Jolly Well!

I'm going to tell you one of my biggest secrets...I love the British Royals - always have!  Yep it's true, me the tom-boy am totally obsessed.  Now if you knew me in elementary school this would come as no surprise.  Here are a few more secrets that I trust you will not hold against me:  In elementary my best friend, Lori, and I would pretend we were Princesses.  We walked around the school yard talking in British accents and practicing our waves (twist from the wrist!)  I'm pretty sure we even demanded people address us as such.  Now I would like to point out that we had friends in school and we've both grown into well-adjusted adults.

I've been thinking about why I love them so and thinking about it has brought back some great memories.  I don't remember Princess Diana's wedding, I was only 4.  However, images of her wedding have always enthralled me.  My Gramma liked Princess Diana too and starting with her first trip to Canada my Gramma and I collected news-paper articles about her and pasted them in an artist's sketch book.  I still have that book!  My Gramma bought me the "official" Prince William book when he was born and I spent a lot of my allowance on "Majesty" magazine. 

When I went wedding dress shopping I wanted a huge puffy ball-gown, I think this was why!

I remember being disappointed when I heard Charles and Diana were divorcing, but I was actually heart-broken when I heard he had never actually loved her, and had only married her for the "look of it all." 

Today I read they were the first couple to kiss publicly.  The only reason it happened is because Diana forced it.  Apparently Charles said something to the effect of "They want us to kiss, I'm not going along with that charade."  She asked, "Why not?" and leaned in.  She was a 19-year old in love, unfortunately with someone who didn't love her back.

I was genuinely sad and angry when she died.  Admittedly nothing worth swooning over has really happened in the British Royal Family over the last 14-ish years so my obsession has taken a bit of a back-seat to growing up, getting married and having baby's of my own...Until today!

THE DRESS

LOVE IT!  Oh wow, so not what I expected at all but so much better than I hoped for.  Designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, it was perfect for a fairy-tale wedding.  I loved the neck-line and sleeves, the skirt was much "puffier" than I thought it would be, which I think is perfect for a princess.

THE TIARA

All that glitters...I think this tiara was a perfect choice for her.  Not too over-whelming and just sparkly enough.  The tiara was created in 1936 by Cartier.  The Queen's father bought it as a gift for the Queen Mum, and it was given to Queen Elizabeth on her 18th birthday.  The earrings were a gift to Kate from her parents. I love them too!  Described as, "stylized oak leaves with a pear shaped diamond set drop and a pave set diamond acorn suspended in the centre."  The earrings were a inspired by the new Middleton coat of arms.

THE MAID OF HONOUR

How to be nice to your maid-of-honour?  Let her wear a dress almost as beautiful as yours!  I actually gasped when Pippa stepped out in her dress.  It was closer to what I envisioned Kate wearing.  The form-fitting column with a cowl neck was also designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen and looked perfect on her!

THE GROOM

Not to be out-done, William looked "dashing" in his uniform.  Although William is an active search and rescue helicopter pilot with the Royal Air Force in Wales his position as Colonel with the Irish Guards is the highest military position he holds (not to mention the best looking uniform) making this uniform the obvious choice.  Plus it has 3-leaf clovers on the collar - how cool is that?!

THE KISS

Congrats!

Deal or No Deal?

So I've been focusing a lot on budgeting lately.  I really really want us to get out of debt - I'm old and need to save for my retirement ya know?!

I've been watching Extreme Couponing lately.  Canada is awesome for all the obvious reasons, but I gotta say the States have us on this!  One woman went to Safeway and bought over $1800.00 worth of groceries, when all her coupons were applied she paid $103.00.  How is this possible?  Well, in the States they have "Double Coupon" days.  If you have a coupon for $2.00 off of something then you get $4.00 off.  Now here's the catch:  if the item only cost $3.00 to begin with you get it for free AND you get to take the leftover $1.00 and put it towards your bill!!  Unfortunately this just doesn't happen in Canada.  I don't know if it's against the law or retailers are just smarter here, either way it kinda sucks for us.

Well instead of being sad about it I decided to at least do what I can.  So I studied all the flyers for all the grocery stores in Airdrie and made columns in a notebook comparing the prices of all our usual staples.  I also checked the cost of items at Costco to see if buying the big bulk items is really worth it.  I ended up going to 3 stores to get our groceries this week, but I have to drive past all these places on a daily basis so the whole "you gotta take your gas into account" argument doesn't apply.

I figured I could share some of the deals I found on my hunt:

DEALS

Kinder Surprise Maxi $8.99 at NoFrills

NO DEAL: $10.00 at Shoppers!!  Don't fall for the convenience of a Shopper's on every corner!

DEAL

4L Purex laundry soap $6.97 at No Frills in this weeks flyer

*We couldn't find any HE bottles of this, so may not be a deal for you front-loaders.

NO DEAL: Sunlight laundry soap 4L on sale at SuperStore for $9.97

6 pack SpongeTowels (yes I know this is a 4 pack in the pic) for $6.97 at No Frills

NO DEAL: No Name brand paper-towels Phil bought last week.  The two-ply towels would come apart into two tiny one-ply towels when you ripped them off the roll.  The wouldn't soak up anything!  Sometimes paying more is worth it people!

Other Deals vs. No Deals

• 1 lb chocolate bunny: Wal-Mart $1.98 vs. No Frills $3.00
• grapes Superstore $1.27/lb vs. Wal-Mart $1.47/lb
• KD Wal-Mart $0.77 vs. No Frills $1.57
• Quaker Instant Oatmeal SuperStore $1.98 vs. Wal-Mart $2.47



AND THIS JUST IN:

Spend $250.00 at SuperStore and get a free turkey

*The above news flash provided by Mr. Cheap AKA Phil....

More Day 4 Fun

Avery just couldn't stay at DL any longer so Phil took her back to the hotel for a nap.  I felt so bad for her, so did mom.  While they went to rest we hung out in California Adventure.

The "Princess Emma" Action Figure now available!

The two best drivers in the family!

After Avery's nap she came back for a bit and tried some rides too.



Character Lunch

Day 4 - Part 2

After the makeovers we headed over to Ariel's Grotto for our Character Lunch.  By this time Avery was turning pretty red in the cheeks and was talking about her ear bugging her.  Before we got to the restaurant she asked to go back to the hotel.  A kid asking to leave Disneyland?  This was not going to end well.  

We convinced her to stay and try some lunch.  The lunch was amazing, we had delicious pasta, tri-tip steak, macaroni and grilled chicken.  Avery ate several grapes and asked again to leave.  Then the princesses showed up and she perked up a little.

That shell is made of white chocolate..mmmmm

The Bibbity Bobbity Boutique

Day 4 - Part 1

Before heading to the Magical Kingdom the girls decided they wanted to go to the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique for a Princess make-over.  Avery was having a tough time keeping up on this morning and I figured she was catching a cold.  I found out later she was sporting a 103 degree fever at this point...I'd say she looked pretty cute for being so sick.

The "before" picture

Emma's Fairy Godmother in training

Choosing her hair jewels

Avery's Fairy Godmother in training

Hair and Makeup all done

Avery went with the Pop-Star Princess look

Disney Surprise!

Day 3

For some reason I don't have a lot of pictures from this day.  Not sure why, must've been too surprised and excited to take many.

We went to the park early and picked up where we'd left off.  We tried for Parent of the Year a second day in a row and made Avery go on Indiana Jones.  Pretty much the same reaction as Space Mountain only this time Phil got to experience it too. 

We went to New Orleans Square and took a train ride around the entire park.  Avery really enjoyed that and we commented several times how fun it would be if Carly, Dan, Elijah and Micah could be there too, we thought they'd really like the train.  When we got back to New Orleans we had the girls profile picture drawn in pastels which gave us some down-time.  We ate lunch under the trees in the shade.  We went to Frontierland where mom and I went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and headed back to the front of Adventureland for Dole Whip...mmmmm Dole Whip.  Avery insisted we go in the Tiki Room, which is a running joke in our family anyway.  My Gramma used to LOVE the Tiki Room and always made everyone go in it.  We all think it's super lame but go whenever we're there anyway.  Avery absolutely LOVED it too, she talked about it non-stop!  While we were waiting for the show to start my mom's cell phone rang and it was my sister.  She laughed when we told her we were in the Tiki Room.  She told us she missed us, I missed her too. 

We went back to the hotel after this and the girls got on their bathing suits.  Phil said he had to go to the vending machine to get water, seemed weird but whatever.  He was gone quite a while and I was starting to wonder what the heck he was doing.  Suddenly Emma says, "There's someone outside talking to dad....I think it's Auntie Carly."  Mom and I opened the hotel room doors and sure enough there was my sister, Dan, Micah and Elijah!  They had come to California to surprise us.  Mom cried, I cried, everyone else laughed.

The girls swam for a while, the boys napped and we headed back to the park.  We met up with the Penner's at King Arthur's Carousel in Fantasyland.  We had just gotten on the ride when they walked by so I grabbed Elijah over the fence and sat him on a horse.  His first lesson in budging the line!

That night we wanted to go to the fireworks but as always MainStreet filled up fast and we weren't sure how to keep everyone entertained.  We decided to just stay in Fantasyland and watch them from there.  It was pretty cool because some of the fireworks go off from Sleeping Beauty's castle, which was right in front of us, and some go off from Toon Town which was right behind us.  It was like watching a tennis match of fireworks.  Tinkerbell did her high wire fly-by right over us.  Elijah is in love with Tinkerbell (to clarify he does not want to BE Tinkerbell, he's in love with Tinkerbell.)  When Tink flew over he had the best look on his face.





Day Two

Day Two

My birthday is at the end of this month, Emma's is in May, Avery's is in June and Phil's in August.  My mom is great at giving "experiences" as gifts instead of "things".  I love it because experiences are what memories are made of.  This year our gifts were tickets to Disney's new water and light show "World of Colour" along with a picnic and a Character Lunch at Ariel's Grotto (she also picked up the tab for the awesome shuttle ride)  Our first day at Disney was capped off with World of Colour, which I would recommend to anyone going to Disney any time soon.

In bid for "Parent of the Year Award" we went from this ride to Space Mountain.  Avery almost died.  3 seconds into it she was screaming and crying and begging us to get off of it.  When we asked her what the best and worst parts of the day were she said this rocket ride was the best, the worst was Space Mountain.  Ooops.

It IS a small world after all...

This is the line that never ends...it goes on and on my friends..(seriously longest line ever!  I got the worst sunburn on my chest, shoulders and neck from standing here for an hour +)

Better have been the best Dumbo ride ever after that wait!

Heading back to the park for our picnic and World of Colour

The Pier at California Adventure looks awesome at night.

World of Colour.  Music and light show with images projected onto sheets of water!  Very cool.