vrbo love

ready for a road trip? heck to the yeah, as long as lion king is on pandora

my husband is an artist  {see his work here } so, fortunately, we sometimes get to travel to different art shows and locations where he needs to get photos for his projects.

like last week, we traveled 2 hours to a wonderful little town just outside of Park City, Utah.

But, the reason for this post is to 

share my love for vrbo.com 

I LALALALOVE It :)  if you haven't checked it out, you MUST! vrbo=vacation rentals by owner.  we've used this many times and it's awesome for people traveling on a budget.

We got our room for $80! we would have stayed an extra night but the weather wasn't cooperating.

The place we stayed was awesome, rad, "baller" as the cool kids say- so i though i'd share :)

their were two pools, and two hot tubs with a little tunnel connecting the two pools (sha-bam!)

wrinkly fingers, hot tub heaven, and my fam in their suits (gah!)

The place we stayed is called The Zermatt and the rooms usually start at $150, but their are a bunch of privately owned rooms that people rent out when they're not using them. another fun thing at zermatt was the mini golf:

that's sofia on the far left SO proud because she sunk the ball (after 18 tries :)  Don'tcha just love it when your hubby teaches your kids stuff? how cute is that- those two swingin' together :)

the hotel had a place to feed the goats, no swiss-themed hotel is complete without a goat pen, right?

Goats really love to nibble

oh, and a carousel, of course:

so, $80 as opposed to $150 or more, Sha-weet!

vrbo.com is also great for family reunions...we've stayed in really nice condos with 20+ people for about $100 per family...(the condos were around $399/night plus cleaning fees) so fun for family get-togethers :)  or vacays w/friends {if you have friends you could stand to vacation with} It's fun to browse thru vrbo.com and daydream about a trip to the oregon coast or hawaii...and to find things you can actually afford... happy browsing!

linking up with jeannettg for instafriday....it's probably pretty obvious all my pics were taken on my cell phone ;)

instafriday

my kids got their faces painted, some look spookier than others

we planted these flowers

the kids had a tent set up in their bedroom for 3 nights (and were too scared to sleep in it 2 of those nights)

went to chic fil a

ate s'mores

(love that they all have such different looks on their faces)

climbed trees

and stayed here one night

boom.
what'd you do?
linking up with instafriday @ liferearranged

what i wore wednesday (er, all week)

I got a new dress and i've literally been wearing it all week.
my husband thinks it's not very stylish,  but i love it.
i'm wondering if i belong on an episode of "what not to wear" or if this is hot...
i think it's cute, and i can wear it with so many different colors of shirts :)
Friday i wore it with turquoise under..
saturday with green...

Sunday I wore it to church with blue

Monday with red:

this is me, tuesday rockin' it hippy-style with some of my daughters (and the other daughter behind the lens :)  we are chillin' at our hotel up by park city, boo yeah!

I love the hemline...it's a maxi skirt with the front hem higher than the back :) 

so, my hubby is on the fence about it, what do you think?

I am linking up with Lindsay at the pleated poppy, kablam-o!

dress: TJMAXX
shoes: KOHLS
shirts: DOWNEAST
headbands: SUGARBLOSSOMBOUTIQUE

jade is the new black

My mom called me up saturday morning and asked me if i wanted to go with her to get a pedicure....i've never actually had a "real" pedicure before...just the beauty school version.  so, this was a fun first.
first to pick a color:

Umm, yeah there were a few to choose from.

I felt like i stepped right into the nail place from King of Queens {anyone know what I'm sayin?} they were all asian and they liked to speak to eachother in their native tongue...

they had really nice massage chairs with attached foot baths.  This is my mom :)

and here are my feet, tan lines and all.  this nail guy kept making jokes but we only understood about half of what he said.  I did hear "this a sexy color" hahaha

the finished product.
my color of choice: "jade is the new black" sort of a chalkboard green with "catch me in your net" a sparkly teal on top...a very mermaid-ish color ;)
ma's color of choice: this purple that goes by the name of "polish" woah, creative name :)

fun times :)

Oops, I'm a dork...what's new?

So, for some reason I tend to doubt my husband....
ie: he says there are a lot of mosquitoes out and he's getting eaten alive..
yeah, right.
I haven't seen any skeeters, and i haven't had any bites!
He runs inside, getting attacked,. apparently...
Afterward, he shows me all his new mosquitoes bites,
ok, now i believe him!


well, he's he went a few weeks ago to a opthamologist {or optometrist, what's the difference?} and he had a hard time getting fitted for contact lenses in his left eye.  His right eye was fine, left eye astigmatism or something...
well, the dr. gave him a lens to try but it didn't seem to fit right.  and then it went missing.  Jeremy thought that maybe it had gone behind his eye ball and was kind of worried...i insisted it had fallen out after all that rubbing he was doing to it.


so, he went back to the dr. to try a different lens.  once again it was ill-fitting and uncomfortable.  once again he lost this one.  I keep thinking, how does he not notice when these contacts drop out of his eyes?! so, he goes back into the dr. and comments to the guy that he's afraid the contacts might be behind his eyeball...no comment from the dr.  i'm sorta thinking the doctor might think jeremy's crazy :)


so, he has a third lens to try...he puts it in and it automatically starts drifting toward the upper white part of his eye.  I'm assisting him in locating his contact that's drifting and OH EM GEE what the heck? he pulls out three contacts!  I'm in shock! seriously shocked!  he had those two extra contacts floating around back there for WEEKS!  That could be a health hazard, don'tcha think?! {especially because he's an artist!he needs eyeballs that work!}
He threw away all 3 contacts in disgust!
He's going to get glasses.
I'm a dork.

how I got my kids scrubbing the floors...

so, I was on the hunt online for a chore chart for my kiddos (ages 3, 5, and almost 7 {yikes!}) I wanted something simple and with pictures so the kids could "read" it even if they can't read.  I stumbled upon Handipoints.com which looked like a website where you could customize chore charts and print 'em up...

but, it turned out to be more than that.  First off, you sign up to become a member (it's freeee) Then,  each kid gets to pick a cat avatar, and cat name {we used such creative names like "snowball" and "catty" haha}  The kids can mark off their charts after they're printed OR they can mark off their charts online.  When they mark off their charts online they get "bonus points" which they can use to buy furniture to decorate an online room for their cat avatar {think: webkinz or barbie.com}

I don't know about your kids, but my kids are crazy about decorating their pretend houses.  So, my kids had marked off their charts with all the stuff they had done the day before and still didn't have enough bonus points to snatch up the furniture they wanted...so, I informed them they could mop the kitchen floor or clean the bathroom to earn more points.  And VOILA! they went for it!  They all did several chores that they wouldn't normally be thrilled about doing.  But they earned bonus points! and they loved it!  we'll see how long this lasts!

Here's an example of what the kids are excited about earning :)

PROS:
-kids are excited to earn points
-they're not complaining about some things that they normally would be (because they get points)
-I can endlessly customize the lists (ie: go potty on the potty chair, be nice to your sisters)
-I can easily add points when the kids do something I think is good (my 6 yr. old filled up her own water bottle before dance class without asking so I gave her some bonus points :)
-It's free, and the kids aren't bugging me for any tangible rewards
-the kids are cleaning the house and keeping it clean :)

CONS:
-you have to log in seperately for each child (they make it easy enough, just kind of a hassle)
-I don't know how long they'll be excited about decorating the rooms
-there are pages dedicated to buying dress-ups for your cat avatar- but apparently, these are for the paying customers only (5 yr. old a little sad about that)
-there's a whole bunch of social interaction parts of the site (we just skip that part entirely, though)
-the kids want to be on the computer during their free time now :/



There are also a bunch of games that the kids can play on the site, we haven't ventured into that very much (nor do i plan to)  There are different places on the map that we are just beginning to explore which the kids think are fun...but are mostly a waste of time, haha :)

I don't know what you're supposed to do here...get back to work! ;)

Overall, I think it's pretty great...the kids are trying to figure out what they can do to earn bonus points, they're making their beds, picking up their toys, sorting laundry and putting their dirty clothes in the dirty clothes basket (hallelujah!)  we'll see how long it lasts! :)