Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful and amazing men that helped shape our lives! We love you all!

St. Louis Trip #2

We had a fun little weekend in St. Louis with my parents this past weekend. We got to see some family and Eric got to go to his first MLB game. Here are a few photos:

Ouside of Busch Stadium

Mom and Dad next to dad's brick at the Southeast side entrance

 

(Sorry I can't get this photo to rotate!)  Dad's brick from 2006

We had great seats - we just had to watch out for the fly balls!

Players warming up (I was jealous at how flexible some of them were! See far right! I think I need to work on my yoga more after seeing that)

 

 

 

 

 

St. Louis architecture

 

St. Louis architecture

We made a quick stop to see part of St. Louis University's (SLU) campus. Eric got accepted there, but unfortunately since it's a private Catholic school, the tuition is $$$$$!

Pretty fountains

And Eric had to get in them of course

We also made a pit stop at The Container Store on the way home. Can you say LOVE?! I wish I had a little more time/money to spend there! This was my favorite thing, and so comfortable, too!

{Clear Polo Desk Chair, only $200 ;) }

Weekend Wrap-Up

It was a pretty slow weekend for us. You know, the ones where we go to Wal-Mart on Friday night and Sam's on Saturday. :) It was nice though. I got a little shopping done while Eric was in OR training on Saturday (even made a pit stop in the middle of the country at a little antique market), and we actually kept to our goal of only eating out ONCE all weekend (Wendy's). I was so proud of us! We're so bad about getting 2-3 meals out on weekends. Between the storms, we went to the park yesterday evening for a 3 mile walk. I wanted to do 3.5 or 4, but Eric gets a little bored after awhile.

I did pick up this little baby on Friday though (can you tell I love using slow cookers?) Perfect for smaller meals or lunch!

I also made these little upgrades to the apartment. I can't wait to go back and get that bench - it might be coming home tonight!

More updates soon!

Couponing Tips

Finding Coupons
I listed some sites in a previous post, but I've really found it much easier to just rely on these email lists. They're great about detailing what various store specials are each week and how you can manage your coupons to get the best deals. Plus, when you follow links to print coupons, you're directed to many of those sites that I previously listed.

(Click on "Subscribe via email" or the envelope icons on each site)
Couponing101
Coupon Cravings
Southern Savers
Surviving the Stores
*Please note that each site sends an email a day

As far as getting other coupons, the majority come from the Sunday paper, a few from food boxes/mailers, some from turning in rebate forms (ie. the P&G campaign that ended recently), those emails/coupon sites, and manufacturer websites (you can sign up to get on email lists to companies such as P&G, Johnson & Johnson, WishBone, Kraft, etc)

Organizing Coupons
I've had a little coupon stack, and then a mini file divider pouch, and now a huge binder. Personally, I've found the binder works best for me because you can actually SEE all the coupons better without digging through them all. I've organized mine by expiration date (I tried the type of food method before, but I just couldn't keep up with their dates!) I just picked up some baseball-sized sheet protector pages (9 slots per page) to put them in:

Using Coupons
Unfortunately, the stores I go to don't offer coupon doubling - ie. Wal-Mart. Those sort of situations are where people get the big savings. You might check with your local grocery store - some offer coupon doubling on just certain days.

I've heard Walgreens will accept their coupon (they have monthly coupon books in the front of their store) + a manufacturer coupon for an item (maybe even multiples). Plus you can get "register rewards" back on certain items. We don't have a Walgreens close enough to us to go to often though.

We've averaged about $8-10 (out of $70 total) per week of savings just at Wal-Mart, which in addition to their low prices I think is pretty good. That puts us at over $400 saved per year. I'm starting to keep all my receipts beginning this month so I can really track it.

St. Louis Weekend

Eric and I had a wonderful weekend in St. Louis last weekend. I volunteered to work one of the ASID Designer Showhouses over there, so since I was already driving 2 hours to get there, we figured we'd make a weekend out of it. It was Eric's "first" trip to STL, with the exception of a trip to Six Flags as a kid. So, we hit the main attractions in tourist fashion - Union Station, The Arch, and zoo (we'll be going back in two weeks with my parents for a Cardinals game, too!).

(click each image to enlarge)

Blogger has been having in and out service the past day or so - if you've had trouble getting in that's probably why. I'm working on changing some things up as you can see and will be adding some new little features soon!

Weekend Wrap-Up

Sunday was Anna-Marie (below) and my cousin Shannon's birthday! Happy (belated) birthday you two!

All four of Eric and I's grandfathers have served in the military in some form, so happy Memorial Day as well!

(My granddad, Ronnie - Air Force)

(My Paw-paw, Bob - Navy)

And of course we can't forget Grandpa Art (Army - correct me if I'm wrong) and Grandpa Jack (Navy)- I just didn't have pictures for you two on my computer! We love you!

Our weekend was spent getting our hands dirty in gardening! I have to admit, I've never really planted anything so it'll be interesting to see how this turns out! After a trip to Lowe's, we picked up a strawberry plant, some pots, and some packs of carrots, lettuce, broccoli, and green beans. I put the 4 veggies in the 2nd container and then moved the thing and now I don't know where each of the sets of seeds are. :) Hopefully they'll sprout soon so I can put some little labels in there!

The weather was actually really nice all weekend, too. So nice that we went to the park both Saturday and Monday. I rocked 3 miles in my Reebok EasyTones yesterday (yes, I got them before I reached my 1 mile running goal ;), and am going to attempt to get back on the Couch to 5K program this week. Kalyn is completely demolishing that program! :) Maybe I can become as cool as her!

And on another note, since I forgot to blog about this, I've been sprucing up some areas in the apartment lately. Task #1 was freshen up the bedding with a spring-y comforter! Surprisingly Target had one that already matched all our other decor!

And lastly, Eric is "officially official" at the hospital. I think he's excited that people the meets with will actually know he's an employee now, not just some random guy asking for info. :)