A post from Kelli–

As a new mom, I have found that the best way to stretch the dollars after having a baby is to be okay with getting or finding things used, recycled, or handed down.  I honestly think that I have bought a few outfits (mostly newborn clothes) brand new, but that is really about it.  Once I was pregnant, I started looking for stuff and so has mom and Jason’s mom too!  I’ve also been super fortunate to have been on the receiving end of lots of baby clothes and equipment!

While perusing the isles at the our thrift store recently, I found this and it took me back to my childhood days!

The JC Penny’s Seasonal Catalog!  It was mine and my sister Kayla’s favorite thing in the world growing up!

This was seriously the highlight of our 2nd and 3rd grade lives!  Mom would bring it home and we would lay on the floor for hours and hours, just looking at the pages…and the outfits…and the toys…and the luggage….and the EVERYTHING!

Our favorite game to play was to pick a 2 page spread and we had to pick our favorite thing on the 2 page spread.  If it was business clothes, pretty soon we would have stories about how we were going to grow up and need suits and we picked out which ones we were going to wear.

If it was toys, we looked and decided which one we would want.  Often times with dolls or sets of something, we would decided which one we would get and then which set would be the best set to go with the original item.  In theory we were perfectly fine with sharing so that we could attempt to get mom to buy it for us….in real life though, that was a completely different story.

If it was luggage, we would pick out the perfect set and end up creating stories about how we were going to travel the world.  As an adult, I’m not to the point that I do best with a over the shoulder bag because I rarely go any further than mom’s.  The stories were literally never ending and got more and more elaborate every time we turned the page!

This is one of those things that I’m kind of sad has been replaced by technology.  We seriously had just the best time in the world with that old catalog.  It also made me giggle and realize that it really is the small stuff….or maybe just a big catalog….that made us the happiest!

You might remember that Karl and I were making a bit of a bucket list for the summer.  Good news, we did one more thing on the list.  Bad news…summer is slipping away and many things are going to be left undone.  I think originally Karl hoped to do one or two things a week.  That didn’t happen as reality and the work of keeping a home up slipped into place.

We took a break from it all one night after work and headed to Decorah Iowa.  It’s about a half hour from our house and is where we do much of our shopping.

Karl hadn’t heard that there was a food truck in town so was excited when I told him that I was picking the place for supper.  Julie from Patchabilities, who lives in the neighboring town, had it on her Facebook page so I wanted to try it out too.

I heard the food was suppose to be pretty authentic Mexican.  That sounded good to me.

Karl and I found a picnic area to eat and gave the food a try.  We’d definitely go again but there’s one problem.  They’ve cut their hours now to fall hours and that means only over the noon hour.  Bummer.

From there it was Karl’s turn to pick the fun.  He picked hiking.  Oh my.  This momma isn’t used to hiking but I did okay considering…

Here’s where we went.  It’s called Will Baker Park.  Now this didn’t look bad.

It got steeper.

…and still steeper.  I’ll admit, I was a little winded by the time I got to the top of this set of steps.

But at the top was a treat…check this out…. Continue reading →