yahoooooo!

Hubby's orders have been cut.  He has to be in CA mid-September so it looks like we'll travel with him.  It will probably be too warm in Lemoore for us then so we'll head to the coast until it gets cooler.  I don't want to blow the A/C in the camper.

Until then, I'll be cleaning and organizing.  And desperately trying to figure out how to pack about six months worth of stuff into a 34 ft camper.

And so it begins................................

Photos from our walk tonight....

This is what we see when we walk down the street.  The girls love to run, pick flowers, and unfortunately, rocks.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Summer schedule

We've been on summer schedule, unintentionally for about a month already.  We were expecting orders to be cut for us to move so we went to half school days to clean out and organize stuff.  Then the sicknesss hit that lasted about 10 days.  Then it was really too late to start a new unit for science and history.  So, we've just been working on math, reading, writing, and spelling.

We'll continue the same for the summer, only working four days a week, about an hour each day.  Not each thing everyday, just a little.  This will help too, for when we do move out of the house and into the camper. 

I'm still working on lessons for next year.  I want all my copies made and lessons made for history, geography, and science.  I will probably be working on reading this summer.  I have a bunch of books to read and prepare for TL's school year. 

I'm still working on making a small stockpile of food and supplies for the house.  Not extreme couponish-some of those people are nuts.  I saw one lady with diapers and no child.  Another had 78 bags of cat treats she got for free and she doesn't have a cat.  Then why not give it to the local shelter?  Some of them do, but most don't.  I consider that hoarding, especially when you have 250 rolls of toilet paper under the bed.

None of the stores on the island double coupons, so I'm settling for stocking up when things are on sale and trying to use a coupon with them.  Cereal is a big item.  I try not to pay over $1.25 a box.  I've got bbque sauce, ketchup, and a couple of other things that I've stocked up.  I've got soap and deodorant for the boys stocked up.  I have eight bottles of good smelly soap for the girls. Unfortunately with five of us in the house, that won't last too long!  I need to stock up on shampoo and toothpaste.  I would really love to know how they stock up on free toilet paper.  I would love not to spend money on something we literally flush down the toilet. 

Its a rainy day here on the island.  I'm going to do a little cleaning and climb Mt. Laundry and the kiddos are going to have a movie day I think.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Lesson planning and financial wisdom

I am working hard on my lesson plans.  My goal is to have all/most of them done by the end of the month.  I pretty much write my own history, literature, and science lessons; so it takes me a while.  This year I also have to work on my preschool stuff.  I've got that outlined, just getting it all set takes a little time.  I'm gathering binders, books, and other stuff and piling it on the table.  This will be my work space for a while. 

Long ago I figured out how much money we would save if we didn't order out for pizza every week.  Pizza is a family favorite and easy to make, however, costs a bundle to buy.  At $20 per week, we were spending $1040 a year on pizza, and that's if we only spent $20.  Usually it was more.  Now, I stock up on pizza making supplies and make our pizza night really fun for the kids.

We don't often eat out, its just too expensive.  We did once this week because daddy was leaving and it was a huge bill.  I felt guilty for asking to go out to eat when we could have spent the money somewhere else.  I guess its alright if you only go once in a blue moon, but I doubt we'll be eating out any time soon.

Our other big luxury is dairy queen.  The kids love to go for ice cream.  Most of the time its too cold here to go out to have any, but we go on several occassions.  I've seen that bill go up and up too.  My kids love when we make ice cream at home, so I think that will be our plan from now on.  I plan on stocking up on fun sundae materials and of course, straws for milkshakes (another favorite).

We enjoy donuts too, however, we don't have a donut shop on the island.  I'm toying with making my own.  I've done it once and it wasn't too hard.  I just need to find a good recipe.  Anyone got one to share?

How does your family save money food wise?  Do you go out to eat often?  Splurge on donuts or ice cream?

Just waiting......

One of the things that frustrates me about the military is the waiiitttiiinnngggg.  We're still waiting for orders to be signed so we have official word on our move.  We can't pack up or leave housing without it.  So, I'm waiting......although not so patiently.  You see, I wanted to be packed up before hubby leaves for seven weeks next week.  I wanted to move around in the camper and see some more of WA.  Nope, I'm stuck in the house, waiting, waiting.....I could get the camper and travel, but I still have to return and pack up the house.....ggrrrrr....

In the meantime, here's some things I will miss about WA.  These I took while walking down the street.

Here's our Campfire Kids year end celebration.  Bug-a-bug is singing with her leader.  We'll miss Campfire Kids.  The girls have really enjoyed it.  Sadly, no campfire kids near us when we move.  I looked for Heritage Girls too, and they are pretty far away.  There's a great Awana program, but I wanted more.  I'm not a fan of Girl Scouts and their new program.

Princess is lighting the candle for the ceremony.

I'm going to miss our swing set.  The back yards are really tiny where we're moving and it won't fit.  The kids spend lots of time swinging.  Its also Monkey's favorite thing to do.

Monkey loves to swing!

TL getting his green belt.  He has to start all over with another form of taekwondo when we move.  They don't have a studio anywhere near that he could continue. 

Little Miss eating tacos.  I didn't realize I haven't taken any recent photos of her.  The girls took this one day during lunch.

Right now, I'm trying to organize lessons for next year.  I'm trying to get the history, science, and geography all planned out.  I just bought binders to keep all these plans in.  Why I never did that before I'll never know.  I decided to make the plans user friendly to accomodate the different levels of learning.  I'm going to have binders galoore, but then I shouldn't have to do much planning with the little ones!

Have a wonderful week everyone!!  I look forward to hearing about your lessons for next year.  Do you plan during the summer?