6 Days Left...

Yep, just 6 more days until our last credit card payment posts to our account.  Holy cow!!!  I just might pee my pants from excitement when it's done.  It's been difficult on me because I'm a stress case, but Doug just takes things in stride.  It will take us until the end of September to get our feet under us after this last payment, but I'm so happy to be done!  It sure was fun making the debt, but paying it off isn't fun at all.

All in all, finances are fun for me.  I love watching things get paid off and it's great to watch people succeed in reaching their financial goals, even if it's just one success at a time.  I love finding different avenues to get rid of debt.  I hate paying interest on money I've borrowed, but it's the nature of the beast, and I'll find the cheapest way around it.  I have learned a lot about paying off debt over the last 10 years - I've paid off fairly large chunks of debt 3 times in the last 10 years or so.  The first time was on my own (that was such a difficult time because I was so far gone that even credit counseling companies couldn't and/or wouldn't help me) and the second/third were with Doug.  The most recent chunk was the largest amount and I certainly hope we never have to deal with that much credit card debt again. 

I've offered to help other people (I've even offered to take over finances to get friends out of debt), so let me know if you want help or if I can offer any advice....the warning is that you may not like me very much when we're done, but you'll be out of debt.  LOL  My coworkers were laughing at me last week because I will do whatever it takes to get rid of debt.  They were giggling and said, "You'll eat noodles everyday if you have too!"  As a matter of fact I will!  For the last few months my meals have consisted of cereal, salad, soup, peanut butter toast, and oatmeal; as I get sick of one, I move onto the next.  Do whatchta gotta do people!

Onto something funny.... this is what it looks like when you pull the shower curtain down in the middle of a shower.  Doug and I take showers together when we're both home and on this afternoon, he was holding a portion of the curtain when I decided the other side needed to be closer to the wall so water wouldn't escape.  This is the result:

We couldn't stop laughing!!!  We finished our shower and then Doug put the curtain back up.  I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened sooner since the shower rod was a $3 Walmart purchase.  Hysterical.  It's one of those things that people tell you, "You had to be there."  But I'm okay that you weren't there since we were naked.  HAHA

We got a wonderful sweet-treat surprise yesterday.  My visiting teacher at church has become a very good friend; she calls, texts and thinks of us all the time.  One year she made us a wonderful lasagna because we were so busy and Doug was working so much.  She was near my office last week and thought to ask if we could meet for lunch.  She offers to pick me up for church events and/or invites me to girl's nights.  She is just amazing!  I feel like I can talk to her about anything and she doesn't judge me or question my sanity...she probably should :)  She will offer advice, sit and listen or just laugh with me if we're being silly.  Yesterday she texted me to see if we were home.  I texted back with a warning, "We're home, but we're not showered or dressed."  Just a hint for all of you...that means I have greasy hair, no makeup on and I'm not wearing a bra. LOL LOL  She texted back that she made cookies and would drop the off on the way to church.  Sure enough, we missed her at the door since we were in the shower.  Look how cute these cookies are:

They were very yummy!  Of course we ate them before dinner. 

There are so many wonderful people around us and I'm glad we're getting to know more of them; we've been in our house for almost 4 years and I feel like we're just getting out in the world.  I'm glad our friends love us for being us.  I can say whatever craziness is running through my head and they're still our friends.

Best Picture of the Day

My company paid for our parking and a picture from a ride.  We were excited to ride Medusa since we all could sit next to each other.  The boys found the camera and were telling us where it was, but I wouldn't be able to remember while on the ride.  We agreed that they would yell "PHOTO!!" when the camera was close.  Doug said we were going to keep riding the ride until we got the picture just right.  It didn't take more than one try!  The picture was perfect.  This is the result:

 Close up:

Breanna said it's our next Christmas card!!

6 Flags Day Of Fun

My company picnic was at 6 Flags this year.  It was so fun a few years ago and I'm glad we were able to go again!  This year Ben and Breanna went with us.  We met up with my coworkers from the Northern offices for lunch and then we headed into the park for a day of fun. 

First we stopped to watch a few dolphins swim and play:

The first ride we went on was Roar.  We figured it was a fairly mellow ride to start out on.  I'm not a fan of wooden roller coasters because the ride is so rough.  While climbing hill I yelled out, "We're gonna die!!!!!"  I yelled that on most rides we went on.  It served a couple purposes....1) to freak out other riders and make us laugh 2) if we died then people could tell the news, "She yelled they were going to die and they did!" heehee

After Roar, we went to the new Superman ride.  We waited in line for a while and we watched the screaming passengers fly back and forth on the ride.  Ben said there wasn't a shoulder harness and we couldn't believe a new ride that goes forward, backward and upside down doesn't have a shoulder harness.  It sure doesn't - only for the lap!!  YIKES!  We were waiting and chatting and Breanna said, "Someone's phone fell out!"  I looked up at the ride and sure enough, a small black rectangle was falling from sky.  OOPS!  That would suck!

I think we all got pretty nervous as we stood inside the tunnel just a few minutes from our turn.  It was so freaky to watch the ride fly through the tunnel in front of us and then just a couple seconds it would fly through again, even faster!  We asked one of the ride operators how fast it was flying through the tunnel.  She asked us to guess.  We were guessing 100, 120, 150mph...seriously, they were FLYING by!  Then she told us they were only going 70mph.  Really?!?!?!  I drive faster than that!  It was our turn and the guy before us said, "Look out for pee in the seat!"  LOL Just before we jetted out of the tunnel I said, "Call my mommy!" to the next lady waiting to get on the ride.  She looked really nervous. 

The ride was so much fun!!  It was crazy though!  When we stopped after what was probably only a minute I said, "Hey that wasn't too bad!  Let's do it again!" 

We saw the dropped phone on the way out of the ride.  Surprisingly it was still in one piece!

We saw cute penguins:

Since it's usually just the two of us, we hold the camera out for a picture of us during our adventures.  This time we got the 4 of us in the picture.  It's a good thing Doug has long arms :)

We waited for the swing ride and they stopped it for maintenance right before it was our turn.  I got a pretty neat picture while we were waiting:

Then it was off to Medusa.  The best ride in the park.  Superman was really fun, but Medusa is longer.

We went back to the swing ride and got our signature picture...you can see Breanna in the background having hair issues.  LOL

I took my camera on the swing and got a few neat pictures and a nauseating video of going in fast circles:

We were pretty high:

We were getting worn out so we went to watch the whale show.

It was fun to watch the whale dance with the trainer:

The whale turned over and the trainer acted like she tickled it, then the whale started shaking around.  So cute!  They are such amazing creatures!:

A tail splash right before it covered the crowd.

A flip and ball kick.  WOW!:

We walked through more of the animal areas.

We saw tigers:

Elephants:

Monkeys - this monkey was adorable!  It was jumping and playing all over the cage it was in.  I think this was a rehab facility for the animals.  This one was ready to get out!

 Lions!  Tigers!! No bears!!  Oh my!

Doug just wanted to sit down, but we still had more of the park to go through.

The butterfly enclosure is so neat, but it's hot and humid:

We walked back to another section of the park to see more sea life:

The sea lion drank water for quite a while after it woke up from it's nap:

A big yawn from it's fellow sea lion friend:

 Dun dun, dun dun, dun dun:

 Our 7 hour day was at an end.  We all wanted to just sit down in a cool place for a while, but noooo.  We still had to walk quite a ways to get back to our car.

It was such a fun day!  I'm so glad we were able to spend it with Ben and Breanna.

We decided to stop for dinner on the way home.  Ben and Breanna's dad ate at Fentons once and they really liked it.  It's a diner type restaurant with homemade ice cream.  The ice cream is really good.  Not only is the ice cream homemade, but the toppings are too.

I'm glad we stopped for dinner.  It was nice to sit and relax after a long day.

Mid Month Randomness

We’ve had some great looking strawberries!!  For some reason my camera was being stupid...I couldn’t turn enough lights turned on in the house to get a decent picture of these two, but they were so yummy!! 

Here’s a gross one for ya: 

My mom sent us home with a bunch of free condiments and drinks she got at the store.  We have 2 bottles of Clamato Juice.  Clams + Tomatoes = SICK!!!  I really don’t know what it tastes like; I won’t even try it.  This bottle is in our fridge getting nice and cold for Doug to drink.  I was telling a coworker about this juice and apparently people put it in beer too.  Double gross!! 

I love homemade salsa, or pico de gallo.  We had our monthly family get together and I made salsa.  I didn’t just make “some” salsa, I made about 3 gallons of salsa.  Wanna guess what I’ve had for dinner each night this week? 

It’s been super hot here lately.  We were happy that it dropped to 101 in our town today.  It’s been 106-108 for the last 3 days or so.  It’s going to be about 103 tomorrow and then it’s supposed to head back down to the mid 90’s.  There’s also been smoke drifting into the area although the fire is pretty far away.  The smoke made for a pretty sunrise yesterday morning. 

This is how hot it has been in our house:

The temp on the left is downstairs and the right is upstairs.  When I got upstairs the thermostat said 90.  Ick!!! 

I’ll end with a silly bumper sticker that made me laugh this morning.  It’s hard to read even when I zoom in: 

I like poetry, long walks on the beach and poking dead things with a stick.

Stupid Refrigerator

I almost hate our refrigerator.  I say almost because it’s a really nice refrigerator despite its issues.  We had to chisel ice out of the bottom of refrigerator again and there was so much water that we used the shop vac. instead of using a bunch of towels.  We keep about 4 hand towels behind the drawers and at the base, but the amount of water dripping is getting pretty bad.  Here is the ice and towels we removed the other day: 

And the water we sucked out - kind of a weird picture, but it's the bottom of our shop vac.: 

AND our ice maker is making cloudy ice again.  The ice looks fine and tastes fine, but if you leave it to melt in a glass you will see a layer that looks like fog in the glass…. Ew!   We replaced the filter recently and ran a bunch of new ice through it and it stopped making icky ice for a while.  I’ve been debating if we should give up and get a new fridge when we get out of debt; this one is only about 4 years old though.