Saturday, October 26, 2013
A modern day Gideon (or two)
http://www.gofundme.com/Harrisons2Haiti
God has been working in my life, and in Jacob's life all these years, gently, lovingly, patiently pushing us to do more and go deeper. For whatever reason, we found ourselves in a position similar to Gideon where he wanted to both worship the one true God and "have it our way" worshiping the idols of the day right alongside Him. But God chose Gideon anyways. Flawed. Human. To break that cycle. To be the one to help lead his
people to receive the blessings of God's glorious promised land in it's full glory. And even when God called him loud and clear, Gideon doubted that God could use him, that it was possible. So God, in his wisdom, stripped down Gideon's army of 32,000 soldiers to a measly 300-to go up against 135,000 Midianites. Again he doubted that it was possible, but all through those times, God used those circumstances to prove his mightiness. If Gideon had a huge army, it would be easy for them to take credit for their own victory. Instead, God stripped his resources down to rightfully claim the victory himself. He wanted his people to be without excuse, to know without a doubt, that their help and victory came from the Lord, not from their own strength. We are learning that God will often give us the most difficult of circumstances, not only to show out himself, but also to require our complete and total faith and trust in him. When he breaks us down to our weakest moments, the circumstances where we are FORCED to acknowledge that we cannot do it on our own, that is when everyone who knows about it can bear witness to the fact that he is a provider, a healer, a warrior... A Savior. He can use our circumstances to make himself known to others, as well as to grow us in our own relationship to others. It is truly a complex thing, the way God works. He's been teaching us, like Gideon, to trust him all this time. He's been using everything and every one in our path to confirm to us that we are acting in obedience with him.
Just over a month ago, Jacob and I went to a marriage conference, thinking our marriage was "fine", but were rocked to our very core. The things I learned that weekend, thank God, will leave me forever changed, and I know Jacob feels the same. Our marriage was fine before. Just fine. But it turns out that we were missing out on so much, and now that we have tasted the sweetest blessings of an even closer marriage than we ever though possible, we really won't ever be able to go back to what I now know was mediocrity. We pray together, read God's word together, we're dreaming Big dreams, even parenting our children differently! One of the things the conference spurred was some deep discussions about our dreams and then, the Sunday of that weekend, Pastor Shannon O'dell rocked the whole church (I hear, quite literally, as they played guitar hero together as a church). Jacob and I served in the nursery, but as soon as we could, we watched the uploaded sermon on the CHC smartphone app. Yes, our church has an app. (So does Shannon's. It's "Brand New Church") They're both awesome, and if you have an xbox and a super smart phone, you can even link your devices and watch it on the Tv, but moving on... When we watched the sermon the following day, it was about none other than Dreaming big dreams. He challenged us to discover and pursue our dreams.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Lessons from Narnia
I have always heard that C.S. Lewis was a great author, but I can't say I've read his works until recently... and although I loved the first "Narnia" movie, and I never got around to reading any of the fiction books either. Until this year. I always meant to, wanted to. It was on that "to do" list of bucket list type things that you thought should be important, but most likely you'd never actually make time for. You just felt good thinking that you wanted to do said things. On my spiritual bucket list was just that-Read C.S. Lewis.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
A 6000 year war
It's always been something lurking in the back burner of my mind. I have never doubted its existence, nor its effect on my life. However, it was never as fully realized until these last two weeks. Spiritual Warfare. I believe very strongly that not only is there a very real battle being fought for us on another level, but that we are in the last days of the battle. I believe very strongly that we are living in the end times. Just look around us. Look at the amount of murders every day that occur so often now that we are barely affected by them. In fact, I will go ahead and assume you are like me, and in America, the only murders and killings that are particular emotional are that of little children and mass murders. What has happened to us? We see so much of it we've become desensitized to it. What once seemed shocking is now not only not shocking, but it's just the day to day norm I get to see living in the Memphis area. We've got a government that thinks they can and should make the decisions that for all time parents and families have been able to decide for themselves. We've got a volatile situation internationally that could cause World War III at any moment. Syria. Iran. Iraq. Afghanistan. Russia....Need I go on? What about China and their one child policy and the government censorship. America's heading in that direction. America's abortion numbers are astronomical. These days its advocates have gotten so bold as to even promote it as birth control (back in line with Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger) for an "already too big and growing population" and justify abortion as the most humane loving thing a parent can do. What? Really? Really????
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Super Mega Sale at Kroger and Walgreens! Read ASAP!
Let me say this first: I am not the first person to post about these items being on sale. I am just one of many people out there who share deal scenarios, although I don't do it very often anymore. I just saw several diff deals from various bloggers, and noticed a few of my own, and am putting them all in one place. You guys know I don't buy very many processed foods any more. We try to buy as much fresh fruit and veggies, local if possible, and organic when possible. I LOVE shopping for produce at the farmer's market because that is good for our community and directly helps support families in our area. BUT, that's only possible with some balance. I shop on a very tight budget, so that means shopping for things and buying when the price goes lowest and stocking up to lock in on that price for as long as 1) I can have room to store it and it will keep (might freeze it) or 2)I can afford it. Even if it was $1 and it was a good price, I couldn't ever spend $100 on 100 of something, just because it was a good deal. I have a strict budget and have to keep it balanced on other things too.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Harry Potter wand how to :D
So it's no secret that in our house we are nerds. We are gamers, and lovers of sci fy, fantasy, and all around super cool nerdy stuffs. So we love Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Star Wars, and of course Harry Potter.
I know Hannah wanted to do Art camp this summer, but with my babysitting and having 1 car, we decided it would be more fun to do some big art projects for the whole family throughout the summer.
After we got back from Vacation, we started reading the first Harry Potter book, and Hannah and Josh have been very interested. Of course Jacob and I have already read it, but we've been enjoying the re-read. So about a year ago, I started 'pinterest'ing (see what I did there) things to get some ideas for a summer unit study. Because...of course...we school throughout the summer too.
One of the things I wanted to do was make our own Harry Potter wands. Well, we finally did it!!
Here's what you need:
Wooden dowels or chopsticks
acrylic paint and brushes
string, yarn, twine, pipe cleaners, or embroidery thread
white or wood glue
Hot glue gun and plenty of glue sticks (like, Plenty!!!)
scissors
fake gems, marbles, or beads for embellishment
paper plates and paper towels. Baby wipes are also helpful, as your fingers will get dirty.
I know Hannah wanted to do Art camp this summer, but with my babysitting and having 1 car, we decided it would be more fun to do some big art projects for the whole family throughout the summer.
After we got back from Vacation, we started reading the first Harry Potter book, and Hannah and Josh have been very interested. Of course Jacob and I have already read it, but we've been enjoying the re-read. So about a year ago, I started 'pinterest'ing (see what I did there) things to get some ideas for a summer unit study. Because...of course...we school throughout the summer too.
One of the things I wanted to do was make our own Harry Potter wands. Well, we finally did it!!
Here's what you need:
Wooden dowels or chopsticks
acrylic paint and brushes
string, yarn, twine, pipe cleaners, or embroidery thread
white or wood glue
Hot glue gun and plenty of glue sticks (like, Plenty!!!)
scissors
fake gems, marbles, or beads for embellishment
paper plates and paper towels. Baby wipes are also helpful, as your fingers will get dirty.
How to save on a Branson Vacation!!
This will be specific to Branson, but many of the things you can apply to anywhere you go.
1) Research. I would hope this goes without saying, but you never know. Obviously, the more time you have to do this, the better off you're going to be. But you can even do it with just a couple days or a week's notice. The closer you get to the vacation, you are going to be paying more. Most people do deeper discounts further out, and as time closes in they will jack up the price. This is not always the case, as some websites do promote last minute getaways due to things not having booked up yet and doing deep discounts on those. So who knows, you might get lucky! Just be sure you shop around.
2)Seriously consider driving instead of flying. Especially with the more people you are taking with you, you will see a huge increase in savings by driving. We have never flown anywhere (I've never been on a plane at all. And with the rising cost of airfare, coupled with huge invasions of privacy at the checkpoints, I guess that may never happen. And that's okay. But I looked into flights for both a weekend getaway (just out of curiosity because I knew hubby was taking us somewhere) and also for our family vacation and quickly found it would have been way out of the question for both. I'm also in the process of planning a Disney Vacation within the next 2 years, and again quickly decided it was out of the question then too. But our family van as a lot of mileage on it, and I really didn't like the idea of putting even more miles on. But when I looked online at Hertz and Enterprise to rent a minivan for a week, I didn't like having to pay $400 plus insurance costs. I hadn't thought about using a middle man site though, and when our van had a blowout a week before our vacation that really damaged the car, I knew the whole vacation was in jeopardy. Not having rental coverage on our van meant we were not going anywhere-vacation or otherwise-till it was fixed. Luckily, we had a low deductible and only had to pay for that and new tires. We were blessed to have some precious Godly friends lend Jacob his truck to get to and from work, and then when they weren't done by vacation we knew we'd need to rent a car. I had called Enterprise (we don't have a Hertz near us) directly, because they supposedly had a discount because we have geico and our car was in the shop but we did not have rental coverage. So when I called them, I was dissapointed to find our that the "discounted rate" was comparable to other companies without any discount! They quoted me $358 plus a deposit of $150 which we'd get back if the car was returned in the same condition. That was doable, but it would mean a huge dent in our vacation fund. Also, when I called back two days later to do it for sure--I didn't have the money for it Monday, and they required me to pay up front in full to reserve it--they had gone up over $100. The guys there were super nice, but there wasn't much they could do to give me a minivan for much less than $500 (plus deposit and insurance). And in trying to compromise, he suggested a full size car for $350ish without deposit or insurance. Still not worth it to me, I was starting to worry this vacation wasn't going to happen! But then on a whim, I checked out travelocity.com where I was able to still use enterprise but see the prices of different cars. EVERY variety was cheaper!! We ended up getting a full size car for less than $175. And we did not have to pay till we picked it up! I even spoke with enterprise directly to make sure it was going to work out, and the only concern for me was if we could fit Jonah's convertible car seat and the two booster seats in the back seat. (They said most likely yes, and of course the seats did, thank goodness!)
So next time we go somewhere we will totally rent a car, and go full size because not only did it save us from the rental company to book through travelocity, but we got the deposit back, AND travelocity gave us that price for a week long rental, and because we returned it on the day 5 evening, we actually got some $$ back (plus deposit). Only thing is we were a little cramped in the back (hubby and I were fine) but the trunk was huge, and the gas mileage was awesome. Our van gets about 20mpg, MAYBE 25....this car got 40mpg! We literally only had to fillup 2x!
So I say seriously check into renting a car and see if it works for you. Also, I was informed when I called, by my car insurance people that I was completely covered through Geico and did not have any reason to purchase the extra gimmick insurance they sold at the car place. It would have been an extra $15-30/day for that, again not doable for us. She said that our policy followed us to the rental, but you need to make sure you speak to your car insurance company to be sure yours works the same way.
3/4) Check on hotels and loosely plan your meals. You need to decide, and it may depend on where you are going to vacation, or who/how many people you are taking with you, what type of lodging you need. Are you going to be in the hotel alot or are you going to be out and about and only come back for sleeping. Do you/can you plan on doing some meals at your lodging? Here are some things to consider for this:
Would you like to save $ by eating some meals in the hotel/cabin/condo? If you would, then what type of meals? If you want to prepare full meals, perhaps a condo or cabin with a full kitchen or grill is a good value. When you compare prices, compare the best deal on this type of lodging vs. a cheaper hotel and having to eat meals out.
Would you like to eat quick meals in your hotel? Be sure to look for hotels with a microwave and mini fridge included. These are helpful even if you don't plan to eat much because you can keep things like soft drinks or bottled water, as well as leftovers from those big portioned restaurant meals. You may want to bring paper plates and plastic cups, so you can eat the leftovers in the room. Does your hotel room have a table in the room with chairs? Do they allow you to eat in a lobby area?
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Does the hotel/place you want to stay offer food like room service or a restaurant you will want to take part in? Is it included in the price or how much extra does it cost? Also, if staying at a hotel, look for places that have a hot breakfast. Even if you don't eat there every day that can easily save $7-10 per person versus having to go out, plus gas to get to those places.
Branson is a place with a lot of tourist attractions, and pretty much everything costs $15-20 per person, or more if you see a show (we did not). But the hotels are very cheap for the value.
After looking up hotels on tripadvisor and various reviewing websites, I had narrowed it down to a few hotels in Branson. I started a word document for each of my favorites to compare prices on various sites. I looked directly on their website as well as booking agencies and compared each price, and found out that the Angel Inn of Branson would give a $5/night discount if you signed the guestbook online on their website. Of course I called and spoke with them over the phone, and they verified that price on the phone too. Then I found out our hotel had an indoor pool, mini fridge and microwave, free hot breakfast (consisting of hot pancakes one day, biscuits and gravy the next, and daily cereal, donuts, bagels, fruit, milk, juice etc. No meat. Ok with me! It was free!!) Also, she told me if we were willing to "take the stairs" they had a 5/night discount for that too! We ended up paying only $49 a night (plus tax, I think it was 7%. Be sure you ask about the state's required hotel taxes and fees or online booking fees etc) Once I was confident I had the hotel I wanted, I booked it before they booked up fast!
If you are willing to eat breakfast in your hotel, and eat in your hotel room (or the lobby if they allow for lunch or dinner-you pick) for a meal here and there, you can save a ton. We packed down a cooler before we left with sandwich fixin's and picnicked on the way for lunch, instead of stopping in the drive thru. Plus we had a rental car and didn't want to eat in it.
Also, if you are going to an amusement park or the beach, seriously consider packing sandwiches and chips etc. and eating that if it's allowed. I checked beforehand and Silver Dollar City did allow outside food in the park, so we brought sandwiches and bottled water as well as chips. At the park (again I checked ahead of time) drinks were ranging from $3 for a small or a bottled water, up to $12 for a souveneir 32 oz mug with $1 refills. So we did get one of the $12 mugs after our food and water ran out, and got free water refills from the concessions (all offer free water in the mugs, and it's ice too, so it's much cooler than from a dirty fountain). I felt like the 8 or 9 refills we got was a good deal, plus we brought the mug home and it's good to take in the yard to work with.
But that saved us a ton. I have no doubt it would have been easily $60 for walkup stands type food for all of us. Instead we packed our own, and then spent less than $10 for ice cream for everybody. Plus we didn't have to worry about all the greasy food there upsetting our tummies while riding the rides.
5) Loosely plan activities ahead of time. Research online, and once you narrow down your destination, talk to your family about what attractions or places are most important to them. Try to find something specific that each person really wants to do and they will have a blast doing, but that everyone else would enjoy too. That way even though YOU are planning this, they have something specific to look forward to. My daughter wanted to do Ride the ducks, My son wanted to go caving, my youngest just wanted to 'ride da train'. My husband and I wanted to go to Lamberts and ride rides as a family. I wanted to go to the Soda fountain I went to as a child.
We did all those things and more, but I guarantee you, if you were to ask them now what their favorite things were, they'd pick the one they planned before hand AND a new one they didn't expect to like too!They just couldn't decide :D so I am a happy mama!!
I checked into prices before hand, and had some ideas of restaurants that would be fun, memorable places for us based on online reviews and pictures I saw. We have been to Lambert's Restaurant (where they have 'throwed rolls'...maybe you've heard of it :D) before and knew we wanted to go there again. We even were planning to go 2 hours out of the way on the way back to do it, and then found out with a little research that they actually had one just 30 miles south of Branson! Score!! It's not a super cheap restaurant but it's a lot of fun, and the portions are huge, so we ate 1/2 (or less!!) and brought lots back to the hotel to eat the next day. We also ordered pizza to the room one night. Also, one day we bought a huge ice cream Sunday to share. It was like $13 but we all shared it and it was a great photo op. They will never forget it either!!!
We did stop late the first night on the way out (same day as the picnic in Mtn view) and ate taco bell, before checking in to the hotel. We don't eat fast food any more since we started our weight loss, so the kids got a kick out of it, and felt like it was a real treat.
We like to avoid Chain restaurants though as much as possible, and eat at fun atmosphere type places instead. We had some real winners and a couple duds while we were there. (Don't waste your $ at Montana Mike's. The food was poor quality for the very high price. :/) But we had a blast at Lamberts and Mel's Hard Luck Diner.
Also, if you are going to a touristy place like Branson, call the tourism center and have them send you brochures and coupon books if they have them. Also look online for coupons. I found out that by doing "Ride the ducks" it offered us a variety of discounts on other places-cheap imax movie tickets, 10% off restaurant meals and show discounts as well. So naturally we did that first. We just had to keep up with the "wacky quackers" they gave us (lol as I'm typing this, one of my kids just quacked one."
Lastly, I have a few more things to think about.
Souvenirs: Let the kids earn money in the weeks before vacation to buy their own souvenirs Rewarding 'best behavior' works too. Have envelopes on the fridge with a chore listed, and the amount of money they can earn for that job. Encourage them to buy souvenirs that are will have value to them and not just be a 'throw away' item. Get things that will last or you can actually use. We also bought post cards to send to family members from our trip (doing them now actually! Better late than never, right!?) Like my 20 oz coffee mug from Lamberts? I use it every single day. Well worth the $5.50!!
Take pictures. Take lots of pictures. And be in them, moms! Have dad turn that camera around and snap some of you and the kiddos. Also have the kids (if they are old enough) or waiter/random person take pics of mom and dad.
Don't stress too much or worry so much about an itinerary or schedule that you end up missing out on the fun. It is a vacation, after all!
1) Research. I would hope this goes without saying, but you never know. Obviously, the more time you have to do this, the better off you're going to be. But you can even do it with just a couple days or a week's notice. The closer you get to the vacation, you are going to be paying more. Most people do deeper discounts further out, and as time closes in they will jack up the price. This is not always the case, as some websites do promote last minute getaways due to things not having booked up yet and doing deep discounts on those. So who knows, you might get lucky! Just be sure you shop around.
2)Seriously consider driving instead of flying. Especially with the more people you are taking with you, you will see a huge increase in savings by driving. We have never flown anywhere (I've never been on a plane at all. And with the rising cost of airfare, coupled with huge invasions of privacy at the checkpoints, I guess that may never happen. And that's okay. But I looked into flights for both a weekend getaway (just out of curiosity because I knew hubby was taking us somewhere) and also for our family vacation and quickly found it would have been way out of the question for both. I'm also in the process of planning a Disney Vacation within the next 2 years, and again quickly decided it was out of the question then too. But our family van as a lot of mileage on it, and I really didn't like the idea of putting even more miles on. But when I looked online at Hertz and Enterprise to rent a minivan for a week, I didn't like having to pay $400 plus insurance costs. I hadn't thought about using a middle man site though, and when our van had a blowout a week before our vacation that really damaged the car, I knew the whole vacation was in jeopardy. Not having rental coverage on our van meant we were not going anywhere-vacation or otherwise-till it was fixed. Luckily, we had a low deductible and only had to pay for that and new tires. We were blessed to have some precious Godly friends lend Jacob his truck to get to and from work, and then when they weren't done by vacation we knew we'd need to rent a car. I had called Enterprise (we don't have a Hertz near us) directly, because they supposedly had a discount because we have geico and our car was in the shop but we did not have rental coverage. So when I called them, I was dissapointed to find our that the "discounted rate" was comparable to other companies without any discount! They quoted me $358 plus a deposit of $150 which we'd get back if the car was returned in the same condition. That was doable, but it would mean a huge dent in our vacation fund. Also, when I called back two days later to do it for sure--I didn't have the money for it Monday, and they required me to pay up front in full to reserve it--they had gone up over $100. The guys there were super nice, but there wasn't much they could do to give me a minivan for much less than $500 (plus deposit and insurance). And in trying to compromise, he suggested a full size car for $350ish without deposit or insurance. Still not worth it to me, I was starting to worry this vacation wasn't going to happen! But then on a whim, I checked out travelocity.com where I was able to still use enterprise but see the prices of different cars. EVERY variety was cheaper!! We ended up getting a full size car for less than $175. And we did not have to pay till we picked it up! I even spoke with enterprise directly to make sure it was going to work out, and the only concern for me was if we could fit Jonah's convertible car seat and the two booster seats in the back seat. (They said most likely yes, and of course the seats did, thank goodness!)
So next time we go somewhere we will totally rent a car, and go full size because not only did it save us from the rental company to book through travelocity, but we got the deposit back, AND travelocity gave us that price for a week long rental, and because we returned it on the day 5 evening, we actually got some $$ back (plus deposit). Only thing is we were a little cramped in the back (hubby and I were fine) but the trunk was huge, and the gas mileage was awesome. Our van gets about 20mpg, MAYBE 25....this car got 40mpg! We literally only had to fillup 2x!
So I say seriously check into renting a car and see if it works for you. Also, I was informed when I called, by my car insurance people that I was completely covered through Geico and did not have any reason to purchase the extra gimmick insurance they sold at the car place. It would have been an extra $15-30/day for that, again not doable for us. She said that our policy followed us to the rental, but you need to make sure you speak to your car insurance company to be sure yours works the same way.
3/4) Check on hotels and loosely plan your meals. You need to decide, and it may depend on where you are going to vacation, or who/how many people you are taking with you, what type of lodging you need. Are you going to be in the hotel alot or are you going to be out and about and only come back for sleeping. Do you/can you plan on doing some meals at your lodging? Here are some things to consider for this:
Would you like to save $ by eating some meals in the hotel/cabin/condo? If you would, then what type of meals? If you want to prepare full meals, perhaps a condo or cabin with a full kitchen or grill is a good value. When you compare prices, compare the best deal on this type of lodging vs. a cheaper hotel and having to eat meals out.
Would you like to eat quick meals in your hotel? Be sure to look for hotels with a microwave and mini fridge included. These are helpful even if you don't plan to eat much because you can keep things like soft drinks or bottled water, as well as leftovers from those big portioned restaurant meals. You may want to bring paper plates and plastic cups, so you can eat the leftovers in the room. Does your hotel room have a table in the room with chairs? Do they allow you to eat in a lobby area?
Does the hotel/place you want to stay offer food like room service or a restaurant you will want to take part in? Is it included in the price or how much extra does it cost? Also, if staying at a hotel, look for places that have a hot breakfast. Even if you don't eat there every day that can easily save $7-10 per person versus having to go out, plus gas to get to those places.
Branson is a place with a lot of tourist attractions, and pretty much everything costs $15-20 per person, or more if you see a show (we did not). But the hotels are very cheap for the value.
After looking up hotels on tripadvisor and various reviewing websites, I had narrowed it down to a few hotels in Branson. I started a word document for each of my favorites to compare prices on various sites. I looked directly on their website as well as booking agencies and compared each price, and found out that the Angel Inn of Branson would give a $5/night discount if you signed the guestbook online on their website. Of course I called and spoke with them over the phone, and they verified that price on the phone too. Then I found out our hotel had an indoor pool, mini fridge and microwave, free hot breakfast (consisting of hot pancakes one day, biscuits and gravy the next, and daily cereal, donuts, bagels, fruit, milk, juice etc. No meat. Ok with me! It was free!!) Also, she told me if we were willing to "take the stairs" they had a 5/night discount for that too! We ended up paying only $49 a night (plus tax, I think it was 7%. Be sure you ask about the state's required hotel taxes and fees or online booking fees etc) Once I was confident I had the hotel I wanted, I booked it before they booked up fast!
If you are willing to eat breakfast in your hotel, and eat in your hotel room (or the lobby if they allow for lunch or dinner-you pick) for a meal here and there, you can save a ton. We packed down a cooler before we left with sandwich fixin's and picnicked on the way for lunch, instead of stopping in the drive thru. Plus we had a rental car and didn't want to eat in it.
Also, if you are going to an amusement park or the beach, seriously consider packing sandwiches and chips etc. and eating that if it's allowed. I checked beforehand and Silver Dollar City did allow outside food in the park, so we brought sandwiches and bottled water as well as chips. At the park (again I checked ahead of time) drinks were ranging from $3 for a small or a bottled water, up to $12 for a souveneir 32 oz mug with $1 refills. So we did get one of the $12 mugs after our food and water ran out, and got free water refills from the concessions (all offer free water in the mugs, and it's ice too, so it's much cooler than from a dirty fountain). I felt like the 8 or 9 refills we got was a good deal, plus we brought the mug home and it's good to take in the yard to work with.
But that saved us a ton. I have no doubt it would have been easily $60 for walkup stands type food for all of us. Instead we packed our own, and then spent less than $10 for ice cream for everybody. Plus we didn't have to worry about all the greasy food there upsetting our tummies while riding the rides.
5) Loosely plan activities ahead of time. Research online, and once you narrow down your destination, talk to your family about what attractions or places are most important to them. Try to find something specific that each person really wants to do and they will have a blast doing, but that everyone else would enjoy too. That way even though YOU are planning this, they have something specific to look forward to. My daughter wanted to do Ride the ducks, My son wanted to go caving, my youngest just wanted to 'ride da train'. My husband and I wanted to go to Lamberts and ride rides as a family. I wanted to go to the Soda fountain I went to as a child.
We did all those things and more, but I guarantee you, if you were to ask them now what their favorite things were, they'd pick the one they planned before hand AND a new one they didn't expect to like too!They just couldn't decide :D so I am a happy mama!!
I checked into prices before hand, and had some ideas of restaurants that would be fun, memorable places for us based on online reviews and pictures I saw. We have been to Lambert's Restaurant (where they have 'throwed rolls'...maybe you've heard of it :D) before and knew we wanted to go there again. We even were planning to go 2 hours out of the way on the way back to do it, and then found out with a little research that they actually had one just 30 miles south of Branson! Score!! It's not a super cheap restaurant but it's a lot of fun, and the portions are huge, so we ate 1/2 (or less!!) and brought lots back to the hotel to eat the next day. We also ordered pizza to the room one night. Also, one day we bought a huge ice cream Sunday to share. It was like $13 but we all shared it and it was a great photo op. They will never forget it either!!!
We did stop late the first night on the way out (same day as the picnic in Mtn view) and ate taco bell, before checking in to the hotel. We don't eat fast food any more since we started our weight loss, so the kids got a kick out of it, and felt like it was a real treat.
We like to avoid Chain restaurants though as much as possible, and eat at fun atmosphere type places instead. We had some real winners and a couple duds while we were there. (Don't waste your $ at Montana Mike's. The food was poor quality for the very high price. :/) But we had a blast at Lamberts and Mel's Hard Luck Diner.
Also, if you are going to a touristy place like Branson, call the tourism center and have them send you brochures and coupon books if they have them. Also look online for coupons. I found out that by doing "Ride the ducks" it offered us a variety of discounts on other places-cheap imax movie tickets, 10% off restaurant meals and show discounts as well. So naturally we did that first. We just had to keep up with the "wacky quackers" they gave us (lol as I'm typing this, one of my kids just quacked one."
Lastly, I have a few more things to think about.
Souvenirs: Let the kids earn money in the weeks before vacation to buy their own souvenirs Rewarding 'best behavior' works too. Have envelopes on the fridge with a chore listed, and the amount of money they can earn for that job. Encourage them to buy souvenirs that are will have value to them and not just be a 'throw away' item. Get things that will last or you can actually use. We also bought post cards to send to family members from our trip (doing them now actually! Better late than never, right!?) Like my 20 oz coffee mug from Lamberts? I use it every single day. Well worth the $5.50!!
Take pictures. Take lots of pictures. And be in them, moms! Have dad turn that camera around and snap some of you and the kiddos. Also have the kids (if they are old enough) or waiter/random person take pics of mom and dad.
Don't stress too much or worry so much about an itinerary or schedule that you end up missing out on the fun. It is a vacation, after all!
So here's where I'm starting..
I have a lot of catching up to do today with my posts, so this will be my starting point. I've already uploaded a way behind weight loss vlog and a blog post, and I need to do several posts on here. But it basically amounts to this. We've been too busy living life to blog about it! So that's good right!!
My husband and I went on a weekend getaway to Nashville at the first of last month. Then two weeks later we turned around and went on a family vacation to the Ozarks. Then we had Memorial Day, and for some reason (don't ask why we got it mixed up) we celebrated Father's day this past weekend!
So Nashville was awesome!
Hubby planned this whole romantic weekend (for no reason at all) complete with roses delivered to the house and getting me the day off work, and clues about the weekend I had to hunt for!!
We went to the Grand Ole Opry, ate some yummy food and just got to be a couple and have dates! It was awesome!! My mother in law was sweet enough to take the kids for the weekend, but we missed em so much after 2 days without em, we came home early. We just didn't know what to do without them!!
Then I hustled and got all the clothes washed, house cleaned and then headed out again. This time as a whole family, to the Ozarks! We went to Mountain View and picnicked on the square, went to Blanchard Springs caverns and took a tour. Then we headed to Branson and had more adventures. I will do another blog about how we saved so much money on our vacation later also. We did ride the ducks, a little shopping, Silver Dollar City, saw an Imax movie, and just ate some amazing food. Also we had a blast at the pool in our hotel too which was so great!!!
Here are some pics if you missed them on Facebook.
Then we went to visit with my sister's future in laws and my extended family for Memorial Day. Ate some yummy bbq and fished. Great times!!
Oh also, somewhere in there, Joshy got glasses, we bought a patio set-now we cook out 2 or 3x a week and I chopped all my hair off and went blond. Really blond!!
Also, last weekend we made Harry Potter wands. I will do a separate post on that later as well. Can't believe it's already the middle of June and we have started back school already!! Oh also I've been working more on the book too. Up to 75 pages now :D So that's what we've been up to. Have you guys had busy summers yet too?
My husband and I went on a weekend getaway to Nashville at the first of last month. Then two weeks later we turned around and went on a family vacation to the Ozarks. Then we had Memorial Day, and for some reason (don't ask why we got it mixed up) we celebrated Father's day this past weekend!
So Nashville was awesome!
Hubby planned this whole romantic weekend (for no reason at all) complete with roses delivered to the house and getting me the day off work, and clues about the weekend I had to hunt for!!
We went to the Grand Ole Opry, ate some yummy food and just got to be a couple and have dates! It was awesome!! My mother in law was sweet enough to take the kids for the weekend, but we missed em so much after 2 days without em, we came home early. We just didn't know what to do without them!!
Then I hustled and got all the clothes washed, house cleaned and then headed out again. This time as a whole family, to the Ozarks! We went to Mountain View and picnicked on the square, went to Blanchard Springs caverns and took a tour. Then we headed to Branson and had more adventures. I will do another blog about how we saved so much money on our vacation later also. We did ride the ducks, a little shopping, Silver Dollar City, saw an Imax movie, and just ate some amazing food. Also we had a blast at the pool in our hotel too which was so great!!!
Here are some pics if you missed them on Facebook.
Then we went to visit with my sister's future in laws and my extended family for Memorial Day. Ate some yummy bbq and fished. Great times!!
Oh also, somewhere in there, Joshy got glasses, we bought a patio set-now we cook out 2 or 3x a week and I chopped all my hair off and went blond. Really blond!!
Also, last weekend we made Harry Potter wands. I will do a separate post on that later as well. Can't believe it's already the middle of June and we have started back school already!! Oh also I've been working more on the book too. Up to 75 pages now :D So that's what we've been up to. Have you guys had busy summers yet too?
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