Pedernales Falls, Part 2

Today I have the rest of the pics I took at Pedernales Falls - these are the scenic ones. I thought the park was gorgeous, and could not stop taking pictures!

These were taken at the Falls part of the park.















And these were taken downstream, by our campsite.

Couponing, Part 1

Someone told me I should do a post on my coupon usage. I started to think about it, and realized that there is way too much info for just one post. So today I will post the first part of my coupon series.

First, an explanation. I am by no means an expert, but I use coupons all the time. I am always on the lookout for more ways to save money, and people ask me about how I do it all the time.

The most common type of coupon I use is the one everyone thinks of when you say coupon: cut from the newspaper or printed from the internet, a manufacturer's coupon for a retail product. Most people know about the coupons in the paper, but don't bother cutting them out, because they think that they won't save that much money, so why bother? Also, a lot of people don't know that you can print these coupons off of the internet.

The place I find most of my internet coupons is Hot Coupon World. If you sign up for the mailing list, they send you an email once a week, telling you what new coupons have been posted. I highly recommend checking out that site.

Also on that site, you will find Target coupons. These are awesome! If you have a manufacturer's coupon for a product, and a target coupon for the same product, you can use them together! CVS is the only other store in our area that will allow that. I have gotten so many really good deals at Target because of their policy.

I plan to explain CVS couponing in another post, so check back.

One mistake people make when they use coupons is buying a product they never intended to buy, just because they have a coupon. That is a good idea if it's something you've been wanting to try, but in general I try to avoid this. When I look at the coupons available online, I don't even print out the coupon if the product isn't something that I need. I save myself paper, ink, and time that way.

I will post more about my coupon usage later - I plan to make this a little series.

What coupons do you use? Do you have any tips? Let me know!

Pedernales Falls

This past weekend, we took the kids (and Jeremy's sister Nichole) camping at Pedernales Falls State Park. We had a pretty good time, even though it was really hot there.

The park was beautiful! (I have many more pictures of all the scenery, but I will post them tomorrow).

When we were loading things up, Colette & Gavin really wanted to help.



It was a pretty ride up 281.





We played in the river twice on Saturday. The kids had a blast both times!







After the first time playing in the river, we went to the Falls part of the park. You aren't allowed to swim there, but you can walk around. It was so pretty there.



We got pretty hot (and both the kids get really red when they get hot), so we sat down and just enjoyed the view for a while...





Gavin somehow convinced Nichole to carry him back to the truck.



We went against all that is camping - we went out to eat! We went to Dairy Queen. I don't have those pics loaded to my computer yet. After that, we just hung out at our campsite for a little bit. The kids kept asking Nichole to spin them.







And I had to take a picture of our truck. It just looked so nice in the evening sun, lol.



And then we got bored, and went back down to the river. It was a pretty good little hike down there (it was pretty steep)











The next morning, we broke rules again - we ate burgers for breakfast! they were good, though.

We came home kind of early, because everyone was so hot & sticky. Nichole took the kids back down to the river while Jeremy & I packed up all the stuff.

Miss Vi & Mr. Gibs

This past weekend I got to visit with Elaine. We had lunch & then she came over with the kids for a while.

While we were at our house, we put a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs (I'm amazed we still had one!) so that Violetta wouldn't keep going up & down the stairs.

She was ok with that, but she was very worried about Danzig being stuck on the other side of the gate. She kept going over to the gate & pointing at the cat (she was trying to say kitty too, so cute!) and then she would walk away & jump around. It was pretty funny.





And I got to hang out with Mr. Gibs for a little bit...

Houston Trip, Part 4

And It's the last of the Houston pictures.

On sunday morning we let the kids play in the pool at Anthony's apartments for a while. They had a lot of fun - they love the water.







For a while Gavin had to go in time out, he kept running in & out of the pool. He was making goofy faces at me.







After the kids were done swimming, we went downtown to the Museum of Natural Science. This was our view of downtown from the car.



And these were taken at the museum.











They had some pretty cool things there for the kids (and adults) to play with. It was a pretty interactive museum.







After a while, Colette stared getting tired & didn't want me to take her picture. oh well, I'm a mean mommy. I only took one though.



After that, she helped me pick what to take pictures of.