the corner and to follow me just in case they did). So I remember the farmers market where I got that book around the corner. It was worth a shot on the way home. Sure enough they had baskets full of them. I felt so bad about not telling that lady. She could have followed me and I would have run in to check and tell her so she didn't have to get out. It was heaven find those stupid (there's the word again) things. 
So on my search at Shopko, I ran across the best thing ever. We have been wanting a really good set of pots and pans for ever, like 7 years. Our wedding ones were trash a long time ago, this second set was a cheapo new se off of craigslist about 7 years ago. So as I was wondering through Shopko, I happened upon a display model of Kitchenaid hard anodized pots and pans with everything there. They looked brand new, not a scratch on them. They just didn't have the box but the paperwork was there. The price tag on them was $79.99. 
The original price tag on them was $229.99. The cheap, cheap, cheapo sets are that price to start. I seriously could not pass that up and called Jeff right away. He said that I could get them as long as I understood that they were my birthday and Christmas present. I was fine with that. I scooped them up and hauled off for the registered. I was stoked. Jeff tried to tell me that I needed to wrap them up and wait for my birthday in November. Are you kidding me. We could seriously die from something on the other pots and pan sets. They were bad. So bad that I was too embarrassed to take a picture of them. It was bad. The surface stuff was coming off. It was bad. 
Back to my excitement. The lady at the yard sale was also selling those big canning pots with the jar rack and a strainer thingy. And she sold it to me for...$2.00! I was so excited. It also made me feel good when I bring it back to the car and Gunnar goes, "Oooh mommy, I like that!" So I don't know how to can but I am slowly collecting the "stuff" to one day do it (really what it is, I just don't have time or energy to do it this year). 
Gunnar insisted on having a picture with it. Not sure why but he is mildly obsessed with the strainer though.
Right after this find, we were headed to another yard sale that advertised a rug that I wanted. They advertised it for $20 and it was a little lighter than I would have hoped but at that price it would work. For 4 years I have wanted a rug for the front room but was too cheap to pay the price for a new one. I couldn't bring myself to doing it. I just couldn't. The bummer thing about the sale is that it had been going on since the day before, so it may not be there anymore. I was willing to take the chance. As we neared the place, I could see it layed out. I was so thrilled. I was even more thrilled to see that it was marked down to $15. It was in perfect condition. The owners redecorated and could not find another spot for it. She said that they tried really hard but it didn't work any where else. I was also really excited to find that the color was darker in real life. It was the perfect color for me. I was a very happy girl. Now that obsession is over. 
That afternoon, we were headed to a free carseat safety check in Meridian at the 
There is also an awesome deal with the Easy Mac cups. With Gunnar going with Heidi to work twice per week, these are great. Also for Jeff home from lunch and on a time crunch. This is how it worked: 
