Happy Halloween!

No! You can't have my money!

So, along with everyone else in the world, we're trying to keep our money to ourselves, or at least pay off the debt so that we can have it all later. We've started the home refinancing thing twice already (long story) and have discovered that thanks to reappraisal, we have no equity left. ARG. Not to mention that our property taxes went up this year.

State Farm sent us our newest bills for our cars and I've decided they're asking for too much. So I started getting quotes for different carriers. So far I really like Liberty Mutual.

I have coupons out the wazoo trying to keep my regular grocery costs down. We haven't bought any unnecessary 'stuff' in a long while (common sense there). Love the fact that shopping at Kroger I get gas discounts (thus keeping gas cost down).

I've been answering surveys until I'm sick of them (though I'll still do them) on the off chance I'll either a) build up enough 'points' to get something I want or b) win a prize. I'm entering contests online. If my receipts have a 'answer a survey/enter for a prize' I've been doing that too. I can honestly say I've won a few things from entering online contests, just nothing 'big'.

Other than getting one of those 'work from home' jobs or doing home-party sales, I think I've done about all I can do for now. It's annoying, though, that despite my best efforts we're not getting ahead. I can only hope that at some point in the future all of this WILL make a difference and we can keep our own money.

Punkins!

My kids and I gut and carve pumpkins (punkins) every year, regardless of whether or not we're home. This is the first year they managed to pretty much do the entire thing themselves.

Guess who did which?

Here's my modified pumpkin display

and for the fun of it, a close up of the spider webs that have taken over the other half of my front porch.

Bear Hollow Trail

A couple of the middle school teachers from GCA set up a field trip to Bear Hollow Trail in Athens last week. I was able to take both of my kids on the field trip. We had a gentleman from the park give a talk about native animals in GA (and elsewhere) and then took a walk around. The zoo itself is free to enter and has many interesting animals in it. The birds of prey (hawks and eagles) had all imprinted or had an injury which prevented their return the wild. They apparently had a barn owl stolen from it's exhibit as well. The kids had a hard time trying to figure out WHY you would want to steal a barn owl. At any rate, here are some of the pictures I managed to get.

One of two bear cubs, both female. Their mother was poached while they were extremely small.

One of two eagles. Both eagles had a wing amputated at the elbow due to injury.

A baby gator. My daughter was actually excited to touch it even if her face doesn't show it.

A not so baby gator..

A possum

A very small scorpion.. I was amazed by how little it was.

A screech owl. Very little but very interesting to see.

A tortoise.

A wasp's nest hanging in a tree. It was pointed out as we walked past it. Very big.

Aquarium Stuff (Free for Kids)

For my friends who like discounts - this weekend (29th - 31st) is kids (12 and under) in costume free with paid adult/member. You can check out the Aquarium web site for more information.

It's Caterpie!

For those of you that know Pokemon, I found this guy out front on one of my porch chairs.. I swear it reminds me of caterpie.. so I'll let you decide..

Here's caterpie..

Here's my new 'friend'..

Halloween Decorations

I love decorating for Halloween. I wish I had more 'stuff' to put out front, hopefully I'll find some good deals after the holiday for next year. Just about all of my stuff makes noise, moves, or otherwise surprises you. I'll also have some strobe lights and maybe a fog maker out there for Halloween. Hopefully not too scary for the little guys, just spooky enough to be Halloween. This is the first time in a couple of years I've decorated. My kids haven't been home to have the decorations up (either we've been to a church event or to a friend's house). This year, my kids get to do two things. So they'll do the church event on Saturday the 30th and then their own neighborhood on Sunday. I suspect they'll do more opening the door than anything.

I have some tombstones and some 'floating eyes' in my ivy island out front as well as an inflatable pumpkin pair. No pictures of those, though. Nothing will be turned on for a week since most of it is battery powered.

Wings Over Atlanta Air Show

Apple Store Field Trips?

Did you know that the Apple Store did field trips for kids? I didn't. Not until a fellow GCA mom posted that she'd signed up a group for one and had space available. My kids decided they'd rather do that than go bowling, so we did. They spent around an hour and a half playing on some really nice macbooks doing videos and such. My son worked with another 6th grader on a project, my daughter did one by herself. I can't seem to convert them from regular DVD to something I can post on my blog, so I can't show you the results. They enjoyed the time, I think as much meeting kids their ages as anything, and got a free t-shirt in the process. Actually, the whole thing was free, we just had to get there. :)

Time to meet..

the newest resident in the house.. Meet Cujo... err.. JoJo.. err... Olive.. yea, Olive..

A fellow GCA mom was rehoming her and she came to us as a result. Her original name was Cujo with a nickname of JoJo.. my kids have renamed her Olive. (go figure) She's a dwarf hamster, very cute, working on the hand friendliness.

Corn Dawgs

I took my kids out to Corn Dawgs in Loganville with some other parents from GCA. for one price, they had access to all the 'amusement park' type things as well as the corn maze. The facility actually has 3 different corn mazes (regular, kids and haunted), a rock maze, a hay maze and another maze of 'tile'. They had 3 different slides built into a big hill including these two:

There was an oversized checkers board..

A large 'sand box' style corn bin. It was filled about 2ft of dry corn.

These duck races depended on the kids pumping the water handle for them to be able to go..

This is a large jumping pillow..

At the end of the corn maze is this thing for photo opportunites.. so I took the opportunity.

For families with smaller kids who may not be interested in doing the maze, or for families who want a good way to spend an entire evening, I recommend this place. They had a lot more to do than just this, including swings of several styles for bigger as well as smaller kids, zip lines, inflatables, a petting zoo, hay ride, etc etc.

Main Street Stone Mountain

The city of Stone Mountain has been 'renovating' their appearance to attract more visitors and residents. This is the newest thing, they've redone the main street. They've laid bricks on the side walk and put in a median down the center of the road. Parking is now limited to their little parking lot (mostly anyway). If they can ever fill all the store fronts, they'll be doing well.

Termites anyone?

I've mentioned on facebook that my parents' home has termites (I mentioned it here as well). It's disappointing because before my folks moved out, they had refinished the floors in the house, including replacing termite damaged floor and getting it treated. So, apparently either the company didn't find this infestation at that point, or they came back. Either way, we're having to get it repaired again.

This is wall trim (which is about a foot high starting from the floor) under a window. The hole is there because we actually pushed on the wood to see how bad the damage was.

A zoom in of the hole

This part is the most disappointing. This is the worst hole on the floor itself. This is old heart of pine wood that was original to the house. Not a portion that was originally replaced. There are several other places on the floor where damage is evident as well.

It's all disappointing in that I had a tenant at the house that just wasn't observant enough to report it to me. His comment was that he had a carpet/rug on the floor and didn't see it. Of course, he also didn't see where they'd cracked a couple of tiles as well in the front entry way. So, now I see about getting it fixed before we put a new tenant in the house. Next time, I'm either going to have to insist on no floor rugs, or that they/I lift them monthly to check the floor.

Family Reunion

We went to a family reunion (my mother-in-law's side) out in the North Georgia Mountains. It was a wonderful event, pot-luck lunch (way good, way more than I could eat) and a chance to hike up a rather steep trail. We had to ride with my father-in-law in his truck to get there as we were afraid the road would bottom out the van. Despite that and the overcast sky, we had a lot of fun.

The fire was one of the main places to be.. other than around the food..

Every time I looked the boys were either at the fire or in the creek

My kids' great-grandmother..

On the trail up the mountain.

North GA State Fair

I'm playing catch up with my pictures after last week. I went to the North Georgia State Fair (out at Jim Miller Park) to work for the Aquarium. My family came by and joined me at the end of my shift. Amazingly enough, the main pictures I seem to have taken were of the animals in the various petting areas. Usually I get more of my kids on the rides, this time not so much.

These were Norwegian Fjord horses.. really cool looking.

What a week

It's been a busy week. I haven't been able to stop for long to get any blogging done. Shameful, I know. From school work (including a writing test for my daughter), zooming around for the kids' activities, to trying to get my parents' house taken care of, it's been a go-go week. At any rate, as far as my folks' home goes, the tenants moved out last week and during inspection we found termite damage. Now I'm trying to coordinate the termite treatment as well as getting new paint and other repairs done. I can only hope that we have it all taken care of by mid-October, end of October at latest.

In the meantime, I'm waiting on results for possibly refinancing our house. The appraisal came out significantly lower than we'd figured. A lot of it was apparently due to lack of home resale value in the area. Houses are still just not selling well (if at all) in the area. So we may be stuck, we'll see. Disappointing to say the least.

I did at least manage to mail my niece's birthday gift (late, but hey it's out) as well as two packages to soldiers in the military. One is stationed in Basra, the other I'm not sure exactly. I'll buy some popcorn from my son and send that off to them as well. I also managed to vacuum the downstairs and my kids' bedrooms, do laundry, as well as clean my kitchen and the bath tubs.

So, as a result of the week my posting has been sparse. Hopefully, I'll get my act together over the 3 day weekend. In the meantime, I hope everyone else has a good weekend as well.

Really cool song

Buy Popcorn for the Troops

My son is selling popcorn through Boy Scouts of America. We're hoping to sell lots of popcorn to be sent by Trails End the Troops serving abroad. Help us in our efforts by either following our link to order, or find your local Boy Scout or Cub Scout and order through them. If you'd like to order popcorn for yourself, feel free to do that as well. Thanks!

Lego mini build

This was October's Lego mini build out at the Lego Store at Discover Mills.

Out at the Mountain

My kids and I are out at Stone Mountain Park today. It's GCA's big back to school bash as well as Homeschool day at the park. $17/person gets you an adventure pass.

Tomorrow I'll be out at the North Georgia State Fair at Jim Miller Park for the Aquarium from 10-2. If you're in the area, stop by and say 'hi'!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!