Labor Day at the Lincoln Children's Zoo

The Harvey family was blessed to get to spend time with both sides of our family over Labor Day this year.  The Johansens drove up to Nebraska from Oklahoma on Friday, and stayed until Monday.  Baby President was so excited to get to see Grandpa, Gramma, and Aunt Kiley!

The big event of the weekend was taking Baby Prez to the zoo for the first time.  After lunch, we all loaded up and headed to the Lincoln Children's Zoo.

We arrived at the zoo just in time to watch the Humboldt Penguins get fed.  Baby Prez had a great view from Daddy's shoulders.  Then we checked out the Amur Leopard!  Baby President wasn't sure whether he should be excited or scared, but Miss Coco was right there with him and they looked at the leopard together.

Miss Coco got to feed the Dromedary Camels and the Nubian and Pigmy Goats. And she had the chance to pet a Frilled Lizard, several different turtles, a rabbit and goats. She thought the lizard was pretty neat and wants to volunteer at the zoo next summer once she's old enough!  She also found a real bald eagle nest.  It was huge and pretty cool!

In the butterfly house, Baby Prez thought the rocks were way cooler than the butterflies!  We also saw a momma ring-tailed lemur with her babies hanging out on her back.  They were just adorable.  There's nothing like the love between a momma and her babies.

Feeding the goats was one of Baby President's favorite parts of the afternoon.  Gramma helped him out and showed him how to feed them. He was fascinated by the goats and was surprised when they ate the food out of his hand!  We also enjoyed watching the squirrel monkeys.  Daddy propped Baby Prez so that he could get a front-row seat!

We tried to find the lion, but it turned out to be a fake plastic lion that "eats" trash. Not cool.  Instead, we walked over to the aviary to see the Snowy Egret, Wood Duck, Tawny Frogmouth, Scarlet Ibis, and the Great Malay Argus Pheasant, where Miss Coco tried to scare the birds and then got scared of them herself.  Silly girl!  And Baby Prez tried to escape into the habitat by limboing under the rope barrier.  Silly boy.  (Later, he tried to jump into the koi pond, so this was a recurring theme).

Our first trip to the zoo with Baby Prez was a success.  I love the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, but the Lincoln Children's Zoo was perfect for our family.  (Luckily, we had a great navigator who loved reading the guide map.)  We got to see some great animals, and it was the perfect size for an afternoon with a toddler.  Baby Prez saw everything without getting too tired and cranky.  And it wasn't too busy.  Baby President walked around most of the zoo, and we only used the stroller a few times.  I would definitely recommend the Lincoln Children's Zoo to families with small children.  

Have a fantastic day!  Bye, bye!

Weekend Haul of Frugal Finds

As we get ready for the Bean to arrive this summer, I've been trying to stock up on both normal essentials as well as baby essentials.  I imagine that shopping will be the last thing I have time for once the Bean is here.  

Thanks to my Favorite Couponing Blogs, I've been able to find some great deals on easily stocked items like toothpaste and cereal.  This weekend, my couponing happened to focus on baby essentials, and I was able to add to my small stockpile of baby wipes and add some diaper cream as well from Target.  I also found a great area rug on clearance and curtains ($8.88 per panel!) on super sale at ShopKo for our living room.  '

Last, but not least, I was able to grab a couple more cloth diapers (to add to my stock) and a sleep sack at a garage sale sale that was shutting down for the weekend.  I was reading the guest post over at Money Saving Mom about stockpiling kids clothes through garage sales.  I love the idea because I love garage sales!  The one tip I've learned about garage sale shopping after years and years of going around each weekend with my mom or grandma is to offer slightly lower than you are willing to pay so that there is room for the seller to meet you in the middle.  

I also noticed some comments on the post about apps that will map the garage sale listings on Craigslist, which I'm planning to try out in the next couple of weeks and will review here.  

My Weekend Haul

1 Mohawk area rug (reg. $249.99) - On clearance at $62
4 Energy efficient curtains (reg. $19.99) - On sale at $8.88
4 Huggies wipes (reg. $2.39) - $0.50 each
2 Pampers wipes (reg. $2.39) - $1.00 each
2 Desitin tubes (reg. $3.59) - $2.00 each
2 cloth diapers (reg. ~$20) - $2.50 each
1 sleep sack (reg. ~$15) - $1.00

Total Paid       $111.52
Total Saved    $295.95

And how adorable is this little cowprint diaper!?!?

All pictured for $14, regularly ~$76.

So far I have just over $56 on 11 cloth diapers and accessories (i.e. wet bag & extra inserts), which is an average of $4.96 per diaper!  I love being frugal!  I just hope we like this cloth diapering thing.  If not, at least we haven't invested much!

Tomorrow I'm headed to a big consignment sale (last day = 1/2 price day) and "shopping" at a friend's who wants to regift a bunch of her baby stuff.  To me!  

Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!  Should be a great day with church, bargaining, and finishing up term papers.

Super Couponing

Every so often a new season of Extreme Couponing becomes available on Netflix, and my husband and I have a marathon of watching the show.  Even knowing that giant thousand dollar shopping trips that end up equally a few dollars are few and far between even for the extremers, we are always intrigued.  And each time, without fail, I am inspired to try to be a couponer, too.  Usually, my couponing splurges have last a week or two, and then they fizzle out.  But I have to admit that when I'm successful, it is exciting and satisfying.  And then I'm ready for more.  

Since our family of two is soon to become a family of three, I've been more motivated to save money and one of the ways that really does work is couponing.  Now, I don't mean simply cutting or printing a couple coupons here and there.  I mean stocking up when there's an awesome deal and being patient enough to wait for deals to arrive.  Extreme couponing is not a term that I would ever apply to myself, but there are days when I would say that I've accomplished super couponing!  

Lucky for me (and you) there are some amazing bloggers out there that already do much of the work!  So, instead of carefully reviewing the weekly ads and then searching for coupons to match, I simply follow several blogs on my Google Reader.  When I'm ready to make my grocery list for the week, I review the blog posts, find the best deals on the specific items I need, and then check to see if there are any amazing deals on items that we could stock up on and use in the future.  

The blogs I would recommend are:

Chicks Dig Deals

This blog is one of my favorites because it is locally based in Lincoln, so all of the local grocery store deals are posted each week.  My grocery buying is made so much easier through this site.  Not only are the deals posted, but the coupon policies and other important tips for couponing in Lincoln, NE are posted.  

Krazy Coupon Lady

Cents'Able Shoppin

Both KCL and CAS are great blogs for deals both online as well as in store.  They do cover stores that are not located in my area, but it's easy enough to skip those posts.  These two I primarily use for national pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens.  

There is a CVS about two and a half blocks from my house, but it wasn't until I found these blogs that I began shopping there.  Now I know that it is an amazing place for couponers!  And both KCL and CAS post the weekly deals as well as potential deal scenarios to maximize savings.  Thanks to CAS last week I was able to earn $2 on a purchase.  I thought the money making deals were only on the Extreme Couponing show... I was wrong!

Money Saving Mom

Baby Cheapskate

Both of these blogs are great, specifically for moms.  They also include some deals similar to the blogs above, but I enjoy the mom-focused element of these blogs.

Overall, I would recommend finding a local couponing blogger if possible and then check out the other bloggers I've listed here.  They are excellent resources for making couponing more straightforward and less time consuming.  As a grad student and a wife and future mom, finding ways to save time is almost as important as finding ways to save money!

photo credit

Adventurous Eating

Growing up, I was never an adventurous eater.  Well, compared to my sister, maybe I was :-).  Now I've found that I love many types of food that I wouldn't have thought about trying only a few years ago.  I love Thai food.  I love Indian food.  I love curry.  I love calamari.  I even like mussels.

At this point, I would try almost anything.  ALMOST.  Forget trying bugs.  I will not try bugs.  A couple of weeks ago, Alex and I were at the Farmer's Market, and one of the vendors was selling farm-raised, dressed rabbit.  Yes, that's right.  I said rabbit.  Did we buy one?  Yes, of course we did.  The woman at the farmer's market stand told us that rabbit can be prepared any way that you would prepare chicken.  So, we decided to make oven roasted rabbit.  Here's a picture of the finished, plated product.

Verdict: No more rabbit.

It was not terrible, but it also was not good.  We'll see what they have at the farmer's market next time to add to our cooking repertoire.

A better experience was our sangria experiment.  After having a glass of blackberry sangria at Outback Steakhouse that tasted like pure blackberry flavoring, we decided to make our own sangria.  Strawberries, blackberries, pineapple, ugli fruit, apples, and red wine.  Yum.  It was definitely an improvement over the restaurant sangria.

In other news, my laptop screen shattered awhile back much to my dismay.  I had been plugging it into my 40 inch TV to use it, which means I had to sit about 3 feet from the TV on the floor staring up at the screen.  Not so much fun.  But... my amazing boyfriend installed a new screen, and now it works perfectly again!  Yay!

Summer

It's officially summer because school is out and the big news is that I have a roommate.  My sister Kiley is living here for the summer!  She has a job as a counselor for a kids' camp, which sounds like a blast.

I also recently had some visitors to my house.  My maternal grandparents and my parents came up for a weekend to help Kiley move in and for my grandparents to see my home.  We had a lot of fun and I enjoyed showing them around Lincoln and taking them to my favorite local restaurants. 

Last week I saw Wicked in Omaha with one of my best friends here and my sister.  It was fantastic!  Even better than I remembered and what a great day with friends.  After the show, we walked down to the Old Market area and found a restaurant for an early dinner.  Stokes was wonderful; we got to sit outside on the patio, take advantage of happy hour specials (like a raspberry mojito and ahi tuna tacos), and had great service.  We finished off the day with ice cream from Maggie Moo's and I have to say that the chocolate peanut butter was delicious. 

For Memorial Day weekend, we headed back home for a wedding reception and to celebrate my mom's birthday.  The reception was so much fun; it's always entertaining to go to a traditional hometown reception.  We also hit up the usual places like Taco Shop (yum!!!).  Kiley and I made a German chocolate cake from scratch for our mom's birthday from Trisha Yearwood's recipe.  It was amazing, but I would recommend making a little extra frosting.  

Trisha Yearwood's German Chocolate Cake
 
4 ounces sweet dark chocolate
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup warm milk
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 medium egg whites
2 cups sugar
5 medium egg yolks, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk, well shaken
 
For the coconut frosting:
1 cup sugar
4 medium egg yolks
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 ounces fresh or frozen and thawed grated coconut
1 1/2 cups finely ground pecans, walnuts, or almonds
1/4 cup warm milk

1. Prepare the chocolate by melting it in the top of a double boiler, stirring until it is smooth. Add 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of the butter and stir until it is melted and blended. Add 1/4 cup of warm milk and stir until smooth. Set the chocolate aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
3. Line the bottoms only of three 9-inch cake pans with circles of parchment paper, or grease each pan bottom only with solid shortening and dust lightly with flour. 
4. Sift together the sifted and measured flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Whip the egg whites until stiff using the wire beater of the mixer. Transfer the beaten whites to a separate bowl and set aside.
6. In the mixer bowl, cream the remaining 1 1/2 sticks of butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the melted, cooled chocolate and the vanilla. Mix well.
7. With the mixer on very low, stir in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Do this by adding about a third of the flour and slowly stirring it in completely. Then add about half the buttermilk and stir it in. Continue adding flour and buttermilk in this manner, ending with flour. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl and stir again. With a long-handled spoon or spatula, fold and stir the beaten egg whites into the batter until the batter is smooth with no visible clumps of whites.
8. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans and bake for 30-40 minutes. Bake on the middle rack of the oven, allowing at least 1/4-inch clearance between the pans and the oven walls. The cake will rise above the pan edges as it bakes but will not spill over and will settle back down as it continues to bake. The cake is done when it begins to pull away from the sides of the pans and springs back to a light touch. Cool layers in the pans for about 8 minutes.
9. Run a knife around the edges of each pan and turn the layers out onto wire racks that have been sprayed with cooking spray. Cool layers completely before frosting.
10. To make the frosting, combine the sugar, egg yolks, and evaporated milk in the top of a double boiler. Stir with a wire whisk until the yolks are fully incorporated. Add the butter. Place over simmering water and bring to a boil (see Note below). Simmer for 12-15 minutes longer, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Add the vanilla, coconut, and nuts. Cool.
11. To assemble the cake, place one layer on a cake stand and spread with frosting. Frost each layer completely, top and sides, as it is added to the cake.

Note: You can also make the frosting in a regular saucepan, but be sure to stir it constantly, as it scorches quite easily. Also, you must use the finely grated fresh or frozen coconut, not canned or shredded, to be able to spread the frosting on the sides of the cake easily.

   

AND Kiley made incredible chicken enchiladas tonight!  Unfortunately, I didn't think of taking pictures until after we'd eaten, but they were great and super easy!

Sam's Mom's Chicken Enchiladas

3-4 chicken breasts, shredded
1 tub fiesta dip or jalapeno sour cream dip
1 tub sour cream
tortillas
shredded cheese
Louisiana hot sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the fiesta dip and sour cream in a bowl.  Now you are ready to assemble!
3. Spread a layer the sour cream mixture on a tortilla.  Now add chicken, hot sauce (to taste), and shredded cheese down the middle.  There are no specific quantities for each, we just make it look good. :)  Wrap the tortilla and put it in a 9x13 glass pan.  
4. Repeat until the pan is full.  Put the remaining sour cream mixture on top and add a layer of shredded cheese.  
5. Bake covered for 30 minutes; then remove the foil and back uncovered for 10 minutes.  Yum!

Family Visit!

Last weekend, my family came to visit and we had a blast!  Highlights include:

• Red Robin...yumm!
• Open Harvest Coop
• Oklahoma State vs. Nebraska Basketball game
• Noodles & Company
• Five Guys Burgers & Fries

Though it doesn't show on my list of weekend highlights, I am going to try eat healthier, buy more locally, etc. this semester.  I think it will really be achievable next fall when I can actually afford to pay the premium!  I am pitching a chicken coop project this week at a Quick Pitch competition, so if I win, I may try to go into business with my partner for class.  Hopefully that means I will get chickens; if not, it's in the long-term plans!  Since we've been doing tons of research on backyard chickens, hen coops/houses, and so on, it's been on my mind and making me think a lot more about what I'm buying, not just eggs.  Open Harvest is an awesome place to shop because they sell a lot of locally produced products, and the sale items are actually reasonably priced.  I do still miss my Braum's milk though!  One more reason to go back south!

My mom and sister also helped me put up a fun vinyl wall piece, which looks amazing, but will not stay up.  Letters keep falling off and it's almost not worth the effort to keep sticking them back up and repressing them down every time I walk into the kitchen.  Oh well...here's the picture anyways!

Also, Valentine's Day was one of the best ever - girls night out!  Went out to dinner at a really cute little restaurant in the Havelock district - Engine House Cafe.  Yes, it is what it sounds like.  The restaurant is in the original fire station built in 1900, and Havelock was originally a small town outside of the city.  It has a historic little shopping area, farmer's market, and was even featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  The cafe has breakfast all the time; I had the biscuits and gravy, which was awesome.  I would definitely recommend it, and I can't wait to go back!

 More to come soon!

Did I really last post in November??

Wow!  Where has the time gone?  I can't believe my last post was November!!

I had a wonderful holiday season with my family back home in Kansas!  It's so exciting to look forward to more than 2 days off for Christmas!

School started mid-January.  I thought I was in for a treat because the first 2 days were canceled due to snow, however when we received even more snow recently and school was not canceled, I was pretty disappointed.  The road crews here are nearly non-existent, which seems unreal for a state that gets a lot of snow.  Give me those KS road crews anyday!

My big news is that I was accepted into the PhD program for next year; it was really just a formality, but it was definitely nice to get the 'official' news!  The second big news is that I am only a few days away from getting internet at my house...no more hanging out at Panera for hours on end working!

My family is coming to visit this weekend for the big basketball game!  We will be wearing ORANGE!

Go Pokes!

1st Post from Lincon

This is my first official post since moving!  Needless to say, I've been a busy girl!  My house is nearly organized, though I have a few boxes that have not been opened.  Office and decorative stuff mostly.  It turns out that I don't really mind that I have no decorations in my house.  Haha.  I'm sure one of these days I'll pull everything out and find a place for everything!

Monday was my first day of class.  Wow, how odd to be a student again.  It seems like so long ago that I sat in a classroom and yet it seems like yesterday.  UNL is nice, but I have to admit that I miss Stillwater!  So far though, I have a couple of great professors and I'm actually enjoying most of my classes!  Statistics, psychology, and 2 marketing classes round out my schedule. 

Then there's teaching.  Yesterday was my first day of teaching.  Yikes!  I had 2 sections yesterday and will have 2 more tomorrow...about 160 students total.  I can already tell that one of my classes is going to be full of troublemakers.  Little do they know that I may be making a seating chart for them!  I was incredibly nervous before teaching, but it was definitely not as difficult as I was trying to make it in my head! 

I've also been something of a social butterfly, much to my dislike, actually!  Friday was department orientation, happy hour, and Indian food.  (The Indian food was a new experience, but I really like it, especially the appetizers!)  Saturday was the department back-to-school party, bowling with my fellow grad students, and Rock Band with Koch friends!  Getting home at 3AM is not something I plan to repeat, but it was a fabulous evening!  And finally, Sunday was free food at the Big Red Welcome (just like Lights on Stillwater) and swing dancing at a ballroom's country night!  I was exhausted after the weekend was over, and since the week just started, that's not a good thing! 

No photos to share this time; I need to remember to take some to share with you!

Home in Progress

My parents and I went to Lincoln this past weekend to move the rest of my belongings into my new house.  Finally out of the storage unit!  After about 2 and a half days, we made a lot of progress!  My dad was Mr. Handyman; he hung curtains, fixed some leaks in the shower, painted the inside of the medicine/linen cabinet, caulked the bathtub, etc.  My mom and I spent a very long time recovering the kitchen and bathroom shelves with contact paper because some previous tenants wrapped contact paper around about 2 inches on the bottom of the shelves, which looked tacky and was pretty icky.  They look amazing and fresh now! 

Then we worked on getting the kitchen organized.  I have quite a bit of kitchen "stuff" and there is not much cabinet space, so it was a challenge to figure out where to put everything.  Thankfully, the laundry room has an extra cabinet that I am going to use as a pantry.  One of our challenges was where to put the silverware tray.  The only drawer big enough for the tray is in the rolling island cart, but it still isn't big enough to expand the tray to fit all of my silverware.  So, I finally decided to set the tray on top of the microwave.  That's my best solution at the moment, but maybe I'll be able to figure something more effective out!  I have a lot of unpacking clothes and decorations when I go back in a few weeks, but I'm we made SO much progress that it's not looking as daunting as when we first arrived on Friday!  

Now, here are a few pictures of my home in progress!

And Darby!!!!

Moving Tomorrow!

Two weekends ago, we painted.

This weekend, we will move everything else in!  My dad, sister, and I loaded the moving truck today after driving to Plainville to pick it up.  I just don't understand why U-Haul won't move trucks to the location that the reservation was made...what's the point of making a reservation?  Compared to when I moved from Wichita to my storage unit here, we packed the truck much more efficiently.  We expected to need to borrow my grandparents' van, but everything is in and ready to go! 

We should arrive in Lincoln tomorrow around noon!

Painting has begun...

Today was our first day of painting at my new house!  We were on the road from KS by 8:30 AM and finally arrived to unload and get started.  After eating a yummy lunch at Scholtsky's, we got paint at Walmart for the living room - Trenchcoat Khaki, living room accent wall - Tibetan Orange, and bathroom - Afternoon Shade.  Painting began around three in the afternoon and we finished up a little after eight.  We completed the living room and bathroom (which started out maroon) and edged the kitchen.  The kitchen is going to be a sort of tuscan yellow that my parents used in their kitchen too! 

It's getting to really feel like a real house, and I'm getting excited to get everything moved it and arranged.  Just a few weeks until the big move in!

Well, it's late and we have an early day tomorrow!  We are planning to get started around eight in the morning and there is a Safelight person coming to fix a chip in my windshield that happened on the way!

Friendly Flowers

I have three pots of flowers for my new home, and I can't wait until they start growing and blooming!  They are going to look beautiful on my front porch! 

I also just ordered new living room furniture!  I found a super comfortable set in Claflin that are discontinued, so I got an incredible deal on a matching mocha chaise and loveseat. 

Things are coming along quite nicely for my little duplex.  Now on to picking paint colors...I've gone to Ace, but today I'm going to Walmart, Heartland, and Home Depot!  Suggestions are welcome!

New Chapter of Life

I'm officially starting a new chapter of my life.  For the past two years, I've lived and worked in Wichita at an amazing company - Koch Industries.  Now, I've resigned and will begin graduate school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in August.  I will first be studying to earn my Masters in Marketing and then my PhD in Marketing!  Yes, I know I'm going into the family business.  :-)  Throughout the next 4-5 years, I will be in school and teaching basically year round.  But I will get more than 2 days off for Christmas! 

The break between working and going to school has been relaxing, and I've loved spending time with family.  I've been sleeping in, reading, golfing, vacationing, and just hanging out. 

A couple of weeks ago, my dad and I went apartment hunting in Lincoln.  I ended up with a 2 bedroom duplex that includes the washer/dryer and a garage!  I'm definitely looking forward to that garage when the snow comes this winter.  The bus stop is less than a block away, so I plan on taking advantage of public transportation too.

Here are some pictures of the neighborhood...my duplex is one of only two rentals in the entire neighborhood!

There are a lot of limestone houses in Lincoln...they are so cute!

I have a few inside photos of the duplex, but they are from the Craigs list ad and are on a different computer right now.  I will try to add them soon, but here are a couple of my new place!

And finally one picture of the business building where I will be spending much of my time soon!