Monday, September 8, 2008

First Sleep-over, Hanna, A Letterbox, and I-Spy

Whew! Just writing the title exhausts me! Maybe that's why I'm so tired; we were so busy the past two days!

Saturday (while waiting for Tropical Storm Hanna-more on that), we got a call from William's mom (Andrea) inviting Tucker to spend the night. This was something we had been talking about the boys doing. I brought Tucker over to their house around 2 and of course, ended up staying another 2 hrs chatting with Andrea. Tucker did really well and before I left kept saying: "are you leaving, Mommy?" Sort of the "Be gone with you" tone of his first day of school. I guess I should be happy that he is confident enough to stay over a friend's house and not need me but at the same time, I want him to need me. I guess it's all part of him growing up, which I'm still not sure about. They had pizza for supper and watched "Finding Nemo". This is a new home for William's family and they have been so excited to move in and get settled.

Hanna did not turn out to be as big of a deal as they made it out to be. We did get a lot of wind and while I certainly didn't want to have any trees come down, something other than some twigs and leaves would have been nice! Especially since I moved all the chairs, table and umbrella to underneath the deck and now need to bring them back out! And as it turns out, his soccer game did get cancelled because of the weather report. It had rained all Friday night and while it was cloudy, it didn't even really rain again until late Saturday afternoon! So we'll have to wait for next Saturday's game!

After we picked up Tucker, we went to find some letterboxes. We ended up only finding one, in a really neat, really old cemetery that is kept up surprisingly well. It's actually hidden down a dirt road that runs along 95. We attempted to find two others in some hiking trails behind the elementary school in Waterford but got really lost! We now have a compass but of course don't know how to use it other than to find a trail at 300 degrees for example. As for using it for it's actual purpose when you get lost, we're pretty much useless at trying to figure it out. Michael actually got us out---I was so discombobulated that I didn't even remember which direction we had come from. We will go back again and attempt it another time. To give you an idea of how lost we were, the instructions said the hike would take 20-30 minutes and it was rated "easy". Nothing about climbing up rock ledges was easy; we went in at 12noon and came out at 1:30!

From there we went and had lunch at McDonald's and onto Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London which has Free First Sundays every month. Their new exhibition is by the photographer who did the I-Spy books. They had all the upstairs galleries
(4-5 rooms) with paintings and models all along the I-Spy themes. It was fun looking at all the paintings and trying to find the objects. There were some art activities available but Tucker actually didn't want to do any. There were also some yummy refreshments. We wandered into other galleries to look at the other paintings. The good thing, besides it being free, is Tucker asked me when we can go back. The exhibition is on until January. Now that we know how nice the museum is, we will go back again on the first Sunday of the month (when we can!)

2 comments:

Sweet Woodruff said...

If you want, you can check out www.thegrocerygame.com

You cut out your coupons and go here on Sunday to get a print out of all the deals at your local stores. You shop the deals, plus use your coupons and you end up getting stuff at a steal of a price. They have a data base and know when items hit the bottom dollar price. You buy at that time and stock up. For example, I bought the large Spray and Wash yesterday for .90 cents each so I got two for later use. Clear as mud?

It took me a few weeks to finally figure it out and feel comfortable with the system. I was soooooooo overwhelmed. You also have to stick with it for about 12 to 16 weeks before you start seeing a huge amount of savings. I've been doing it 6 weeks and can already see a difference. We're saving our receipts and figure we've cut our grocery bill in half. It's worth checking out, but keep in mind, you have to stick with it.

Some people can do this without the help, but I like someone doing all the thinking and planning for me. After several weeks, you start shopping your pantry and freezer for dinner, instead of the grocery store at full price.

It's been more fun than I thought it would be. My husband or my son shops with me. My 17 year old daughter makes grocery runs for me because she is having so much fun driving. LOL The whole family is involved.

Does that make sense? If you decide to sign up, let me know and I'll give you my email address. They have a referral (sp?) system and if I refer 3 people, I get 12 weeks free. :) It's $10 for your first store and $5 for each additional store you add. They also have drug stores in the system as well. I'm normally too cheap to try something like this, but it is really helping us. I'm glad I went for it.

God bless you. I'm going to go check out your blog and read now. :)

Sweet Woodruff said...

Letterboxing is on my list of things to do. That is so cool. I'm glad Hanna didn't blow you over. I liked the Hooters song you have up. I haven't heard that song in forEVER!!!!! I used to have that record. I bet I still do, somewhere.

Take care.