Vintage Love

Have you checked out Age of Bliss yet? Chances are you already know Anna and that means you love her a whole lot. We got a little piece of her fantastic shop today in the mail!

A fantastic book for the boys:

And an adorable dress for me!

Look out beaches of Oahu... you will be seeing this dress on repeat all summer long!

And while we are on the subject of fabulous vintage finds, I have been meaning to send a big huge MAHALO to my other vintage guru pal Lisse. Anna, Lisse, and I (along with T and a few others) were unstoppable at the Savers and Salvation Armys of Hawaii back in our day... well, we are still in "our day" for the record so I guess I should say back in the college days!

Lisse also runs a successful vintage shop called Tigerlily Vintage and one day I opened my mailbox to find this parcel of vintage goodness:

YUM. Who else just got all giddy looking at that. ME TOO!

I love my friends. Keep being awesome. And move back to Hawaii.

Who's feeling a craft nite is in order? I wanna make something.

Summer

Guess who's really nice? Thomas R. for helping me put velcro on precisely 100 ice cream scoops tonight so Ambrose can learn his numbers. Maybe he'll learn his numbers? I hope so. We velcro-ed 100 ice cream scoops to a science fair board. He better learn his numbers.

Ash Bash

This looks like many of our other parties, but I assure you this one was so completely different. Breakfast buffet, cousins, 2 year-old Asher (well, almost two).... see. Totally different.

















And then the cousins left that night. :( We miss them and Uncle and Aunty so much already! Ambrose woke up and said he had a dream that they were back.

I need to have a girl someday

We sure do love our cutie boys...


...but I've got to admit that sparkly fingers and toes with the nieces itched a little scratch I've been trying to ignore for a while...


We don't do a lot of sparkly things around here and it was fun!

Life's too short to coupon

I really admire my friends who coupon. They show me their pile of treats that they got for like $2 and I feel like a sucker.

Why haven't I done this sooner? Why don't I have 7 body washes and 16 razors and 20 packs of Hamberger Helper for 20cents?

I feel frantic. I must do this and now. Nevermind that we don't use any of those brands. I need them for 20cents.

But really, all the people that I know who coupon are very smart and some are my dear friends and I want in.

So, I ignored the advice that you do it without kids, because really, when am I going to town without kids? In the middle of the night? After work when I am tired? At 4AM so I can get home in time for my husband to be at work? I took the beasts. They weren't really the problem, but they sure didn't help.

I didn't need a single thing in the entire packet of coupons. I clipped out things I have always wanted to try and may very well use. I saw that somethings were tricky and you needed to use one coupon before you get the other discount...etc. I understand that sometimes you get cash back to apply to something else and sometimes you end up saving in a round about way... it's all very tricky and mathematical. I am not.

I figured it all out (I thought) and double checked before check-out.

The sweet elderly Filipino woman at the check-out hated to burst my bubble. Repeatedly.

Her: "Honey you get $1.00 off if you buy two of these. You have one."

Me: "Aw man, how'd I miss that. Ok, I will just buy the one." (crumple coupon and shove in my back pocket)

Her: "Ok, so you want this moisturizer, but you need the Venus razor replacement to get the discount..."

Me: "What? Not the razor itself?"

Her: "No, that's for this coupon."

Me: "Ok, so I need to buy the razor AND the replacements?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "I'll just get the razor with this coupon and buy that cream without anything." (crumple coupon and shove in my back pocket)

Her: "You sure?"

Me: "I suppose so. I kind of suck at this huh?"

Her: "Well....."

Me: "So, how about I just pay for everything and be done and never do this again."

Her: laughing a lot

I left feeling like I would rather pay tripple for EVERYTHING for the rest of my life than try to finagle the couponing world again. I do not want to figure it out. I don't. In the words of my father-in-law Dale, "I already have a religion."

So, yeah, I'm just not "cut-out" for couponing. I hope you appreciated that pun. The end.

Cousins!

Ambrose and Asher have been in heaven having their Kansas City, MO cousins visiting this past week. Beach days, movies, library time, video games, treats, meals together, a play this Friday, but mostly a lot of brave lizard catching and outdoor night games! We certainly love having them here and watching our boys have so much fun learning how to be big, brave kids too. It would be so nice to live closer and play like this all the time, but we love that we will get to see them summer 2012!















The bad phone pictures really don't do the time we've had justice, but it will have to do.

I keep making this really good choice

Last night was the English department banquet and it is really really hard for me to sit in a room with so many people I respect and hear about their courses, and travels, and studies and not get swept up and carried away....

Every six months I research my dream graduate programs and hang on every single course description and all the possibilities...

It even feels really good when I consider packing my family up for a few years to go to Provo, NYC, wherever! to get my degree... we always feel like we could return....

I can always see myself, clearly, in a classroom full of like-minded English nerds talking about novels and poetry and theory and grammar and I get really excited and the mere fact that that excites me lets me know it's right...

Thomas is support and love personified, but he's my anchor and my reality check and I need that.

Where would we go and how and what kind of time commitment will it be and what I am willing to give up?

I always come to the conclusion that now is not the time.

It bums me out for about 2.5 seconds and then I realize that there is good, better, and best and I have the absolute best all day, all night, all around me.

And nothing is more important, exciting, or feels better than that!







Can you imagine compromising one single sweet moment with these guys? There's a season for everything and this time is precious. The end. :)

*Pictures stolen from Thomas's phone*