Cereal and Coupons

We've read about other successful couponing trips, so we just have to share ours!


Cereal seems really expensive to us here - $5 to $10 a box. Unfortunately, we love cereal. So, when there were coupons in the cereal aisle for "Buy 2, Save $2" on Kellogg's cereals, we took a bunch. Since then, when Kellogg's cereals are on sale, we stock up. As of recently, some Kellogg's cereals even came with $10 worth of coupons for other Kellogg's products on the box's back - $6 of which we buy regularly.

Today we really went all out. We bought 9 boxes of cereal. If we'd bought them at regular price, they'd have cost $61.88. We got them for $24.93. One box we actually got for free because they'd mis-labeled the price! Besides the great price on the cereal, we got a few other wonderful things. Since we bought 4 or more Kellogg's products at Save on Foods, the grocery store gave us $5 off a 4 lb. box of strawberries, originally priced at $6.98. We got $20 worth of coupons for more Kellogg's products, a coupon for a free 6-pack of Yoplait minigo yogurt, and a free magazine subscription for 3 months.

Alright!

Conquering the Chief

We headed out for Squamish, the main town between Vancouver and Whistler, on Saturday morning. Here's just one of the amazing views on the Sea to Sky Highway.


Right before you get to Squamish, you see this:


The Chief. A 700m tall mass of rock.


Here's the view from three-fourths of the way up. No, that's not a little stream down there. That's the highway.


What a beautiful view was waiting for us on the top of the 2nd peak. On the left side of the picture you can see the first peak.


John hung his legs over the side for this picture. He moved back afterwards. It was a long way down!


We had a great time!

Living with Two Official Posted Languages

When checking out a movie from the library last weekend, I was a little confused. The cover said the title was "27 Dresses 27 Robes", but I remembered it being only "27 Dresses" when I had seen it on an airplane. It was just a quizzical thought in my head until Sunday night when we watched it. I commented on the long title, and was then kindly reminded by my husband that the title was written in English and in French!

It's funny when John goes into the frozen section of the grocery store with me. He always says contemplatively, "I wonder what raisin juice would taste like." Again - the French! It's just grape juice, but all the juice cylinders are turned with the English writing pointing in.

Living with bilingual labels isn't hard at all - it just creates some laughs when one language's words hold meaning in the other language.

A Year Ago

One year ago today our adventure around the world ended. While we are enjoying living in B.C., we do miss being on the move and having just our backpacks! Enjoy the photos!

A swim in Corsica


Duomo in Florence


Keeping warm in an Indian hotel


On the top of Sandakhphu


The "Pets" of Bangladesh

Friends hanging out together

Parents preparing lessons

Mom and Aunt riding rickshaws


Our trusty Diatsu sunning with a seal


Hiking on a New Zealand glacier

Riding up a Queenstown mountain before riding down on the luge

A Meatball Exchange

Wednesday night at home group a friend asked if I wanted to have a meatball exchange with her. We planned on her coming over to make meatballs the next day, and after work her husband would join us for dinner - we might as well eat some meatballs too!

The funny thing is I came home thinking, "Okay, we've got potatoes for mashed potatoes. I need to figure something out for gravy and some green vegetable." You know, Swedish meatballs! The next afternoon, about an hour before she came over, I realized that maybe she was thinking spaghetti and meatballs. Since I had the ingredients for both, I decided to not say anything, but rather just listen closely to our conversation. When she called a little later saying she was going to the grocery store and should she pick up a baguette for garlic bread, I knew what she was thinking. Oh, what a Minnesotan I am!

What kinds of meatballs did we make?
2 lb. of ground turkey meatballs to go with spaghetti
2 lb. of sweet and sour meatballs (delicious recipe from the Mommsen cookbook)
2 lb. of cocktail meatballs

We split the first two kinds of meatballs for our freezers. The cocktail meatballs were for a shower she is going to. Now we're both trying to think of another exchange we can do together. Any ideas?

Easter Celebration

Yesterday was the first time we had a holiday celebration in our home! We had invited a few friends to join us for church and Easter dinner, and they accepted. There was a baptism during the service, which seems like the perfect thing to have happen on Resurrection Sunday. Then we all headed over to our place and played cards while the ham baked. Here's a look at our Easter dinner:


(I should mention that John made great deviled eggs for appetizers!)

We ended up playing games all afternoon and well into the evening! Settlers of Cataan, of course, was part of the line-up, but so were Sheepshead and Up & Down the River - great 5-person card games if you're looking.

Long Weekend in Portland

My sis headed west last week, so I spent Saturday through Tuesday in Portland visiting family. John had only one week left of school, so unfortunately he couldn't go. We missed him.

The weather was absolutely beautiful the entire time, so much time was spent outdoors. We visited the Silver Falls State Park where the falls are huge. When walking down to the falls, Eric noticed how many people were quite sweaty. Once we got down to the falls, we realized that you walk behind the falls and get quite wet!


Emma has begun to display one of our family's characteristics - she is quite the little reader. Don't miss the title of her book! She always brought such "training" books for me to read to her.


We girls tend to share fashion styles!


Portland is the childhood home of Beverly Cleary. Within walking distance of EKE's house is the neighborhood Ramona "grew up in" as well as a park with some statues of Cleary's great characters. Ribsy is just the right size for Emma and her baby!


My mom and dad say Emma looks a lot like Katie when she was little. Do you see any resemblance now?