Time and Money

Another busy week, a few less dollars. First I'll get to the busy week part . . .

Brian was launched to America Samoa for a law enforcement mission on Wednesday, and he didn't get home until very late on Friday night. In the meantime, the kids and I continued our daily park/swimming lessons routine, as well as a bunch of other activities. On Wednesday we tried out a new group called "Mom's Club," which as the name implies, is a group of stay-at-home moms that get together with their kids for several monthly activities. I have to admit, after trying out several of these mommy-type groups here over the past nine months, I wasn't sure if this group would really be my speed. But I was pleasantly surprised and met some really nice people there, so we will probably try it out again. On Thursday was the ever painful task of grocery shopping, which was about as torturous as usual. On Friday, the Air Station had its annual Farewell luau, so despite Brian's absence, I decided to take the kids anyway. They had several bounce houses set up, live music, catered Hawaiian food, tons of people, and all our friends were there, so that was fun. The kids (especially Zander) were beside themselves with excitement when they spotted Brian's Jeep at the Air Station, right where Brian had parked it before he left on his mission. It wasn't so much that they thought Brian was around, but rather they were just so excited to see the JEEP that had been missing from their garage for two days. Kinda funny.

On Saturday we attended a kids' birthday party that one of our Coastie friends threw. The kids had a blast, and the hosts served up some pretty yummy food, so a good time was had by all. This morning Brian was very kind to me and got up with the kids, which allowed me to sleep in until 7:20 a.m. What a treat! I don't remember the last time I got to sleep that late. When we finally all got ready for the morning, we headed to Lowe's for a little shopping, and there we found some drapes that I have been looking for . . . so we splurged and bought the drapes and a rod to hang above our patio door (where we currently have some pretty cheap vertical blinds). So, Brian is installing those as we speak, while I keep the kids away from the action. I'll let you know how they turn out. Tonight I will be heading over to my friend Andre's house for a girls' night (where we get to eat left-over homemade birthday cake from yesterday), so I'm excited for that. I guess that covers all our happenings lately.

And now to the "few less dollars" part . . . a lot of people have been asking me what the price of things cost around here lately, since most items tend to be higher here than other places. So let's see . . . gas is up to $3.83 per gallon in our area, but I know it's higher in other areas of the island. Milk costs about $5.00 per gallon, which is painful for us considering that the kids easily drink two gallons a milk a week just by themselves. I spend about $300 every two weeks on groceries for the entire family, which is a whole lot cheaper than many people around here pay because we get to shop at the military commissaries (which coast less and don't charge tax). Pineapples only cost about $2.50 a piece, but red peppers cost about $5 per pound. We spend about $350 a month for our electric bill (which to me is an outrageous cost), and movie rentals are about $4.50 a piece (which is why we started using Netflix). I definitely see costs of EVERYTHING climbing at an astronomical rate lately, especially groceries, as I know all you do too. Pretty soon we may have to buy our own milk cow and start our own pineapple farm. :)

Guess that's about it from our end. What's new on your end?