President's Day 2008

I am convinced one of the hidden blessing of me getting sick these past two weeks is to become totally disgusted with the mess in my house. The Sunday that my friends came into my home to get my kids ready for church I was horrified by what state they found my house in and having to find socks in their unorganized drawers pushed me over the edge. I knew it was time to do something about it. So I cleaned every closet and drawer in our home. I got rid of 75% of my clothing - I seriously have like 20 items left. It must have been all that "what not to wear" watching while I was sick. I filled 19 large trash bags of clothing, shoes and stuff that needed to get out of my tall skinny home.
So today we drove to Value Village to drop it off and find some church shoes for Caroline. (they always have the best European shoes there) I had gone to Nordstrom (man that place is so overpriced!) to just bite the bullet and buy her some church shoes and tennis shoes. I found the ones I wanted but they had to order both of them in . The total would have been over $100 and I just didn't even care. I was tired of having her wear her tennis shoes every sunday with her smocked dress. But it must have been fate because the salesman never called me back with the order.We walked into one very packed Value Village. It was crazy. I didn't know until after I checked out that every thing was half off! no wonder. I found these darling double buckle pink shoes in Caroline's size as well as a new pair of Addidas Tennis shoes. Shoe total for both $3.25found Annie Kate a new Lilly Pullizter look alike dress with the tags. The price was $2.50 but with the big sale we got it for $1.25I have been on the hunt for a punch bowl for two friends. One is local and the other is a blogger who I so bad want to find her a cool one and send it to her because of a comment she made once on my blog. I was excited to find one today. It is a great shallow bowl and had all 12 cups, with a unique square pedestal and the glass ladel. This was a steal for $9.00
I wrapped it all up to thank her for saving my behind while Jeff was out of town. Again the power of cellophane and ribbon.While I was taking the photo of the bowl I had to take a photo of my thrifted punch bowl from Goodwill in Tennessee. I have this fear that it will break and I will never have a photo of it. I love this bowl and it was a steal with all 12 glasses for $12.00. I have seen this a few times on ebay for well over $60.00.We had not planned on looking for shoes for Annie Kate but could not turn down these Merrell's for her, they will probably fit this summer. $2.25Poor Annie Kate lives in a Lilly Pulitzer/Preppy - Camoflauge world. She loves the pink and green look I think for me but just wants to wear camo every day. I am not sure if it has anything to do with Jeff being in the army - so has only seen him in his uniform a few times. But these Old Navy near new pants were great for $3.00
We also got her a new Redskins Jersey for $6.00. They have so many kids Jersery's of every single team there in case anyone is interested.

So our Value Village trip was a success. We got rid of our junk and came home with more.

We then went to the zoo. Which added to our thrifty day as the admission to the National Zoo is free. The kids just love it there. With it being free you don't ever feel any pressure to see more than one thing.


The kids did get ice cream which we probably spent more on that than our entire Value Village bill. It stared to rain as I was taking this photo (rain drop on lens) so after our journey to see the mini monkeys we ran back to the car. I got an email from a Pink Christmas gal who lives in Virginia that she saw me there but didn't say anything. Oh I hope it was she was just nervous and not because I was yelling at my kids and she was thinking, "that isn't very Pink-like" So if you ever see me feel free to stop me - I just warn against making surprise visits to my home - I can not guarantee the state of me or my home.
While at the zoo I again was reminded at what a melting pot we live in. At times when we travel back west i always seem to say, "Everyone here looks exactly the same" When I was in Utah last fall in the airport I swore everyone had the same haircut.
But at the zoo I did more people watching than I did the animals. I heard 3 languages that I could not even recognize what they were. It is just fascinating to me and I feel lucky to live here as I know some day we will move and live somewhere where everyone looks the same.


For Family Home Evening we gave each kid a new folder to collect the Presidential Dollar coins that came out this year. The quarter collecting has been such a big hit I thought we would do the dollars too. I also bought the Caldecott award winning book, "So you want to be President" a fun read for kids this year. It is a wealth of information on past presidents and written so any age will want to listen. We gave the girls their first dollar coin.

Hope your President's day was Presidential!