Valentines day

What do you do with 10 pounds of candy corn?

Make class treats!
Happy Valentines everyone!

10 year trip

Jonathon and I have a little tradition, though for the life of me I can't remember the conversation that set it in stone. I am soooo glad that we did. Usually our anniversary is nice, but it's not a production. So every 5 years we do something bigger. On our 5 year anniversary we took advantage of Jonathon's parents and went on a cruise.

This year we wanted to go to Hawaii. Unfortunately it was a bit out of our price range so we opted for South Padre Island. It was so fun to get out and spend time together without having to worry about the kids. My mom and Tony were sooo nice and took our kids on the adventure of a lifetime. (I will post about that when I get the pictures, though if my mom posts I would peek over there to get the first hand scoop!)

We took a sand castle building lesson. You would think that everyone knows how to build sand castles, but this was so fun. Out teacher "Sandy Feet" is a professional sand sculpturer who has won competitions and travels around the world doing what she does. We learned a lot of tricks and by the time we were finished felt like we could do a few things.

Us with our teacher.

My tower. (The one with the ball on top. My nice pointy top broke and this is how we fixed it.)

Jonathon's towers. He did two. The one with the big staircase and the one with the gables on top. (And the squeeze forest in front!)
We went to Sea Turtle Inc. which is a really little building that houses and rescues stranded and injured sea turtles until they can be released into the ocean again. They have a few permanent turtles that will never be able to survive in the wild because of injury. There were several there that had floated ashore because they had been "cold stunned" and needed to be gradually warmed up and checked before returning home. They even had a few hatchlings in there that we got to feed.
This guy is HUGE! Probably 6 feet long and 4 feet wide.

Isn't this one beautiful?

Saturday morning we tried a new beach. Not to swim, it was too cold for that, but to try our budding skills at sand castle building. There were also some really amazing kites.

My tower. I have a major problem with roofs. They just don't stay on. I think I've got stairs worked out though.

The front of Jonathon's tower.A view of Jonathon through his sand castle window.

The back view of the castle.
I don't know why but we seem to have hit black sand when we built this one.
The kites. Many of them bigger than a van!

We got up early Sunday morning to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful!
Sitting on what used to be our sand castle. Someone destroyed it :(
(They left their drink behind as a monument to the destruction.)

As you drive onto the bay bridge to get to South Padre Island this sign is flashing.
The port Isabella lighthouse. It's right in the middle of things. I was expecting it to be a little more like the ones on the outer banks and be closer to the shore.

goal weight

It's been over a year since I set a goal weight and tried to get there. I came really close some times. But now I'm far away.

My goal is to get there, and stay there.

(But not this weekend since Jonathon and I are off to the beach.)

(ps, we aren't taking the kids! I'm giddy with excitement!)

Gratitude

Straight forward.

I need to be more grateful for everything that I have.

For one month I will keep a gratitude journal and only write about things that I am thankful for. I will look for and see the good in everything I do.

With that being said, I wonder if whatever month I decide to do this in will be the one where tragedy strikes.

Family Photo

The problem with having an amazing photographer for a sister in law is that no one really measures up to her standards. The other problem is that she lives 2000 miles away.

So, we have been a bit neglectful about getting family photos taken. We haven't even gone to Sears to get one done.

So that's the goal. Get a good family photo taken. It won't be anything like what Allison could do, but it will be something nice to hang on our wall and share with our family.

The other problem I have when faced with pictures, from school pictures to a family portrait is what to wear. (Maybe that's why I like sports pictures.) Allison is always blogging about how well thought out clothes really make the picture, but what would work well for our family? Olive is about the most stylish person in my family. It probably wouldn't do to have a 5 year old pick out the families picture outfits, so I am stuck.

What do you think we should wear? If you were to pick out our outfits, what would you put us in? We are probably going to try some outdoor pictures in the spring. I have a friend who has been working on breaking into being a photographer for about 3 years and she does pretty nice work. She doesn't have a studio so it would be outside in the Tennessee spring. This is your chance to shake up our very plain wardrobe. I will be buying new clothes for this. So please help me make cute choices!

Food Storage

My food storage isn't too bad. A few years ago Jonathon and I made it a big priority to get most of the basics. We have buckets and buckets of wheat and beans and sugar. For this goal I want to make sure I have all that I need and get it organized and written down so I know where to find it.

We have sugar and rice in buckets in our food storage too. Those however are things that we use a lot so I need to do a better job at keeping track of when we use them. I also need to get my oils in order too. I have shortening, but it's not stored very well, and really I would rather use oil. It goes bad faster so I need to figure out how to keep enough and rotate it before it goes bad.

Then I need to do the three month food storage of things we regularly eat. I love that the church has gone to this suggestion because some of the things that they suggested would definitely keep us alive, but it went bad before I ever found a reason to use it.

My problem with the three month thing is that I use fresh almost everything. Fresh veggies, fresh meats, fresh breads. The grains I can keep in food storage, but we don't eat a lot of "boxed" foods. (Unless you actually count mac and cheese as a food!) Hopefully if I can can stuff I can figure out how to use more of it.

Someone in my NC ward said that if you make a space for it, you will fill it up. I have actually found that to be true. In our new room downstairs I really wanted to make the under the stairs area food storage. That way it would be in the house and in a climate controlled place. When I moved things around and added more shelves a few months ago it looked really bare, but it is starting to fill up and I can see how maybe I can actually do some sort of a storage.

So, how about you? How do you keep your long term and rotating food storage? How do you make it work?