New year = New blog template!

So it's been quite awhile since I've been posting on here. It's been a crazy past 6+ months over here. Jadon started kindergarten which was rather painless after the first day where he wouldn't go into the class room for the majority of the time. He's been quite the popular one and he's loving every second of it. Isabelle's vocabulary is booming. She can correctly identify all the letters and their sounds, shapes, colors, and she knows more words than we even know about. Andrew is still working as a software consultant (no, not tech support which he gets asked a lot). I have finally graduated with a B.S. in Psychology with a Human Factors certificate (which I actually need to make sure that I got...).

A new year means a new blog template right? Well, welcome to the new template. Andrew thinks it looks very scrapbook-y, but I think it looks very spring-ish so here's to the abnormally warm winter weather. Hopefully the real spring isn't too far away and that we don't get hit with winter in April. We have yet to go snowboarding or sledding with the abnormally low amount of snow this year, but hopefully we'll be able to go at least once before the season is over. Jadon needs to try out his skiing skills to see what he's been able to retain since last year and Isabelle is old enough to enjoy sledding this year.

The year of the water dragon brings us a lot of new projects. Stay tuned for more details on everything going on with us. Thanks for reading!

Couponing Loot

For lack of things to blog about at the moment, I thought I'd share with you my loot from my latest couponing adventure.

3 boxes of Special K cereal
2 boxes of Apple Jacks cereal
6 boxes of Pop Tarts
4 boxes of Keebler Sandwich Crackers
2 boxes of fruit snacks
1 box of Scooby Doo snacks
2 packages of cookies (pic shows 1)
6 packages of Bic pens

With the help of couponing assistant, Andrew, we got all this for under $20. Not too shabby. Side note: We got the pens for -$.02 plus tax each. Gotta love free pens, but this wasn't as cool as last week's nail polish that I got for -$2. :D (<--I'm practically emoticon-illiterate since I don't use them that much, but this one seemed appropriate.)

Mommy Accomplishments

It's amazing to me what I've learned since becoming a mom. Ranging from minor things to things that have taken awhile to figure out, here's a quick list of things I've accomplished:

1) Learned how to change a diaper. I had never changed a diaper before and my first attempt was in the NICU with Jadon. Talk about nervousness with the nurse standing close by and a preemie to change. Now, I'd like to say I'm pretty darn good with diapers.

2) Became incredibly informed on childhood development. Not only did I read a baby book with Jadon, but I also took not one but two "Infancy and Childhood Development" courses in college. Why two? I took the first one as a non-major class before I changed majors and needed the major class. Also, basically every psychology class has some sort of childhood development involved.

3) Learned American Sign Language basics. From previous posts, you can tell how much I love using ASL with babies. I started some with Jadon but really kicked it up with Isabelle. I'd like to attribute Isabelle's language boom to ASL and it's amazing to be able to communicate with your child at such a young age. They both have something they learn together now and it's amazing to watch how quickly they pick it up and how much they enjoy it.

4) Learned how to make my own baby food. Yes. That is an odd one. I'll even admit to that. I completely forgot that I had done this. Sure, I have a bad memory, but I did this for like 6+ months. Come on... I think I actually literally forgot that I was doing this and so I stopped and then she didn't need it anymore. I started doing this to partly save money, but mostly because it was healthier.

5) Became a babywearer. I never had a baby carrier with Jadon which I sorely regret since he needed to be held so much, but I got an Ergo baby carrier as a gift from Isabelle's baby shower and my interest in babywearing grew from there. I purchased a Moby wrap for the newborn stages, which I highly recommend, and carried (or "wore" as you say in the babywearing world) Isabelle for several hours a day. She was bad at sleeping so this was a lifesaver. When the Ergo didn't work for me when Isabelle got old enough for it, I turned to the babywearing world to find a solution. To make a long story short, I have tried just about every type of carrier out there and have accumulated a ton of carriers along the way.

6) Learned how to cloth diaper. To go along with all the other hippie things, I also turned into a cloth diaperer with Isabelle. To mostly reduce waste and to save money too, I researched cloth diapering for a long time before having Isabelle. I settled on BumGenius and haven't had a need to stray away from that brand. I didn't cloth diaper her much at night or use cloth wipes, but the cloth diapers alone have saved me a lot of trips to the store to get more diapers.

7) Became a baby product addict. I am so well versed in the baby product world that I feel as though I owe it to myself and others that I share my knowledge by working in a baby store some day. Partly joking there, but I am an over-researcher so I can talk to you about strollers, baby carriers, diaper bags, and other fun baby related items, as well as where you might be able to find them on sale.

I think that about sums everything up. I can't really think of much else to add. It's amazing what you can learn when you want to.

Attempts at Domestication

I think the title of this post is appropriate for this next segment... I have hardly any skills in the good housewife department. I don't know how to cook and I don't like to clean, but of course, I cook sometimes and I have to clean. Since we want to save money for the future (and because I want to learn useful skills), I've taken up some activities to help with saving money. These activities are obviously leading me onto the domestication path. Whether I can follow this path and actually succeed is another question. Here are a list of my attempts. Look out for updates in the future.

Attempt #1 - I went to a couponing class. There, I said it. I have decided to start couponing. If Extreme Couponing on TLC pops into mind, I don't blame you. That show has given a bad reputation to couponers all over. Personally, I would like to call myself an informed couponer. Yes, I get the Sunday paper now. Yes, I have a couponing binder. I subscribe to the Savvy Shopper Deals newsletter to stay up to date on deals and I also use their "Shopping Wizard" to help me in finding where the best deals are. If you're interested in couponing, let me know. I'd be happy to help or at least refer you to someone who knows what they're talking about. It's been an interested adventure so far. I do enjoy it, although it can be a pain at times, but I can't really complain when I can get things I'd use for free rather effortlessly.

Attempt #2 - We've started doing Bountiful Baskets. If you aren't familiar with BB, check out their site. It's basically a co-op where you can participate to get locally grown produce and fruit. It's cheaper and fresher because they eliminate the middle man (grocery stores) in the process. You sign up each week. Conventional boxes are $15. Organic boxes are $25. You can also add-on the other things available, like breads and fruits. The boxes are 50% vegetables and 50% fruit, but they're different each week and you aren't guaranteed anything, which means you're up for a surprise of produce each week. That can be a fun thing or that can be a pain trying to figure out what to do with something foreign. We've done it for 3 weeks already and it's been pretty good for us. I've been able to expand my very limited cooking skills with the motivation to use all the food before it goes bad. I've been able to make fresh strawberry lemonade, salsa, kale chips, beet salad, cilantro lime butter on corn, and I've even practiced my knife skills by slicing all that fruit each week.

Hopefully, my efforts will pay off in the future. Wish me luck!

Seattle 2011

Not long after our trip to Disney World, we packed up our things again to head to Seattle for my sister's graduation. This time, instead of packing for the heat and humidity of Florida, we packed for the rain and mild weather of Washington. Andrew had driven through Washington before. He went to Seattle for a day with his friends back in high school, but I had never been there before. We knew to expect rain and temperatures in the high 60s/ low 70s, however, we lucked out and the weather was absolutely perfect for the majority of our stay. It was sunny and warm for most of the time, except the last full day we were there which happened to be the day of graduation and of course it poured throughout the ceremony.

We managed to arrive in Washington in the late afternoon so we were able to head over to Selina's house after checking into our hotel to do some sightseeing. We went over to Point Defiance to do a little hiking and exploring. My first impression of Washington was of how pretty the scenery was. I've heard from many people that there are trees everywhere there and they were right. I'm not a huge fan of scenery, but I instantly fell in love with the atmosphere of Washington upon arrival. Point Defiance was no exception. It is on a tip of a small peninsula that juts out into the Puget Sound. (FYI, a "sound" is another word for a type of body of water.) It's a huge forest basically surrounded by water and it was extremely pretty. Even though the beach was basically full of rocks, it was nice to see the water all around us. It was extremely windy and cold there though so we retreated to the forest to explore. Jadon had fun running around the trail and almost instantly found a hiking stick to use.

We were only in Washington for three full days. One and a half of those days was spent attending events related to Selina's graduation. That left us with only a day and a half to "do" Seattle. If you were wondering if you could really go through Seattle in one day without feeling like you've missed too much, I think I can say that you really can. Although I would've liked to have another full day in Seattle, the days we had there were adequate enough for us to absorb most of what Seattle had to offer. Here's a breakdown of how we did it.

First of all, I once again borrowed a Seattle travel book from our local library. Because of how much I loved the Frommer's Disney World guide, I was glad to see that our library had the Frommer's Seattle 2011 guide available. I cannot recommend getting a travel book enough. Without this, we wouldn't have done some of the best things we did in Seattle.

Since Seattle is a pretty compact city, and upon recommendation from our book, we decided to drive over to Seattle Center (which is the location of the Space Needle as well as many other amazing buildings) to find a place to park our car for the day. We parked at our first destination and went inside to buy the Seattle CityPASS. Because most of what we wanted to do was available on this pass, it was the most economical way of doing things and it was a nice motivator that we had to get at least some of these things done in order for the pass to be worth it.

Pacific Science Center
Our first destination was the Pacific Science Center. None of us (Andrew, Selina, or myself) had much knowledge of this place. It has a pretty unassuming exterior and could easily be missed had it not been for our passes and my book. Inside, we found a plethora of science-related interactive displays. Jadon and Isabelle had fun going around playing with everything and it was equally fun for the adults to explore. We could have stayed there for many hours more than we did. As a bunch of science geeks, it was seriously amazing how cool they presented science in these fun, interactive ways. They even had a butterfly house which we had to wait in line to get into. Once inside, we were surrounded by butterflies. It was one of the coolest things we did there. Probably the best thing we did here was see Born To Be Wild in 3-D. It was such an inspiration story and is definitely worth a watch.

Space Needle
A short walk away was the Space Needle. Built for the World's Fair in 1962, this attraction was a pretty short one for us. There was virtually no line for the super fast elevator to the top so we were able to get through this easily. The views from the top were magnificent and reaffirmed my love for Seattle. With the coldness and the huge gusts of wind up there, we made our way back down after a couple of laps around the top and a bunch of pictures later.

Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum
The Experience Music Project (EMP) was probably one of the things I looked forward to the most this entire trip. It was built by the co-founder of Microsoft to house his vast music collection. The Science Fiction Museum was built afterward and connects directly to the EMP. This was the one place that I absolutely had to go to. It was really cool to see the Nirvana exhibit with all the memorabilia from Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain. We also got to see other really cool memorabilia from other amazing musicians, like a diary from Jimmi Hendrix where we got to see his handwriting and his documentation of several days.

One of the things Selina and I really wanted to do was make our own music video at On Stage. Basically, they take us into a room where it's suppose to simulate what it's like to perform in front of an audience. We played "I Love Rock 'n Roll" with Selina on the keyboard, Jadon on the drums, and me on the guitar. After we finished our song, we got to watch ourselves on TV performing with a bunch of screaming fans. We bought a picture of us rocking out and were also presented with a couple of ticket stubs of from our sold-out concert. Our band name was "The Blue Lips" because Jadon had blue lips from some candy he was eating. It was definitely a fun experience, especially with Jadon being able to play with his all-time favorite instrument.

Another thing that I really wanted to do here was go to the Sound Lab and play around with some of the instruments there. I got a lesson in the drums and learned a basic drum beat, which was amazing because I've always wanted to learn how to play the drums. We went into some of the soundproof rooms and tried our hand at singing and playing the guitar too. These rooms were cool because they time you so everyone gets a chance to try out the rooms and you get uninterrupted time without feeling like you're hogging it. This would have been a fun place to stay longer at too. It was kind of hard with the kids, but they were pretty content trying to play the guitar in one of the soundproof rooms for awhile.

I really looked forward to the Science Fiction Museum where they have props from movies like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but they only had one exhibit open (Battlestar Gallactica) while the rest was under construction for the Avatar exhibit. Too bad we missed out on that one.

Seattle Aquarium
Andrew's must-see was the Seattle Aquarium. We took the monorail from Seattle Center over to the mall in downtown Seattle. It was a quick ride and it put us just north of the aquarium. We had to walk several short blocks to get to Pike Place and then find a way through the market to the aquarium. It involved some long flights of stairs to get down to the level where the aquarium was which was a pain with Isabelle in the stroller, but we did it and were able to make it to the aquarium before they stopped letting in visitors at 5 pm with a closing time of 6 pm. I was a bit skeptical we'd make it there and still have time to go through everything, but we did and we there was lots of time for us to enjoy everything we wanted to see. The coolest thing here was the huge touch pool and the seals/otters.

Pike Place Market
By the time we got out of the aquarium, the Pike Place Market was also shutting down. We knew going into the aquarium that we'd only be able to do one or the other so it wasn't a surprise to us to see vendors closing up, which wasn't too much of a letdown because we weren't really going to purchase much anyway. We wandered through it for a little while. Andrew purchased some fresh fruit and I got to see all the iconic marketplace things like the huge array of flowers you can purchase for super cheap as well as the place they do the flying fish tosses. And of course we stopped at the world's first Starbucks to get ourselves a frappacino. We also stopped to eat dinner at a little place right there too before heading back.

Our day was very full, but it was a pretty good way for us to take in Seattle in a day. We accomplished everything we wanted to do that day without too much rushing around. I remember thinking that I was cutting down on the picture taking that I would have normally done since we went from place to place without much resting, but as I go through the pictures now, I don't feel like I'm missing too much in the picture department from that day.

The first part of the next day was spent going to Selina's departmental receptions. It was nice to see the campus and to visit with her friends and teachers. The campus was super pretty with all the trees and old buildings too and it was a nice experience. After we went through all the receptions, we went off again to complete our last schedule of events. On the way onto the freeway, we unintentionally passed by Stadium High School where 10 Things I Hate About You was filmed and I was able to catch a glimpse of the spires of the school. A fun surprise to me since I didn't actually plan on ever being able to see it and, although I didn't get to see all of it, it was still cool to be in the same proximity.

Woodland Park Zoo
Another of Andrew's must-see things, the Woodland Park Zoo was just north of downtown Seattle which meant a further drive than we had done before. It wasn't too hard finding the zoo, but finding parking was a trip in itself. We circled the parking lot we found for ages hoping someone would leave and we would be lucky enough to fill their spot. We learned later that there were several different parking lots around the park. This zoo was one of the best zoos we've ever been to. It was huge and each of the habitats were amazing. The habitats were made to resemble the animal's actual habitat and it didn't feel like a zoo at all. It was more like a safari with the animals roaming on large pieces of land. It reminded us a lot like the Animal Kingdom in Disney World and their safari ride. They had a small petting zoo area where we able to pet the animals. The best part by far was the bird room where we purchased sticks with food on the ends. We held up the sticks and birds would fly onto our hands to eat off the sticks. It was a lot of fun for everyone trying to get the birds to come eat.

When we were leaving the zoo, we unintentionally passed by another 10 Things I Hate About You landmark: The Fremont Troll. We were able to drive right by it, but I didn't take any pictures. Andrew had no idea what it was, but I was pretty excited to see it up close and personal, albeit from our car.

Ivar's Salmon House
We didn't do a lot of fancy eating out while we were here, but we did do one nice seafood restaurant dinner after the zoo. We chose Ivar's Salmon House because it was a family friendly recommendation from our book. It had good reviews and was right on the water. We were able to get a window table and we got to see some of the Space Needle before it started raining. There was an abundance of salmon and it was very good, but Selina's fried oysters were absolutely amazing and I wish I had ordered them too. There's always next time I suppose.

The rain lasted all that night through the next day. Selina's graduation took place in the rain and we were lucky enough to get seating on the uncovered lawn. The school provided ponchos thankfully. Jadon fell asleep under his poncho in the middle of the ceremony, but he was a trooper throughout. Thank goodness Andrew had taken Isabelle back to the hotel to nap, because the rest of us were freezing by the time the ceremony was over. After the graduation festivities, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner before going back to the hotel to pack for our morning departure.

Seattle was an amazing city and I really loved visiting. I'm glad we made the trip and that Andrew got to see that there really are a lot of kid friendly activities to do in Seattle. So can you really do Seattle in a day? Sure you can, but you're definitely going to yearn for more days in the end.

Disney World 2011: Day 7 and our goodbyes...

Our time in Disney World was amazing. We stayed there a whole week which in most places would be overkill, but it actually was just perfect for us to take in everything Disney World had to offer. We actually could have stayed a bit longer too since there really was more stuff we were never able to do.

On our last day there, we decided to take it easy so we packed up our stuff and checked them with the hotel while we went out to the park one last time. We went to Epcot yet again. It was so conveniently close and we wanted to go through it one last time. We got some more food from the food cart in China and went through the Japanese store to get more goodies before we had to leave to catch our bus to the airport.

One good thing about staying at a Disney hotel is that we get to use the Magical Express to/from the airport and they check in our bags at the hotel. All we had to do was make sure we caught our bus and that was it. We said goodbye to Disney World and made our way home in a much quicker manner than when we first arrived. (i.e. we weren't stuck in security for an hour and then get delayed even more while we waited for others stuck in security to make it to the plane.) Isabelle didn't fare as well on the flight home though and she cried for the last 20 minutes or so. She kept signing and saying "All Done!" and Andrew had to finally pretend that he was going to get up to change her diaper in order for her to stop crying.

Getting home was kind of a bummer. I remember how sad it was to leave Disney World the first time I was there in high school. It was like returning to reality then and it was kind of like that now. Jadon kept telling me weeks afterward that he missed Disney World and how he wished we could go back there. All I could think was, "Me too." Disney World was an amazing trip for all of us and we're definitely going to go back there many more times in the future, but first, we want to visit several other places before we head back there.

This ends our Disney World trip series finally. Thanks for reading if you were able to get through all the details. Now, we'll be moving on to more recent events and I'll update more often.

Disney World 2011: Day 6

(Yes, I'm still writing about Disney World. Yes, I do realize that I'm VERY far behind...)

On the second to last day in Disney World, we planned to head back to the Magic Kingdom as early as we could so that we could beat the heat and the crowds. Since the first day in Disney World was a massive disaster at the Magic Kingdom, Andrew was not very happy to head back there but I pretty much demanded that we wake up early enough to at least do half a day there. We have kids after all. They have to ride something in the Magic Kingdom.

We arrived pretty soon after the park opened and it was a completely opposite experience than the one we had the first time around. It was practically blissful there. The weather was amazing and we walked onto pretty much everything we wanted to ride and were able to enjoy a nice lunch without too much of a wait or crowd.

We started out at the it's a small world ride which was Jadon and Isabelle's favorite in Disneyland. Jadon was surprised that things outside were completely different, but that everything inside was pretty much the exact same as Disneyland. After that we went to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This was my first time ever riding on this ride and it just seemed like a pirates themed small world ride, since we rode them back to back. Jadon was terrified for the first part and closed his eyes, but he opened them for the end of it. He enjoyed looking through all the stuff in the gift shop and ended up picking out a telescope. When we got off the ride, we saw the last part of the Captain Jack Sparrow impersonator. It was hilarious and such an amazing impersonation. It would've been fun to see the whole show. Jadon even joined in when they were looking through their telescopes to spot something.

We used Fast Passes to ride Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin which was suppose to be what the Toy Story Mania ride was based on, but this one has lasers and Zurg instead. Jadon loved the Toy Story ride so much that I knew he was going to like this one and he was excited to finally get to go on this one. This one was pretty awesome too and I'm so glad that Jadon was able to ride something similar to the Toy Story ride without the crazy wait.

On a whim, we decided to watch Mickey's PhilharMagic. My travel book rated this ride as a MUST, but Andrew and I weren't completely sure of what to expect of this. We worried it would take forever and that we wouldn't make it to the Buzz Lightyear ride at the time we wanted to, but it was only a 5 minute wait with a 15 minute show so it fit into our timing perfectly. Seriously, this was definitely worth the trip to the Magic Kingdom. The travel book was right. This is a DEFINITE must do. We happened to be sitting at the perfect spot for the ending which featured Donald Duck so Jadon of course loved it. Everyone has got to do this. It's basically a short 3-D film that plays to all the senses. It's so worth it for both kids and adults.

After we said our goodbyes to the Magic Kingdom, we discovered that we were able to ride the ferry and monorail over to Epcot. This was our first time traveling from park to park so we had no idea how to do it. It was easy enough. Jadon had been wanting to ride the monorail so this was fun for him and the boat was an added bonus. Andrew and I have decided that we love Epcot, as if you couldn't tell already by the amount of times we had already visited it. Not only is it close to our hotel, it has a bunch of things to do for every age. When I first went to Epcot in high school, I didn't know all these things existed and neither did Andrew. Of course, I had read up so I knew more of all the features Epcot has to offer.

We decided to go through the Innoventions buildings first while Isabelle napped. Andrew had no idea this existed and it was a pleasant thing to do to beat the midday heat. There are two Innoventions buildings: East and West. We went to Innoventions East first and spent a considerable amount of time there. I watched Isabelle as she napped and Andrew took Jadon around to the different exhibits. One of the coolest things there was a game where you learned about recycling and Jadon got to push around a garbage truck from center to center. The other thing was the Sum of All Thrills where you design your own ride and then get into a simulator to ride your design. Jadon also got to make his own paper which was cool. Innoventions West wasn't as interactive as the East building, but it had a couple of really cool things to do. Jadon got to take a picture with a fire truck and go through a fire safety thing, which he enjoyed. The best thing here was the video game they got to play with the image of their own avatars. It was cool because it was the actual image of them playing in a pixel-ated environment.

The other new thing we saw in Epcot that day was the Circle of Life show, which seemed like a public service announcement about how humans have polluted the earth to me, but it was informative and it had Timon and Pumbaa hosting so that's always fun to see.

Wandering around Epcot was very relaxing this day, because we were able to just explore different areas we hadn't been to before. We even came across a sand sculptor who apparently just gets paid to be there to work on his sculpture. It was pretty amazing to see. Jadon even got a lesson on how to jump rope.

Stay tuned for the last segment of our trip in Disney World. I know it's incredibly interesting at this point... Then we'll move on to more current news.