Picnic in the Park

We've been having some beautiful evening weather lately, so we decided to take advantage and go for our first family picnic in the park. We picked up some sandwiches, pasta salad and watermelon at the Kroger and headed down to Schiller Park in German Village.

After playing on the playground and eating dinner, we headed over to feed the ducks. If Harper could have dove in and handed the bread to the ducks, she would have.

We even got an up close look at some land bound ducks.

It was a great way to spend some time as a family.

Rite of Passage

Skinned, dirty knees. That means we are doing a good job of being a kid!

To sell or not to sell

That is the question.

My mom has been storing my wedding dress in her closet since my wedding..so 5 years now. She finally had enough with it taking up so much room and asked me to make a decision. I never had it preserved because I just have a hard time spending money to put something in a box and never get anything out of it again. It's doing the same thing in my mom's closet so...I need to make a decision on whether to sell it or not. That was my original intention.

I have no delusion that Harper will want to wear it when she gets married. Who wants to wear a dress 25 years out of style. Don't get me wrong...my dress is beautiful. It's two pieces, which I loved. The top was a lace-up corset style, and the skirt was a traditional ball gown. I just don't think that Harper will want to wear it. Plus, I am most definitely looking forward to the search for her wedding dress.

All that being said, I might be having second thoughts on selling it. Now that I have to make the decision and I don't just get to filch free storage space off my parents, it's a little tough. I certainly don't have the room to store it. I'd have to find a place for my husbands giant lego collection in order to get the room in our spare bedroom closet.

On the other hand, I could use the money to do something for myself that it totally selfish that I just can't bring myself to pay for otherwise. I really want to have my hair permanently straightened. I hate having to get up an hour before work to get it done. And that's just the straightening part. I usually do the washing and drying the night before. So I could justify the cost of the hair by selling the wedding dress.

I just don't know. What do you all think?

Sell or Save?

My Stockpile

<---------Check it out!
My couponing total for the summer is over $600. Not too shabby.

On the show Extreme Couponing, the women are IN.LOVE with their stockpiles. I can understand. They worked hard to amass 72 bottles of hand soap. I don't have that kind of space or patience for turning a whole room in my house into a grocery store.

HOWEVER....It is impossible to do extreme couponing without gathering a stockpile. You just aren't maximizing the savings potential if you don't use all the coupons you have to score that good deal. I certainly don't have the mass quantities of coupons that the people on the show do, but here's what is in my stockpile

9 boxes of brownie mix (It was almost 15, but even though they were 50 cents a box, I couldn't justify having 15 boxes of brownie mix, so I gave the rest of my coupons to a lady in the aisle)
10 boxes of cereal
8 toothpastes
7 toothbrushes
8 men's body wash
8 sticks of deodorant
7 each shampoo/conditioner
9 boxes of tampons
6 bottles of laundry detergent

I'm pretty pleased with this because it is all stuff we use. I don't have 132 bottles of Frank's Hot sauce hanging out in my pantry.

Anyone want some brownies?!

Wordless Wednesday

NYC - A little late

For our anniversary I planned a surprise trip for Joe and I to NYC. Neither of us had been, but we both really wanted to go. We flew in Saturday morning and spent the day wandering around Times Square, 5th Ave and the Fashion District. We went to Top of the Rock, which is the observation deck of 30 rock and got some amazing views of the city.

We had our Concierge make us reservations at Tribeca Grill which is co owned by Robert De Niro. The food was good, but maybe not the greatest for the price.

Sunday morning we got up and decided to wait at the TKTS booth in time square to get tickets for a Broadway show. We really wanted to see How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying which stars Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette. The show was FANTASTIC! I have season tickets to the touring Broadway shows that come through Columbus, and they just don't compare. After the show, we joined the throngs of people waiting to get Daniel and John's autographs. We weren't nearly close enough as you can tell by this attempt to get a picture of Daniel. It doesn't help that he's only like 5 foot 4 or something.

Before the show we had spent the morning and walked around Central Park. It was really amazing that in the chaos of the city there was this beautiful space that was so quite and peaceful. I can definitely see the draw of living somewhere near the park

Our flight left Monday evening, so we spent the day down in the financial district. We saw all the construction happening at the World Trade center memorial site. Obviously there wasn't much to see with all the fencing up, but we got to look at it from above, and it was really moving to think of all that happened at that spot. We saw the Stock Exchange building as well. Then we walked around the South Street Seaport and took in the views of the Brooklyn bridge.

We wrapped up our day with pizza in Little Italy and some shopping.

It was a great trip and so nice to spend some time together for our anniversary.

Extra! Extra!

I've been MIA since Joe and I went on our anniversary trip to NYC. I'll post about that soon.

While we were gone Harper stayed with my parents. True to form, she decided to pick when I was out of town to put all of our tireless hours to good use.

Read all about it...I have a WALKING baby!

My parents took a video of one of her maiden voyages so we didn't totally miss out.

Her new favortie past time is chasing the cat. She's not as quick as he is, but she always gets her man.