Have you ever MADE money while shopping?

I did the other day. Woohoo! I have been trying to do the coupon thing for a little while, I am not an expert, like those people who get a whole basket of groceries for $5 or something. But I do like saving a buck here and there, and since the cost of everything seems to be going up, but our income is not, anything I can do to stretch what we have is a help. So I follow some blogs to help me find good deals. One deal I got was for some fabric softener sheets. There was a $3 off coupon for any Gain Fabric Softener, and over at Dollar General they had boxes of 60 for $2.75. I had 3 coupons, so when it rang up the display said "Due to cust $0.26." Sweet, right. Not only were they free I got 26 cents from the store. The cashier was a little skeptical, but she gave it to me anyway. I suppose most people would just buy other things so the total wouldn't be negative, but I just wanted the free things. Not all stores will give you money back, but when they do, it feels pretty great! Yeah for coupons!

Sunny San Diego

I had a rough fall. I am sure there were many contributing factors, but mostly it was just me. I think hormones may have played a part, and the whiney 1-year old (who was probably teething most of that time). Whatever it was, I decided I needed a break. A vacation from being Mommy. So that is what i wanted for Christmas, and thanks to my parents and Joe I got it. So a couple of weeks ago I went to San Diego with just my sister. Some fun girl time. It was very nice. We had a great time. We went to Coronado Island, on a whale watching trip, we saw the temple (but unfortunately it was closed for repairs), went to Old Town, and to Balboa Park. We kept no real time schedule (except when trying to catch the ferry or trolley), got up when we wanted (which was earlier that I had hoped, but somehow my body thought it was time to wake up!), went to bed when we wanted, ate when we wanted. It was refreshing and rejuvinating, and really hard to come home to snow! It was in the 60s and 70s while we were there. Only needed a jacket after the sun went down. But when we got to Denver, it was snowing!
Here are some pictures:

Balboa Park has some really cool architecture. It was originally built back in 1915 as a temporary celebration area, but people liked it so much, they kept it. They had to do some work though since the original facades were basically paper mache. Crazy, huh?


The palm tree canyon at Balboa Park. Over 450 types of palms. Wasn't quite warm enough that day to make me feel like I was back in Hawaii though.


One of the monument dedicated to "The Greatest Generation." It was over 30ft tall. Kind of cool.


The Mormon Batallion museum in Old Town was fun. And different that it was when I went over 12 years ago. (Jen and Jer you will have to go check it out sometime!) It was interactive and fun!

The San Diego Temple (of course)

In the Fiesta del Reyes marketplace in Old Town. Fun shopping and music. Great food at the Old Town Mexican Cafe!

Cool ship, the Star of India, down at the harbor.

The sunset on the beach at the Hotel del Coronado.

A grey whale tale.

I made yogurt

That's right. I made yogurt in my crockpot. How cool is that? And it is easy and cheap. You just need half a gallon of whole milk and a half cup of plain yogurt. I found the link on my friend's blog (thanks Bekah). http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-can-make-yogurt-in-your-crockpot.html

I have been meaning to try it for a while, but finally did it last week. And then I did it again Saturday. I did strain it. I bought some coffee filters and lined my colanders (i used 2 so there wasn't so much in one and drained better.) Now I have Greek-style yogurt. I made some blueberry sauce with fresh blueberries to mix in it. Joe made some vanilla syrup with real vanilla beans. Yummy! It is really good, and I love not having any of that high-fructose corn syrup in my yogurt. You could make lots of flavors. The possibilities are plentiful. So if you are home all day, I definitely recommend trying it.

I'm freezing

How is I let the whole month of February go by with no posts? What a slacker I am. I have thought about posting many times, but never sat down to do it.

Just thought I would share a weather update for today. It was 40 some degrees warmer today than yesterday, and still not above freezing. That's right, yesterday as I took Eli to school at 7:30am, it was -17 degrees. And the high was -2. Yes, you read that right, NEGATIVE 2. I am glad it was in the 20s today, and then this afternoon it started to snow. I just hope it continues to warm up because negative temperatures are not nice. I don't like the cold. I am blaming it for my sluggishness and grumpiness. (Also because I was in San Diego last week and returned home on Monday to cold and snow. Ugh! It did not make me excited to come home. More about that trip later.)