This Week - Valentines day and other randoms

Samiya is always flashing her "peace out" symbol.

Tuesday was Valentines Day so of course there were tiny cards floating around the house, boxes to be made to take to school, and treats to be had. I guess I didn't get the memo that now everyone puts candy with their Valentines, my kids were some of the only ones who gave cards only! Although, I did see this mentioned on "The Middle" last week but I though that was on the show only, nope, real life too.

The kids were so excited to exchange Valentines and they also had a special lunch at school. Luckily, it was my day to volunteer to serve lunch so I got to see them. I also snuck little treats into their backpacks for them to find at school. They loved that. 


Jason came home from work with a teddy bear for each of them, which they loved, and a card and chocolates for me. I made the kids heart shaped muffins for breakfast; the recipe was from Pinterest and it was pretty healthy and tasty too.


Other random things from this week:


-We are on a selling rampage. Between Craigslist and ebay we are cleaning out lots of unused stuff. I love it. Although I wish we wouldn't buy some of the stuff in the first place, it's nice to be able to get some money for it. (Why do we have a hard drive in the basement that was worth over $100 not being used? Why do my kids not play with their toys? Who wants to buy the water softener that came with our house?)


-My kids tipped a grocery cart over at the grocery store! Leilani was sitting in the big part and Samiya was hanging on the outside, I have warned them before that they are too big for that; turned my back and BAM! spilled the whole cart and contents on the side. Luckily, Jason was there to help. This is why I shop alone.


-Yesterday I babysat for a friend and then had all intentions of going to the gym. I got dressed for it and then thought I would sit down and read for 5 minutes, my book took a turn and 4 hours later it was time to pick up the kids! That was a first. (I really need a job.)


-Jason can't stand the face that I didn't have pictures to go with my friends on my phone. When they text me blank faces popped up. So he went through them all and added pictures. It took a long time. He couldn't believe I had been living like that. He was also shocked when I didn't feel better afterwards! 

Banana Oatmeal Muffins

3 mashed bananas (the more ripe the better!)

1 cup vanilla Almond milk (you could use skim but you may want to add a little sweetener)

2 eggs

1 Tbsp Baking powder

3 cups Old Fashioned or Rolled Oats

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chips together, and let sit while you prepare the muffin pans.

Spray a muffin pan and/or liners with with non-stick spray.

Stir the chocolate chips into the oatmeal batter.

Divide batter into 15 muffin cups. They should be just about filled.

Bake 20-30 minutes, you’ll see the edges just starting to brown and they will be firm to the touch.

Leilani was going through her health workbook, which the nurse had told them was a little outdated. Boy was she right. Halfway down the page Leilani says "Mom, what's a V.C.R.?" I literally laughed out loud. I explained what one was and then on the next page she said "What is a Walkman?" Ahh, that was a blast from the past :) Technology moves so much faster now then a decade ago. My kids don't know what a pay phone is either. 

Savannah Trip - Day 3

One of the 22 squares throughout the city, I would love to walk through these everyday!

On day 3 we lucked out because all of the historic homes, museums, and forts were free! We love touring through historic homes and hearing the history of the owners. Many of the wealthy owners of the homes we toured made their money in cotton. We also toured Juliette Gordon Low's home, she was the founder of the Girl Scouts.  

The above house was not open for free, it was the house from the book/movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." I never read it or saw it but I think I will now. Gorgeous home. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside any of the homes so here is a picture of the outside of one we toured.

We also went to Fort Jackson. It was a little boring and I would have hated to be a soldier and living there. 

Right behind our hotel was the Savannah River and a brick road. It's a long road with shops and restaurants.

And lastly, there is Broughton Street, which was a street full of shops. I loved this shop called The Paris Market. It was so cute inside and even had a coffee bar. They gave me a free sample of hot chocolate with cherry whipped cream :)

 

Savannah Trip - Day 2

I just can't get over the gorgeous trees!

Day 2 in Savannah was another beautiful day so we decided to drive 20 minutes to Tybee Island. There we found a pier with a neat pavilion that people rent out for events, cute beach shops, and they were having races on the beach that day. 

 I love the beach, what can I say?

Just the sound of waves relaxes me. I wish we lived closer to the ocean. There is also a lighthouse on the island, it was closed so we didn't even get out of the car, just opened the door and snapped a picture.

We kept seeing the cool metal soda bottles that Jason loves so much. In one store they had a huge display but we restrained ourselves and didn't buy a case.

When we got back to the city I snapped two pictures of the center hall in our hotel. It was open from top to bottom and the ceiling was all glass, notice the old guy napping in the chair on the bottom floor? I loved the old stone walls, they were made from "ballast" stones that ships used to carry in their hulls for weight. (or something like that.)

Next up was City Market. It was like a closed off street with shops and restaurants. We ate outside and enjoyed seeing flowers in bloom.

The Savannah Candy Store was amazing, every time you walk into one they give you a free sample of a Praline, it was so tasty but at $18 per pound we didn't buy any. 

Savannah Trip - Day 1

I wasn't excited at the idea of driving 12 hours to Savannah but I was happy to save on the airfare. Turned out, even after we stopped for three meals and gas we still made it in 11 hours.  In the car we had our usual long-car-ride set-up of one phone for Pandora (music variety and comedians too.) and one phone GPS navigating. We reminsced about the "bad-old-days" without GPS where we would have to print out directions and if we had to stray off the route and didn't have that state map, well, so help us!

It was totally worth the trip to meet this fair lady of a city and be warm for three days! By Sunday it was 78 degrees and I was very happy. We ate outside most of the time, we love eating outside. I must say, we were smitten with this beautiful town. The city is very walkable and we just ambled around, mouths agape, at the tree tunnel-ish streets, gorgeous homes, and amazing squares.

Savannah is a planned city so it is all square and straight lines. It has 22 park-like "squares" throughout and they are breathtaking. The Oak trees and hanging moss make it enchanting.
We stayed at an inn on the river which was originally built in 1817. It was very nice and we were happy with our choice. They didn't have free breakfast but they did have a wine and cheese reception in the evenings which was nice.

We started Friday with breakfast at Goose Feathers Cafe. It was very cute inside but the food was mediocre. The plan for the day was to take a  bus tour and get acquainted with the city so we would know what we wanted to do while we were there. 

We didn't pay to park in a garage all weekend which saved us like $100. Street parking is free after 5pm and then on Friday we parked for free at the tour company lot, then street parking was free Saturday and Sunday, we left early Monday so we saved mucho dinero.

 One of the tour guides told us we were there on "First Friday" so there were fireworks over the river that night. We also lucked out that Sunday was "Super Sunday" and all of the historic homes, museums, forts, etc were free to tour that day. That saved us a bunch of money and we love touring old homes. We love bus tours and hearing all the inside dish about a city, Jason made us ride the whole thing twice just to hear a different guides commentary. Look who got on at the first stop.

Yep, they had a guy play Forrest Gump and he was really good! The movie was filmed in Savannah. He didn't stay on the bus, just did a cute bit and then ran away. 

We would love to walk outside of our house everyday onto this street:

Forsyth Park is a large park in the city, they have free concerts, a pretty fountain, and a cafe in the middle.

 So much history in this town!

For lunch, we stopped at a cafe that had delicious sandwiches! It was called "Smooth" and their Smoothies were delicious too!

Jason tries to sabotage their appalling Apple product ;)

  

One last picture for today, flowers in bloom! It was so nice to smell blooming flowers and hear birds chirping as we walked through the squares.