CVS Savings!

I went shopping at CVS today to take advantage of a few deals that I saw. On a side note...CVS seems to be the only place that I really score a lot of great deals. When I go grocery shopping (as in food shopping) I rarely use a coupon. Lately, I've just been shopping at Wal-Mart because Kroger and Target haven't been offering good deals on food, and Wal-Mart's prices are usually the lowest out of the major grocery stores. Does anybody else (who coupons a lot) find this to be true as well - that coupons are used more at drug stores rather than the grocery stores? It really makes me wonder how the Extreme Couponing couponers go to a grocery store and have such huge savings because that's not the case with me! 

Anyways...on to what this post is really about: CVS Shopping/Savings!

I bought: 2 boxes Cheerios (the BIG boxes, 2 boxes Fiber One, 2 bottles Pantene Pro-V, travel size Gillette shave gel, Crest toothpaste, 2 Oral-B Indicator toothbrushes

Everything pictured above should have cost me: $24.44

I only paid: $13.33

That's a savings of 45%!!

OK, now I realize it's not THAT fabulous, but at the last minute I realized that the GM cereal was on sale 2/$5 and added it in without a great plan, but considering the Cheerios are the big family size boxes and they were still included in the sale, I'm pretty happy! I looked at the price of Cheerios at Wal-Mart, and the big box was $4.29! It's almost like I got one box for free! Anyways, here's a break-down of what I did. 

Transaction #1:

Pantene products 2/$6.97 = $2 ECB

- Bought 2 Pantene products

- Used $1.50 ECB I already had

- Used $2/2 Pantene CVS coupon

- Used $1/1 mfr coupon

Paid: $2.67 (not too shabby for shampoo AND conditioner!)

Earned $2 ECB

Transaction #2:

Gillette Shave Gel = $2 ECB

- 1 Gillette shave gel $1.50

- Crest toothpaste - $1.99

- Used $2 ECB from Transaction #1

- Used $0.75/1 Crest coupon

Paid: $0.99

Earned $2 ECB

Transaction #3:

All GM Cereals 2/$5

Oral B Indicator toothbrushes $1.99 =   $1 ECB

- Bought 4 GM Cereals = $10

- Used 2 $0.50/1 Cheerios coupons

Used $1/2 any GM cereal

2 Oral B toothbrushes = $3.98

- Used $1/2 Oral B Indictor coupon

Paid: $9.67

Still have $2 ECB remaining for next time :)

 

 

Staycation Summer 2011

Earlier this year my family had decided that it would be fun to do a very inexpensive vacation all together. My parents vacationed with my sister, brother-in-law, and niece last summer to Myrtle beach last summer while Michel and I went on our Caribbean cruise, and they had so much fun we decided to do it all again. After months of looking into places, talking about what we could do that would also be kid-friendly we were still at a dead end. The turning point was my sister and brother-in-law are saving their money to buy a house, and my parents are trying not to go spend-crazy ever since one of those massive storms that we had in April/May actually turned into a tornado in their area and completely blew down their fence and they've had to pay for the repairs that the insurance didn't cover. Anyways, long story short (or is it too late for that?) we decided that a staycation would be better for us all. My sister and her family were at my parents for an entire week, and I was able to go down the first day that they were here, then I came back for a couple days and stayed from Tuesday - Saturday. Michel came and went as his work schedule allowed him to. We had a blast! 

I'll link up each post that I've written about the different days of our staycation, or you can scroll from bottom to top to read them in order :)

Staycation Day 1

Staycation Destination: Zoo

Staycation Destination: Children's Museum

Staycation Destination: Chuck E. Cheese

Staycation Destination: Chuck E. Cheese

Our last true day of our staycation was our most relaxed day. We all slept in, lounged around in our p.j.'s and ate a leisurely breakfast. When I woke up my parents were awake, and Zane was too. Zane was in one of his usual very happy moods so we took advantage of some awesome photo ops. 

I love this face so much! He's such a sweet boy!

Precious! Love this boy!

Later, when we all woke up and showered and dressed, we headed to Chuck E. Cheese. It was definitely a big hit with Karys. We were there for almost three hours! 

 

She started out on a little carousel. I think we can tell by the look on her face that she really liked it!

Then she climbed into some tunnels because she wanted to go down the slide. Actually, she couldn't quite get all the way up the steps by herself so I climbed up to help her. 

While climbing around in the tunnels she got lost and couldn't figure out how to get to the slide, nor could she figure out how to get out. She was kind of starting to cry and said "want get out" so I went back up there to help her, and by the time I got up there she just said "Hi, Aunt Julie" and had a big smile and was heading to the slide, so she figured it out on her own :)

She loved seeing Chuck E. Cheese!

Her very favorite ride, though, was this horse that moved up and down to simulate a real horse running and jumping. She was on it for about 20 minutes straight before another kid wanted to ride and she had to get off.

I'm sad to see our family staycation coming to an end. We've had so much fun! I've been so blessed with an awesome family!

Staycation at the Children's Museum

On Wednesday of our staycation we headed to the Children's Museum in Fair Park. This time Michel was finally able to join us! We started out in a farming area. Michel thought I needed to ride the horse. 

The museum was really cool. There was a section for anything you could think of where the kids could explore and play such as a farm, an ocean, a house, a backyard, electricity, tool shed, etc. Zane was old enough to play in some of it, and Karys really loved all of it. 

In the farm there was a little rocking horse that Janette put Zane on. The look on his face says it all! 

Mmmm...it's tasty!

I had to get pictures of Michel with the fire truck.

Maybe a future fireman??

The backyard area was the definite favorite of both the kids. Zane spent a very long time looking at himself in the mirrors on the ladybug's back.

Eventually Zane was moved to the block area to play with his sister :)

One of the exhibits was all about science/health/your body. There was a giant nose in the middle of the room that Michel couldn't help but pick :)

He's so mature!!

The nose actually sneezed, and it was pretty loud and Karys kept saying "nose scary" when we passed it! 

After so much playing we stopped for lunch before continuing on our day. There was a dinosaur exhibit at the museum that Karys LOVED, and said "Want dinosaur picture" when we passed one of the dinosaurs, so I asked her if she wanted a picture of Karys or Karys and Aunt Julie. This is what she chose: :)

We ended the day taking a picture in a giant hand. At first, we had Karys sitting there by herself, but then we decided that the picture would be better with Zane in it. Fun times :)

It's hard getting two little ones looking in the same direction at the same time

 

 

Staycation to the Zoo

Our first big outing on our staycation was to the Fort Worth zoo. It was kind of an impromptu trip, and we only got to stay for a couple of hours because the zoo closes at 5:00, but we still had a great time! Besides, who wants to stay outside longer than a couple of hours when it's 102 degrees outside??

We saw all kinds of cool animals. Even the gorilla thought it was too hot outside, though!

Zane was having a great time at the zoo!

Karys loved the zoo, too! The highlight of her trip was getting to pet a real chicken!

Magan family photo (minus Daddy who was taking the photo)

We also went to an aquarium inside the zoo. There was a place where we could measure ourselves against different types of penguins. I'm happy to say that I was taller than all the penguins - though just barely! Apparently the emperor penguin (in the picture below) is fairly tall!

Karys was taller than an African penguin.

When we were headed out we stopped in the gift shop, and since I am so mature I had to take this picture:

Then Zane drove us all home :)

Staycation Day 1

The first day that my sister and her family got to my parents' house, I also came over to hang out and spend some quality time with my sweet niece and nephew. Unfortunately, Michel had to work, so it was just me. We didn't go anywhere, but I had so much fun just hanging out at the house! My sister showed off the new hats that she bought the kids for the days that we would be outside (to help avoid sunburn!)

I thought that looked adorable so I was armed and ready with my camera :)

She's such a cutie!

Zane isn't a big fan of wearing his hat the correct way, so I decided he needed to wear it in a more "cool" way!

First, we tried wearing it sideways!

It suited him well, but backwards is always the way to go :)

What a cool dude!

2011: Summer of the Psychos

That's right....I'm declaring this summer to be "Summer of the Psychos"! Apparently, I attract the weirdos, and they think I want to know their life stories! 

A few weeks ago, my friend Lili came over one Saturday afternoon and we went to the apartment pool for a couple of hours, and then were going to go to dinner. While we were at the pool, this guy had invited us to join him and his friends at the opposite end of the pool to drink beer and hang out with them. We politely declined, and he went on about his business. Then he came back about a half hour later (after downing a few more beers - as indicated by his very slurred speech) and started asking us why we were being so antisocial. After we explained that we were not single and not interested in making new friends with him and his buddies he started talking about a friend of his who was killed at the Mexican border, how guilty he felt about that, he was going to  psychiatrist and given meds, which helped, but the meds caused him "problems in the bedroom" (those were not his words - his words were much cruder, but I'm not putting them on my blog). Then he was talking about his strained relationship with his mother, blah, blah, blah. This dude talked to us for a good half hour, and trust me - we were not being polite to him, so we finally just walked away. 

Today, I was coming home after spending the afternoon at the Hutchisons' pool, and stopped at the mailboxes to check our mail. When I pulled up to the mailboxes a red flag immediately went up. There was an older guy (like mid-50's) standing in front of a mailbox not really moving or looking like he was trying to get his mail and he was wearing a button up Coca Cola shirt and Dr. Pepper pajama pants - so he already looked...interesting. But I try not to judge. However, the red flag was up so I actually took my keys out of the ignition and locked the door (normally I leave the car running and the doors open). So I quickly get my mail from my mailbox (which is rather close to his) and he suddenly shouts "This sucks! Do you want to know what sucks?" In my head, I'm thinking: no. But out of my mouth comes "What?" And he proceeds to tell me that he got pulled over in Allen by the police twice yesterday even though he owns the Allen police department (really??? you own the p.d. and they pulled you over??) and a ghetto pimp tried to rip him off. He then continued to say that he would tell me his whole life story because he was a former Marine and his ghetto Mexican wife (his exact words...no offense to anyone!) just left him and he didn't blame her for leaving him, but she was beautiful and he wanted to show me a picture. While he was telling me this, I was just inching closer and closer to my car. I was only standing outside with him for about 2 minutes, but when he started talking about his wife, I said "I'm sorry, but I'm in a big hurry", and he said "Everybody's in a big hurry! Can you at least come back and help me get my key out of my box - it's stuck" and I was almost to my car and shouted back "go tell the office and they'll get a maintenance person to fix it" and his reply "I have no kneecaps I can't walk to the office-" and I was in my car with the doors locked before he finished his sentence! I was actually scared of him! My heart was racing when I got in the car because he was off his rocker! The pool perv just irritated me, but this guy really kind of creeped me out. Urrrgghh....why do the crazies flock to me??