The end of 2009

Christmas certainly was exciting and different this year. Instead of spending the day with family, Josh and I spent a quiet day at home by ourselves since we were in the middle of a blizzard. We were extremely thankful for a warm house, food to eat (even though they were leftovers!), and time to celebrate Christ's birth. We even caught up on some cleaning! We will be postponing our Christmas gathering until tomorrow, pending the arrival of my parents. Here are some pictures of our holiday excitement the last few days.

Big rawhide.

Kobi jumping the huge drifts.

Josh is excited to start scooping.

New tunnel for the piggies.

Romeo was in mouse heaven.

Fall is here.

I keep getting worse and worse about blogging on here! Sorry about that.
Well, summer is officially over and my first REAL semester of graduate school has begun. This is my biggest semester and I feel it already. The homework never stops but I am still enjoying it so far. Things are always interesting. Josh also moved stores and is now working in a different area of the store. This means we (when I say we that really mostly means Josh :) ) have been getting up earlier. Josh has to be to work around 3:30 AM.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go to Kansas City to hang out with two of my good friends from high school (Lisa and Lindsey) and their families. They both have new little, cute, adorable babies so it was fun to play with them too. We also took Kobi and he had a fun time playing with Lisa's dog Rev.

Today I plan to clean, decorate our house for fall, and finishing reaping the last of our garden harvest. We'll see if I accomplish it all! I should be doing homework but since it's my day off...

So cute!!!

Aw, they're friends already.

Tired boy.

Another tired boy.

Kobi did not want to stay.

Animals!

Since I feel I should be fair and not just talk about Kobi all the time :) here are some pics of other awesome animals we've spent time with lately!

Aww. Romeo hiding from the camera.
Bella was really excited about the hay I gave them.



Josh petting the billy goat.

I caught a feather-legged chicken!

Super Retriever Series: Superfly

I realize I've been seriously slacking on the blogging so I'll try to catch up. These are only from last weekend...only a week late right?


Last weekend we had the opportunity to enter Kobi in a dock jumping competition! It was sponsored by Scheel's but the event occurs at several places all over the country. Kobi competed in the amateur series since he'd never jumped before. There were around 40 dogs that competed! The first place winner then got an automatic spot into "The Pros"! Since Kobi absolutely loooves water and we taught him to jump off the dock at Okoboji a few weeks ago, we thought he might do alright. Well he did better than just alright and ended up getting 4th place with a personal best jump of 17 feet, 1 inch! He just missed getting a medal. We were so proud of our puppy! :) You can check out the SRS website here for more information and pics.

Saturday's daily deals

My sister and I decided to go shopping at No Frills yesterday since there was several really good deals.
Here's what I got for $30.96:

10 Kraft Macaroni & Cheese .29 each after $2 coupon when you buy 10
4 Ragu $1.13 each after 2 .75 coupons off 2
2 pasta FREE when you buy 2 Ragu
Skippy PB .73 each after 2 .75 coupons off 2
2 loaves bread FREE when you buy 2 Skippy PB
4 Canned corn .50 each
5 Shredded cheese .98 each
4 Lipton Rice/Pasta sides .73 each after 2 .50 coupons off

Approx. 7 lb. 93% ground beef (can't really see in pic) at $1.88 per lb

Okoboji Trip

Mini-golfing session. I got last but it was fun!

Roasting marshmallows and making hobo pies over the campfire.

This picture is to prove the guys were helping the women with the food work! Haha just kidding boys! You did a great job.

We had lots of fun on the boat (hint hint to you Bob!), especially Kobi who tried to jump out at every chance he got.

Even Kobi went tubing!

Kobi learned how to jump off the dock to retrieve his ball.

Kobi wasn't cooperating very well during the family picture but oh well, everyone still looks good!

Birthday Shopping (Thank you!)

Since I had gotten a gift card from Josh's family to the mall for my birthday (thanks Bob, Merry, & Ann!), I decided to do some shopping yesterday and today. I was pretty excited about my clothing finds since I will need dress clothes for school. My sister and I went yesterday and I found 2 pairs of dress pants at JC Penney. They were marked down to $10 and then 20% off that. $8 each! Also, I found a nice brown purse originally $42 and with the mark downs it ended up being $16. Next, we went to the Limited (a store I always want to shop at but usually don't because it's a little pricey). However, they actually had a large section of clearance. I found a nice pair of khaki pants that fit me really well but were still marked $25 (over my price range). I thought I would ask them to check the price (you never know!) just in case. They were still $25 but the cashier said she'd let me in a secret that all of their clearance would be an additional 50% the next day. Woo hoo! So I put them on hold. Today Josh and I went back to get them and I ended up finding three nice shirts for $5 and a suit jacket (originally $168!!) for $15. And I still have money left!

Vietnam Traveling Wall

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Vietnam Traveling Wall, a replica of the wall found in Washington D.C. The wall stopped in Geneva; it's only stop in Nebraska this year. Visiting was a very powerful experience, as it stretched approximately half a block either way and contained some 58,000 names of young men and women killed or missing in action from the Vietnam War.

The wall began and ended in one corner.

Visitors had traveled from states away to visit here and some looked for names of a loved one. This man was very emotional as he sat looking at a name.

Plaque representing the women of the war.

Visitors had left mementos of loved ones.

3 men from Fillmore County had died in the war; 2 within days of each other.


Flags representing each person killed from the state were formed into the shape of Nebraska.

Target Daily Deals

The day wouldn't be complete without a trip to Target! This was a really good money saver and I wanted to share it!

Here is the breakdown:
Josh needed a new flagpole since ours broke :(. This one was 75% off making it $5.
I've never tried the 'Kashi' brand of cereal or bars but it was an awesome deal!
2 boxes of Kashi cereal on sale for $2.66, used 2 $1.50 coupons, $0.50/1 coupon, and B1G1 coupon = Free plus $0.94 overage!
2 boxes of Kashi bars on sale for $2.50 (although one rang up at $2.16), used 2/$1.50 off one coupon, and $1/2 coupon = $0.33 each
2 boxes sandwich/quart bags priced at $1.99 each, used $0.50 coupon = $1.49 each
4 small cups of Edy's ice cream priced at $1.19 each, used $1/1 coupon = $0.19 each
Market Pantry frozen pizza priced at $3.19, used $1/1 coupon = $2.19
French's Dijon mustard was $1.87, used $1/1 coupon = $0.87

Total before coupons was close to $30, actual total was $9.41!

Daily deals!

I did our weekly shopping today after the ads (finally) came so I could price match everything! I ended up spending a little more than I wanted, but I couldn't pass up some of these great deals. Thankfully, Fareway had already changed their prices to match other stores so check-out went a lot faster. Here's what we bought at Fareway:

Here is a re-cap of some of the especially good deals:
10 boxes of Kellogg's: Priced at $1.98 each, used 4 $1/2 coupons found from in-store machine, then I will send in the Kellogg's $10 rebate after buying 10 items = $0.60 per box
10 lbs 93% ground beef: price match from Super Saver at $1.78 per lb. = $18.25
6 Blue Bunny Yogurts: Priced $5/10, used $1/6 coupon from in-store promotion = $0.33 each
Approx. 5 lb. bag of apples: $1.99 found in bargain bin
3 1 lb bags of baby carrots = $0.77 each
Bananas for $0.49 per lb. = $0.46

After using a $5/$50 coupon given to me by my super-nice sister (Thanks Roxanne!), the total for my groceries was $52.18. Not bad considering the meat was nearly $20 of that!
What deals did you find this week? :)

Yay! Produce from our garden! Anyone need romaine lettuce?? We have lots. This is the second batch of green beans!

Kobi relaxing.

Update

Nothing too exciting has happened as of late as you can tell by the lack of posts! Our 4th of July was pretty low key, Josh had to work early and then we went to see some fireworks that ended up being a little disappointing (only 10 min. long!). We decided to come home and watch our neighbors' shows instead. Other than that, we've just being relaxing/working at home, going to the gym, and biking.
Yesterday I took a trip to good 'ole Geneva to practice piano with my mom since we are playing in her church this Sunday. I also got to see my grandma at her new home (assisted living home in Fairmont), which was fun! My mom didn't tell Grandma I was coming so she seemed pleasantly surprised. My mom and I ate lunch with my grandma's neighbors and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with my grandma's neighbors. I sat by Floyd, a thin man who wore Dickie's overalls. He seemed very quiet so I decided I would try to strike up friendly conversation. This idea quickly flopped! I had noticed that the majority of people coming to the table to eat were women. I gently placed my hand on his arm and asked, "Are you the only boy with all these girls here?" I thought for sure this would get a smile. Without glancing at me Floyd replied, "Yep." Silence. Then, "But I'm no boy, I'm a man." "Excuse me!" I said while trying to mask my laugh. Floyd didn't speak to me the rest of lunch. Then there was Rose, a fiesty woman with a Cajun accent. She was a Katrina victim who had relocated to Nebraska and ended up staying since her children and grandchildren were here. She enjoys having her grandchildren come play with her (and buying them candy!) several times a week. Lastly there was Esther, a 96-year-old who looked 70. Esther was very educated I quickly learned, as she loved to talk about politics (she made it clear she did not favor Obama), education (she taught rural school for 31 years), farming, and her husbands. Yes, husbands plural. She was married to her first husband for around 40 years (not sure) and then remarried for another 29 years. Her second husband died 2 years ago. Esther certainly had much wisdom to share. My favorite was her view of change: Sometimes we don't like change because it's hard to change. But we have to change because that's life and really change is good for us.
I almost didn't want to leave, I can't wait to work with that age of people!

2 Year Anniversary

Today was our two year wedding anniversary! To celebrate we decided to go to the new Transformers movie and then to Texas Roadhouse for supper! It was delicious. Josh even got me beautiful flowers!