It's Gonna Be Awhile

For the past week, I've wanted to sit down and write a "real" blog post, but things have been a little hectic to say the least. So, this might take awhile :)



Last Saturday: Glenn and Jeanie (Ed's parents) arrived from Ohio (see this post). We spent the evening at their condo on Carolina Beach. Lots of fun, but we got home pretty late



Sunday: Edwin & I went to church while Ed stayed home. Jeanie was going to meet me at church, but unfortunately she overslept. Bummer!! Ed eventually joined us in Wilmington and we spent the majority of the day at mom & dad's house. Ed wanted to watch the Nascar race, so mom and I took Edwin and went shopping at Kohl's. That evening, the whole clan (Ed, Edwin, myself, Mom, Dad, Katie, Brian & Anthony) headed down to Carolina Beach. After a yummy dinner, Katie broke out the photog equipment for a family photo shoot!! Hopefully she'll post some of the pics on her blog because they turned out awesome!



Monday: After work, Ed & his parents picked me up so we could go to dinner at San Felipe. YUMMY Mexican food! Edwin was such a good boy at the restaurant...a huge relief considering when we tried to go to dinner on my birthday, he was having none of it (we had to take our food to go).



Tuesday: I took the day off work, so after spending a morning alone (Edwin was at daycare), I picked up my boy and we went to Carolina Beach to see Grandma and Grandpa. They wanted to go to the NC Aquarium, so that's what we did. I haven't been there since my friend Jeri's wedding last year...It was a slow day which meant no crowds. Whew! Edwin loved seeing all the fish and was very vocal about everything! I brought my camera, but unfortunately, the batteries died after only two pictures! Bummer... Just imagine Glenn & Jeanie holding Edwin in front of a fish tank. Nice picture, huh? After the aquarium, we picked Ed up from work and had dinner with the rest of the fam at Mom & Dad's house.

Wednesday: A second day off work for me...so Edwin and I spent the day with Grandma Jeanie & Grandpa Glenn. The weather in Wilmington was not so nice...very rainy in fact. So we basically just spent the day running errands, but it was fun just to spend time together. That night, Ed and I had our second week of Financial Peace University at church (I'll post more about that at the end). AWESOME!

Thursday: Back to work for both of us. We had everyone over to our house for dinner that night, and gave Jeanie her belated bday present: Pictures from our official KMP photo shoot!!

Friday: After work, Edwin and I went down to Carolina Beach for the final night of Glenn & Jeanie's visit. We enjoyed a nice dinner out on the balcony and basically watched Edwin for entertainment. That child is hillarious! I've posted a couple of pics from that night. It sprinkled for a few minutes and I worried that we'd have to take our dinner inside, but the rain stopped and we saw a huge rainbow!!! It was so amazing...and you could see the entire thing! It was a nice way to end their vacation. As always, it was extremely hard to say goodbye to them. After living across the street from Glenn & Jeanie for three years, I got used to seeing them every day. Some of my favorite times were spent chatting with Jeanie as she did her gardening or cooked dinner. We keep trying to convince them to move to NC, but progress is very slow (guess it has something to do with the rest of their family in OH?). Hopefully we'll be able to see them soon.

Today: RELAXATION! After a loooong night last night trying to get Edwin to sleep, today was a welcome day of sitting around doing absolutely nothing. Ed had to work, so Edwin and I played...he took a 3 1/2 hour nap...and enjoyed having nowhere to be.

So there you have it. As I was typing everything, it didn't sound super exciting, but just know that we had a great week with Glenn & Jeanie. Edwin loved seeing his grandparents...even when Jeanie gave him millions of kisses!! :)

My darling son's dinner consisted of Grandpa's french fries, watermelon, and chicken. Yum.

Playing with Grandpa Glenn

The rainbow was gorgeous!

This is what Edwin looks like when he's saying Please. Only, it comes out as "Pleeth"

Chillin' at the beach

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FPU Update

As promised, here's a little update on Financial Peace University. As a reminder, FPU is a 13-week course being held at church. Each week on Wednesday, we all meet together (70+ people) and watch the hour-long DVD taught by Dave Ramsey. Then, we break into small groups for more discussion. This week's lesson was titled "Super Saving". The first step in Dave Ramsey's plan is $1000 in an emergency fund. This is not an all-inclusive fund, but a baby emergency fund. It might seem strange to save money before you attack debt, but the more we learned, the more it made sense. If you have no emergency fund, as soon as you have something happen (car breaks down, A/C unit goes out, someone gets sick, etc), you end up going back into debt! According to Dave, this is the easiest step (as far as getting the $$ together), but it's also the hardest (because you have to commit to living differently...and recognizing that there is a problem). A lot of us in the group were thinking, yeah, right...it's not easy to come up with $1000. But if you take a look around your house, there's lots of stuff that probably has dust on it that can be sold. Use ebay, craigslist, etc. Sell your cds, dvds, collections, whatever!...if you're serious about changing the way you handle finances, you'll start looking at possessions a lot differently. I personally plan to sell all of our cds (it's all on my ipod anyway), dvds, bridesmaid dresses, we have an entertainment stand we don't use, I'm even thinking of selling my wedding dress (I don't need it anymore! haha).

Think of it another way (this example was used in the video): If your child was terminally ill, but there was a cure that cost $5000, would you be able to save the money? The answer for any parent would be YES. You would do whatever it takes to save that money to save your child. Well, getting out of debt and changing the way you handle finances is that serious. Dave talks about changing your family tree...and that's what Ed & I intend to do. It's not going to be easy. It's going to take years to fix some of this stuff. But our goal is to get out of debt (including the house!), save for Edwin's college so he doesn't leave with thousands of dollars in loans, and save for retirement. We plan to stick to a budget, use cash whenever possible, and STOP using credit cards. The slogan on the front of our workbook is "If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else!"

I could go on and on about all of this, but I'm sure most of you (whoever "you" are) have stopped reading by now. But I'm just so excited! Ed and I are going to sit down tomorrow afternoon and go over our very first budget together. Key word here is together. Yes, we're communicating better about money already...and that in itself is worth going through this program! Next week's lesson is titled: Relating with Money. Stay tuned!

1 Timothy 6:10

10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Proverbs 21:20

20 In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.