What have you done this week?

Saturday, Brooke and Big E left for the tenth grade school trip to Washington D.C. Here was the itinerary for their trip ...

Saturday
5:30 Depart for Atlanta airport
1:00 Arrive in Philadelphia
3:30 Independence Hall Tour
4:30 Liberty Bell
8:00 Arrive in Lancaster, PA

Sunday
9:30 Amish Farm and House Tour
1:00 Amish Buggy Rides
4:00 Strasbourg Railroad Rides
9:00 Arrive in Washington D.C.

Monday
9:15 Mt Vernon Tour
11:45 Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
2:15 Arlington National Cemetery Tour
4:45 Observation Tower at the Old Post Office
6:30 Evening monument tour (WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington)

Tuesday
9:30 US Capitol Tour and Picture with Congressman Bobby Bright
2:45 National Holocaust Museum
5:15 Dinner at the Fashion Center at Pentagon City
7:00 Walking Ghost Tour of downtown Washington D.C.

Wednesday
9:30 Museum of American History
2:00 Fly back to Atlanta
6:15 Back to Montgomery

Now, that is some mileage, some walking and some serious fun all packed into a five day period.

Both report that they had a really great time on the trip. To my surprise, Big E stated that it would be a fun "adult" trip. Get your minds out of the gutter, she meant a fun trip for me and her not that kind of adult. Of course, I think I would throw in a few additional days and stops; maybe a baseball game in Philly or Baltimore for example. But for an educational trip, I would have to say that their trip was first class.

Needless to say, you cant have sixty kids and adults traveling together without a funny story or two. I will share this one while Big E isn't paying attention.

Big E is only afraid of three things; heights, enclosed places and mice. The Observation Tower at the Old Post Office is a few feet tall, probably why they call it an observation tower. Apparently the kids talked her into "sucking it up" and riding the glass enclosed elevator (so you can overlook the mall inside) to the observation.

Apparently the elevator had a minor (major in her mind) problem and only made it to the ninth floor and you had to climb stairs to the twelfth floor. Hahaahaaa, I wish I could have been there to see Big E at this point. Well, Big E could not climb the stairs at this point. Apparently her body has some sort of internal height meter that warns her when she is above the ground floor despite being inside a stair well.

I have seen this little "dance" before though .... it is the back down the stairs (backwards no less) crouched as close to the cold concrete of the stairs in hopes that it will limit how fall she falls when the stairwell collapses (has this ever happened?). Look, I've only seen her survive a climb above three floors once and that was to see Keith Urban. Do you really think she is going to climb a couple of floors to look out across an observation tower??????

Well, she didn't!!!! She did manage to text me from the elevator and the stairs to inform me of her dilemma. Oh, she was calm in the messages, but I know she was cursing inside.

I hope one day we can go to Chicago so I can talk her into riding to the observation deck of the John Hancock Building (look it up, I've been there and saw the clouds below me!).

Time for a new dog food brand

Rusty is our spoiled rotten chocolate lab. When I say spoiled rotten, I mean so spoiled that the girls are actually jealous of him. As much as I think that dog is dumb, he really is rather smart. Occasionally, he will do something that truly boggles my mind. Last night I had one of those moments. Thinking about it this morning, I have to question who the master is in our relationship.

I recently requested a free sample of Rachel Ray's new dog food. Yesterday, the freebie arrived packaged in a nice single serving box with a convenient little coupon tucked inside.

In typical Rusty style, he smelled the mailed as I brought it into the house. This is considered normal behaviour at our house. To his surprise, there was actually a little something in the mail for him. Usually, he takes a big whiff of the mail and moves on (he feels the same way we do when the bills arrive). Yesterday, he took a big whiff and started to beg and plead for the mail.

Since it was time to eat, I opened the package and gave him the sample of food. He really liked the new food and wanted more. Since I didnt have any more to give him, I gave him a few marshmellows (his favorite treat) instead.

After pouring the food in his bowl, I took the included coupon and placed in my stack of need to be filed coupons and went about my business.

Late last night, I heard a rather odd sound coming from the office and figured I better check it out. To my amazement, Rusty was proudly sitting in the middle of the floor with the coupon in his mouth. Thankfully, the coupon was sealed in a plastic wrapper. He was actually licking the plastic wrapper trying to get every last drop of dog food dust off of the wrapper!! In addition to the dog food sample, he had several other coupons (half eating) spread across the floor. I guess the other coupons in the stack had a little food dust on them too.

So, I guess this was his way of telling me that he really likes the food and would enjoy a change of pace. Of course, that means that I will be buying a bag when I go to Publix later today. See what I mean about who is the master?

More Good Days than Bad though ...

I've been "on the road again", so I haven't been able to post an update lately.

We were able to get Little E a "new" car. Actually, we did things a little different. We took Jessica's car and gave it to Little E and helped with a down payment on a really nice Toyota Rav4 for Jessica. Jessica will have to make the payments on the loan for the Rav4 but it will be a great growing up step for her and she really likes her "new" car.

Big E is working at the Navistar LPGA event this week as a volunteer. She is reponsible for picking up the players, caddies, etc and carrying them from the parking lot to where ever they need to go on the course. To say that she is enjoying herself would be an understatement. You can see a video of her and several other volunteers talking about the experience at www.wsfa.com. I dont know how long the video will be posted so go now and check it out, and yes, her head has swollen to the size of a basketball.

Little E got her acceptance letter from AUM yesterday. She is really excited about getting her first acceptance letter. She has already been awarded a $1000 dollar scholarship to AUM and I am hoping for some more soon.

She really wants to go to the University of South Alabama though. I dont know if I can handle letting her go away for school the first year. We will have to see if some scholarships can come her way from USA before the final decision. She is going to take the ACT again this fall to try and improve her score some more. If she can hit a 27, she thinks it will put her in the running for a good scholarship at USA.

Finally, to top it all off, I got a promotion at work this past week. The promotion wont have much of an impact on my day to day (at least not initially) but it is nice to be recognized for the work.

Fall weather has really been rolling in lately. It is nice to actually watch football and not have the air conditioner running in the background.

Good days and bad days ...

Sometimes you have good days and bad days. Lately, we have experienced a good share of both so overall, I cant complain.

The girls have started back to school with a bang. Considering the news about the flu, I would have to say we've been lucky not to have a sick kid at the house. For that matter, I guess Big E and I are both lucky not to have caught the dreaded piggy flu.

I've managed to put another couple of hundred miles under my backside traveling the state for the past couple of weeks. I've been out training people of how to use wireless networks and about comptuer security principles. I have a few more miles to travel over the next couple of weeks too.

Speaking of traveling, Big E and Brooke will be headed for Washington DC in a couple of weeks. I am going to try and convince Big E to blog a few times during the trip. Also, Big E will be volunteering at the upcoming LPGA event in Prattville. I will definitely have to get her to blog about the experience and hopefully post a few pictures.

Little E got her first paycheck recently!!! Boy was she excited about actually getting paid. I guess we will be taking a trip to the bank soon to open a checking and saving account for her.

Big E and I have had a couple of really great nights recently on account of the new mattress set. Last weekend she said we were going out to look at new mattress sets, but what she didnt tell me was that we were really going out to BUY a new mattress set. See, in my mind, there is a difference between LOOKING and BUYING. However, she decided that our backs and necks (both of which have been sore lately) needed a change. I dont know if I like the new set though ... I slept till 10:30 this morning. If the new set is going to have me sleeping late and waking up without aches and pains, how will I know if I had a good night of sleep or not?

Little E has had a little car trouble lately, so I finally got around to running the vehicle to the shop this morning (after I finally awoke). The poor little fellow at the auto shop hated calling me back about the results of the diagnosis. I listened to him talk about the necessary fixes and as he faded into the recommended fixes, I simply looked at Big E and whispered "the car is gone". I kinda felt for Mathew as he tried to gently break the bad news to me about the car. The poor fellow spent about five minutes on the phone listing out all of the things but I never really listened past the cracked head, leaking gasket and some other thing that I knew meant the engine would cost more to fix than it was worth. Now, I have to go and break the bad news to Little E. I'm not sure how to tell her that her first car is dead after only 2 and half months.

Oh well, that is the chance you take buying a used high mileage car for a kid. I guess we will have to do a better job of checking everything out next time. Of course, netiher one of us are mechanics. BUT we can, as a team, change a flat tire without arguing!!! We did learn that Firestone will inspect a car and provide a report for $20 dollars. I think we will spend that money next time.

The really shameful part is that I feel Little E tried to warn us about the big issues in time to have them resolved, but neither Big E or I actually listened to her in time. Instead, we waited until is was a major issue and with cars that is unacceptable. Gun, foot, bang!!!

Again, you have good and bad days. Today, I've had both. Tomorrow, I plan on it being only a good day. Shape your world, and if you have kids, shape theirs in a positive manner ....

Now, I am going to spend a couple of hours taking my frustration out on a few zombies and other baddies on the Xbox ....... I love the smell of fresh kills on the TV screen ........

Savings ...

Big E and I have been on a savings trip of late. Maybe it stems from having Jessica starting college or maybe it stems from Obamanomics. Either way, we are seriously trying to cut a few expenses.

So, in the vein of cutting cost, here are a few of our shopping trips this weekend...

1. Publix trip 1 - The total value of the items purchased was 34.20 (that includes the taxes too). The total amount paid "out of pocket" was 15.87. That is equal to a savings of 54%. The savings would have been a LOT better but we did not have coupons for Lucky Charms (yes, these are essential).

2. Publix trip 2 - The total value of the items purchased was 59.84 (again it includes taxes). The total amount paid "out of pocket" was 29.60. That is equal to a savings of 52%. The savings would have been a LOT bettter but we did not have coupons for milk, lettuce, taco dinners (2), velvetta cheese, or marshmellows. In fact, if we only purchased items with coupons we would have been around 78% savings.

3. Last, we made it out of CVS for only 15.33 today. For that, we managed to take home the following ...

2 Composition books with 100 pages each
2 Boxes of Panty liners
2 Revlon make up (lipstick and mascara)

Essentially, we only paid for the makeup today. In addition, we ended the day with more CVS money for next week than we started this week. All in all, that is a good CVS trip. If you aren't a CVS Extra Care bucks member, you really need to consider joining.

While that doesn't break down all purchases in detail, let me assure you that we did pretty good.

I've talked about stockpiling in the past, we are so far ahead with the typical personal items (deodorant, toothpaste, shaving and hair stuff, etc) that we have resorted to family and charity donations. We are doing really well with paper items too. To give you an example, unless toothpaste is free, we aren't buying.

We are struggling a little with some food items but only because I have concentrated on the personal items. In reality, I don't seem to find near as many food coupons as I do personal item coupons. With three girls that are going different directions, personal items are probably more important than food items.

What are you doing to save a little money? Leave me a comment with some good ideas.

A real quick one ...

Major announcement coming .....

Little E starts her JOB today!!! YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Welcome to Chik-fil-a can I help you?" will become the question of the day. I know she is excited and as you can tell, so am I. She can finally afford the gas she is burning each day!!!

WooooooooooooooHoooooooooooooooooooooo ...............

If you didn't get it in the title, let me say it again, woooooooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooo ...

Do you know what time it is? It's school time. That's right, its school time again and that means we are back to a normal schedule!!!!!!!!!!

I cant stress enough how much of a routine kind of guy I am. Does that sentence even qualify as English? It doesn't matter, its my blog and I will write whatever form of Stenglish (Stephen + English = Stenglish) I want to write. Back to the topic at hand, I am a routine kind of person. I know its hard to imagine that a father of three teenage daughters could call himself a routine kind of person, but with me it is true. I cant stand to be out of routine. Routine = Sanity, at least it does in my world.

Here are a few examples ...

1. I like to get up at the same time each day. Big E is working on my weekend wake up time, but its taken her 6+ years to get me past 7:00 AM.
2. I start every day with a shower!!!!!! I don't care if its a shower to go cut the grass, I will be clean and awake before I do anything.
3. I have the exact same post shower routine each morning. Those details probably should not be shared in public.
4. I take the same route to work every day.
5. I cant stand to have anything of mine moved or out of place. Dont even consider putting something on or removing something from my desk. I will hurt you .....

Now that I spell those few items out, I think the word neurotic might be a better word. Holy cow, that is only a couple of hundreds of items that I could easily jot down. Maybe that is why my beautiful bride and kids make soooooo much fun of me. I am weird!!!!

Nothing like a moment of clarity ....

Anyway, sure school starting means we have to buy school supplies, uniforms, etc. but it is all worth it. Besides, school supplies are SUPER cheap this year. Have you seen the low cost of paper, pens and folders this year? CVS has practically supplied us with half a year of supplies for FREE this year. FREE!!!!!!! In fact, we managed to accumulate enough supplies this year to denote multiple bags of goodies to charity.

Quick aside, if you aren't into CVS "extra care bucks", you need to learn about their program. Sure, CVS isn't the cheapest place in town but if you know how to use the program, it can definitely be worth the effort. I wouldn't even consider Walmart, Target or Publix for our various cleaning (human and non-human) items, makeup, toiletries, etc. In fact, with our stockpiling of items, I don't need to purchase shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, body soap and many other items for the next six or seven months.

As an update, our oldest (Jessica) starts at Faulkner University this week, the middle kid (Little E) is starting her senior year of high school and the youngest (Brooke) is entering high school. Can you imagine? I know at least two grandmothers that are wondering where all the time has gone.

We are really starting to look forward to fall football games with Jessica (Faulkner is in year two with football) and with Little E and Brooke at the high school games too. Of course, that means fall needs to hurry up and get here!!!!

Changing subjects, we have been pretty busy around the backyard lately. Big E finally broke down and paid a fencing company to come out and replace the fence along the back of our yard. Elizabeth and I have been working (SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWLLLYYY) on replacing the planks on the fence since we moved into the house but she could take it no more. The fence looks awesome!!! With the fence done, we began planting a row a Crepe Myrtle trees along the fence. I love crepe myrtle trees (and azaleas too) so we are planting a full row of them across the back of the property to ultimately created a screen between us and the neighbors. I cant wait to see the trees in a few years after they've had a chance to grow. Big thanks go out to my mom and dad for letting us dig up their extra trees and plant them here.

With all of that said, I got to go!!!! 1 vs 100 starts live in a few minutes and we are playing tonight. What is 1 vs 100? Well, you've seen the game show, but now you can play it on the Xbox. Each Friday and Saturday, they have a live show with around 30,000 people playing for prizes. A few weeks ago, we were selected to be a part of the 100 mob. I wish I had a video of Big E's reaction to being selected. Regretfully, our mob did not win any prizes that time, but we had a blast playing.

One last update, last Thanksgiving we purchased a new washer and dryer. The washer is one of those front load fancy deals. We have been monitoring our water usage since then and I am proud to say that we have cut our water usage in HALF despite having Little E come to live with us full time as opposed to part time. Based on those water savings, you could actually use the water savings to pay for the dryer in a matter of a couple of years. Now, that is awesome and its green.

Till next time, learn a lot, leave my stuff alone, and root for your favorite team, see ya......