ALDI GROCERY HAUL | JUNE 2018

Today I am sharing my first grocery haul video. I love seeing these kind of videos on others blog's and Insta stories, so I thought I would share one too! I'll be sharing a post soon on all my favorites from Aldi.
 A couple of things to note: - We usually buy our meat for the week at a local butcher shop here in town. - I actually bought 3 non-grocery items, totaling to $18, which means we spent $82 on groceries.  - A lot of these items will last us a couple of weeks. - We already had some stuff on hand in the pantry or freezer for some of the meals listed below. - Our lunches during the week are usually leftovers from dinner the previous night. 

Menu for this week:

Monday | Hamburgers, mixed vegetables, chips & salsa

Tuesday | Tacos and Mexican rice

Wednesday | Chinese Chicken and white rice 

Thursday | Grilled chicken, baked potato, mixed vegetables and salad

Friday | My Mema's spaghetti

VBS | 2018

What a crazy, fun, exhausting, HOT, and exciting week it has been!

VBS at our church started Sunday night and went through Wednesday night. We had the best time with everyone and all the kiddos! It was super hot, but the kids powered through with the promise that snack time was coming at the end of each night.
Matthew was in charge of the craft booth with another person from our church, so Sunday afternoon we got there early and finished setting everything up for the week. They decided that their craft would be to decorate small boxes, frames and coasters. 

 

The kids loved their crafts and decorating everything!

I was a tribe leader for the 3 & 4 year old age group...aaaand they definitely kept me on my toes. We had about 14 kids every night- they were adorable! Hats off to all you mama's out there with toddlers, I was exhausted after every night and that was only 2 hours with them, ha! 

Sunday night we had a small "farm" to kickoff VBS, very interesting and the kids were OBSESSED! They fed the animals at least 2 pounds of feed and I chased them around with hand sanitizer for the rest of the night. 

Here are some pictures from the rest of the VBS setup that I snapped before everything got started for the week! This was our first VBS with our new church (we started attending here last year!) and we were blown away with everything. Such great props, details, time, organization, lessons, and help from everyone! 

This is our breezeway at church that they transformed to the "Euphrates River"

Other booths in the "marketplace"

Skit areas

We started and ended each night with a ton of VBS songs, and I went to bed and woke up each morning singing VBS songs :)

Wouldn't want to dress up with anyone else! 

PATIO | BEFORE & AFTER

When we moved in over two years ago we noticed that out back patio had been painted. It was a cream color and matched the siding on the back of our house pretty well. Over time that paint has been cracking and peeling up, so it was time to get it all up and our patio needed a good cleaning.  We borrowed a pressure washer from my FIL and got started. It's not a huge patio, but it took quite a bit of time and we ended up having to buy some paint stripping gel to get up the tough parts.
Before:

About halfway through...look at the difference!!

In this picture you can see the difference between the clean side (left), the clean, but still painted area (very middle), and the dirty and still painted side (right). 

Also, as you can see in the picture above it did make a mess around the patio in our yard. Once it dried up, I used our shop vac to vacuum up all the paint. 

After:

And with our patio furniture back on there! 

We are hoping to have our patio covered sometime soon, so I wanted to go on and clean it really well before we got started on that! 
Patio Furniture Outdoor Pillows (sold out, but similar) Paint Stripping Gel

WEEKEND RECAP

We had such a fun weekend!
I snapped this picture of Reagan on Friday, whenever I run bath water for her she peaks over the side of the tub just like this and it's adorable!

Friday after work we went over to the house of a sweet couple from church for dinner and to work on some things for VBS that is this week. Matthew and this gentleman got put in charge of crafts at VBS so we worked on spray painting cute little treasure boxes that they're going to let the kids decorate to take home. This sweet couple just celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary and spent a good bit of time sharing their travel adventures with us. They have been all over the world, literally, in their 49 years (they just got back from Israel in the fall!!) and it was so interesting to hear all their stories and see pictures. The sweet lady even showed me her travel book collection, which is huge, and said I am welcome to them anytime. When we got ready to leave they stood on their front porch waving bye as we drove away and I told Matthew I definitely felt like I was leaving my grandparents house lol! We are going to have them over for dinner soon so that they can teach us a new card game they learned recently.

Our best friends, Ethan and Rachel, came over later Friday night and we all hung out for awhile watching baseball before calling it a night. Tennessee Tech and Mississippi State were playing all weekend (and still going!!!!) so we watched a lot of baseball this weekend, very exciting games!
Saturday we woke up and made a huge brunch! Matthew did most of it on his flat top and I made homemade biscuits. There was so much food and we have a ton leftover for some breakfast this week,,,woo hoo!

After brunch we decided to make a Sam's Club trip and stopped by Bargain Hunt on the way home. I found the cutest sports bra and athletic tanks at Sam's Club and they were both under $10...such a great deal! Saturday afternoon we went to dinner at one of our favorites, Demo's, and then went to the movies to see Ocean's 8. It was such a good movie- with a great cast!!!! After dinner we had a little bit of time before our movie started so we went down to the outlet mall and checked out Bath and Body Works candle sale. Rachel and I ended up purchasing the same exact candle (pineapple mango- smells heavenly) and didn't even realize it until later that night when we got back to the house, ha!
Sunday we went to church and then came back home and Matthew made hibachi chicken and fried rice on the flat top for lunch. It was delicious! Sunday night started VBS so we got to church early Sunday afternoon to set up Matthew's craft booth! I am a tribe leader this week with the 3 and 4 year old age group, they are adorable and definitely keeping me on my toes!

ST. LOUIS | DECEMBER 2017

I can't believe it has taken me this long to blog about our quick trip to St. Louis this past December! 
Last fall Matthew mentioned that we should try and mark off every hockey arena in the country by attending an away Predator's game or two a year. I loved the idea and we started looking at away games for the rest of the year. We had already planned to take some time around Christmas off, so we found an away game a couple of days after Christmas and purchased our tickets!
Two days after Christmas we packed up and headed towards St. Louis. It was a about a 5 hour drive and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip! We listened to Christmas music and talked about everything under the sun to pass the long, very flat, trip!

We got to St. Louis a little after lunch and we were greeted by the Arch! We headed to our hotel to get settled and refresh for the game that night. Matthew surprised me and booked our stay at the Union Station hotel in downtown St. Louis. It was in the perfect location for us as it was a short walk over to the arena. It was absolutely beautiful and it was still decorated for Christmas.

It was bitter cold when we arrived and the wind was harsh. I'm almost positive we lost feeling in our hands and face walking into the hotel.

We added on a couple of layers of our Pred's attire and then headed to the game! We got an Uber to take us over to the arena because it was just so cold, but ended up cutting our ride short and walking the rest of the way due to some unexpected road closures. 

We had originally thought it would be fun to eat at every arena and compare the arena food, but quickly changed our minds after dropping over $30 for a "snack" because they had already sold out of pizza...we're too cheap for that, ha! 

The game was so good and we won, 2-1! The fans around us were actually really friendly, we were a little worried about being fans of the away team, but they were all nice. 

Our goal is to get a picture in front of every hockey arena and make a collage one day! We saw a small group of Pred's fans and asked them to make our picture in front of the arena. Turns out, their parents go to our church, such a small world! 

If our red noses didn't give it away, it was even colder that night! It was about 8 degrees and there was a little snow on the ground.

We decided to just walk back to our hotel and ended up eating a late dinner at Hard Rock Cafe, since it was the only place that was still open. Such a fun night and the atmosphere was even better!

The next day we decided to see the Arch while we were in town and it was awesome. There was a ton of construction going on around it so that led to about 30 minutes of parking frustration, but we finally found where to go. Thankfully we didn't have to stand in line long at all and we got right in.

We took our time and looked out all the windows to take in the views. So incredible and because it was windy that day we could definitely feel the Arch sway a bit- not the most pleasant thought, but we learned that it was built to sway with the wind a bit. So cool, but still a bit scary!

I picked up this beautiful ornament in the gift shop to remember our trip by as well as a post card to add to our travel postcard collection!

After the Arch we had lunch at an adorable Italian restaurant right down the road from the Arch, Angelo's Taverna. I think it is safe to say, we had the best thin crust pizza ever there. The sauce was absolutely incredible. We also had a pretty great view of the Arch from our new lunch spot!

After lunch we hit the road and headed back home. It was a quick trip, but it was so fun and we got to do quite a bit! A huge thank you to my sister for staying at our house with Reagan while we were gone. Reagan loved some time with her Aunt Mady! 

We are eagerly waiting for the Pred's to release their schedule in a few months so we can decide on which arena we want to mark off our list next!