Erickson Times

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Getting My Money's Worth, Part II

Just in 2009, I have purchased $1,903.54 worth of drug store items and have paid $12.15 (with a gift card received for a transferred prescription - no actual cash) . That is a whole lot of diapers, wipes, toilet paper, shampoo, razors, toothpaste, deodorant, makeup, soap and anything else they sell there. I don't know how long these deals will keep coming - they seem to get weaker and weaker as time goes by, so I had to give a shout out to some of the sites that made it possible:

I Heart CVS
Savings Garden
Coupons.com

And of course to Charlotte for [somewhat] behaving during our Saturday trips, and to Helaman for not making me feel too silly for having such an odd hobby.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Talking

This week's non-stop pageant news has made me feel like I should state my opinion more often. A tremendous fear and aversion to confrontation, arguments and people thinking I am either a religious zealot or just weird in general made me very silent when office conversation would turn to controversial subjects. In Manhattan, most of my co-worker friends were extremely opinionated so these conversations would happen a lot, usually leading me to put in my MP3 player earphones so I wouldn't have to hear it. Billing clients for .5 hours worth of "fuming in disbelief at the ongoing political rantings of people around me" wasn't encouraged, after all. So I'd bury myself in work and just hope no one asked me to join in - which they didn't.

These days, Charlotte and I have our own heated debates, mainly about the pros and cons of flying food, but when stuff like the pageant headlines come up a part of me regrets not taking the opportunity when I had it to take part in discussions with lots of friends with opposing views. I think you can always learn something from people you talk to - even if you don't agree with them. And I do like to find out where people are coming from and what makes them believe the things they do. The ugly part in what can be very enriching conversations occur when people forget to respect the other person and wage personal attacks, which is what happened this week and what has always led me to want to hide under a desk rather than face what can be harsh scrutiny.

So, am I crazy? Has this happened to anyone else?

The point of this is that we shouldn't be afraid to state our opinion. With so much going on in the world today, it really is important to hear everyone's ideas.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Shark Attack!

Here are some of our pictures from the shark encounter in Hawaii. We were in a floating cage and since the salt content of the water was so high, it was hard to stay under water for long and we really had to hold onto the cage.

Most of the sharks came very close but weren't too interested in us. They were more interested in the fish being thrown from our boat.

At one point there was a whole herd of them circling the cage! It was amazing!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Backyard blast

Last week I planted some seedlings for our garden - corn, tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, and some herbs. Some were doing so well that we had to transplant them to the garden yesterday. Helaman started clearing weeds from the rose box too. Things are taking shape back there. Charlotte really wanted to help us and play in the dirt, so today I got her a sandbox to work in while I work in the garden. She loves it!

Though having a mighty 2 year-old around has some tense moments, Charlotte has also been really cute lately to make up for it:

She always says "'scuse me" - even to her toys.
If Helaman or I sneeze or cough, she immediately asks "You ok??!" after each one.
If anyone makes a sad face, she will give you a Very Concerned look and come running with a hug and kiss.
She loves going to the park, if only to wait for the dogs and puppies that are taken on walks there.
When I say "I love you", she says "I wu wu" back:)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!

Monday, April 06, 2009

More Bucks

If you like Ebates and Cashbaq, you should try SwagBucks, which gives you "bucks" for online searches you do through their search engine. Bucks will get you gift cards and other prizes.

1. Sign up free at SwagBucks.

2. On their site, click "Toolbars" and get one of their toolbars to show up on your browser.

3. Do all your searches on that toolbar. You can do shopping through there too if it's not worth it to go through ebates or cashbaq. The bucks add up pretty quick. At the rate I go, for normal searches I do, I earn about one $5 Amazon gift card a month.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Spring Break Part 2 - The Wedding

The day we flew back from Hawaii to Houston, we drove back to Dallas. The next morning we flew out again, this time to Salt Lake City for Steve and Kalina's wedding. By the way, now that you're married - where's the blog?

Posing for some pictures of our own. If I don't look tan it is because I was VERY good about sunscreen in Hawaii. The thought of having an itchy back on a plane scares me.

Me with 3 of my 5 beautiful sisters.

Family pic

Charlotte and Wade
"I'll show you the cat - but no touching!"

The next day it snowed so we went skiing. It was knee-deep powder which made for some slow going down the slopes but very cushioned falls.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Hawaii Adventures

This year Helaman and I celebrated his spring break week with a trip to Hawaii! Here are some highlights!

Airplane shot of Oahu

Barely made our plane to Honolulu from Dallas on March 11 after dropping off Charlotte at Play-Dough summer camp with Grandma.

Checked into the Ilikai Hotel on Waikiki Beach. My parents let us use their time share there this year. Thanks!! It was really nice to be so close to the beach.

That night we walked out to the ocean. Not too many swimmers at night! So we headed to the spa.

View from the hotel's roof restaurant. This is where we went to a timeshare sales pitch in order to get some money for activities.

Next day brought Hanauma Bay snorkeling and laying around. Just what I needed.

Saturday it rained and we headed to a huge swap meet in Aloha Stadium where we bought a lot of random Hawaiian stuff. Here is Helaman drinking from a coconut.

Luckily later that night it cleared up and we went to dinner right on the beach at Duke's.

The LDS Chapel in Honolulu.

USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Monday bright and early we headed to the North Shore where we had a shark cage outing!

More pictures will be coming on this one when we get our underwater camera film developed. It was really fun and different from most things you can do in Hawaii. The sharks were about 10-12 feet and they came right up to the boat when the guides started throwing fish out. It was cool to see them so near to the boat, and even more amazing to see them underwater closely circling the floating cage we were in. We could have reached out and touched them - obviously that wasn't advised.

Survived! High recommend! From the boat we also saw a huge whale having some fun in the ocean breaching.

Afterward we stopped by the Hawaiian Temple in Laie which is under renovation.

Here we are the next day at Valley of Temples Memorial Park, which is a huge graveyard with temples like this Byodo-In Temple, built to commemorate the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii.

Then we headed to Kualoa Ranch for an ATV tour of all the places they film movies and shows.

The ranch was beautiful and we especially loved the fresh guava you could pick from the trees and eat whole! Here we are at the Jurassic Park location.

Here's the Pearl Harbor film location. I don't remember that movie so well, but LOST fans will recognize this structure as a Dharma station, specifically where Jack and Juliette kissed.