I hit the grocery store jackpot

One of the major grocery store chains in our area has closed all it's stores and left town.  This isn't just a small number of stores.  This chain, Dominick's, has been here in some form or another for 100 years.  Ownership has changed over the years, but the current owners - Safeway are finished with Chicagoland.

The timing for the closing was the end of 2013.  They tried to sell most of the stores, but there are so many that a good number were unsold when the closing deadline arrived.  Dominick's had to liquidate as much of it's supply as possible so in stages that started marking everything down.  It started with 50% off health and beauty, 50% grocery, then 50% meats and diary, and finally 75% off everything.  I scored some pretty good health and beauty deals and did okay with grocery discounts.  The grocery marked down was on the same day as Dave's hernia surgery so I didn't get in on it until the day after.  I'll tell you these stores were attacked and just left barren.  People filled their carts to overflowing and then had to wait hours in line to checkout.  It was pretty intense.  I had a friend who went over to the store right as they opened on the day all groceries were marked down to 50% and she sent me a message saying, "this is what I think the zombie apocalypse will be like."  Yikes!

Since I'm always looking for a good grocery deal, I was a little disappointed I didn't do better at the Dominick's sales.  BUT….I had a bit of luck.

I follow a lady who blogs all kinds of coupons and groceries deals and she gave a heads up in the middle of January that a few of the Dominick's stores that were bought by other companies and had remained open were going to start liquidating.  There were only 6 stores in all of Chicagoland and lucky me, there happened to be one in our town.  Not as many people knew about this one so I went over on the first day and scored!  There were other shoppers but it wasn't too busy.

Here is my grocery cart.  I don't think I've every filled a cart like this.  I bought all kinds of everything from drinks, to canned goods, to crackers, paper plates, toilet paper, apple sauce, frozen food, etc.  This definitely helped me get over my disappointment about missing the earlier sale.  I even scored later in the week when meat went 50% off.

Here's my haul from the butcher, what you see are beef roasts, porterhouse steaks, NY strip steaks, a couple of rib roasts, deli cheeses and turkey--all this for less than $70.  It was a pretty interesting experience, basically the customers stood by the butcher case while the butchers were in the back cutting and packaging meat.  Every 15 minutes they would bring out a cart of meat and people would just grab them and fill their carts.  As you can see I happened to be there during the "beef" phase.  You couldn't make a request for anything, you just had to wait and see what they would bring out.

Anyways, we are definitely set for a while.  My freezers are bursting full.  Did I mention that one of the Young Women in our ward works for Panera and they have allowed her to bring home the bread they would normally throw away at the end of each day.  Panera does not serve day-old bread so rather than watch it go to waste, she brings it home, wraps it up and shares it with the ward.  This past week, I brought home two full loaves of bread and a bunch of bread bowls.  Everything freezes and reheats so well, what a great blessing.

(I wonder why I am having such a hard time getting a diet going?…..)

Surviving the Polar Vortex

THE POLAR VORTEX!!  It's brutal.  This winter has been relentless.  We have record amounts of snow and record low temperatures, and when I say record low temperatures I'm talking 50 degrees below zero.

The Chicago area got hit with the polar vortex right as the kids were supposed to return to school after winter break.  The air temperatures were -15 and with wind chill it was -50.  Way too cold to go outside, I mean you could literally get frostbite within minutes.  We also got a little snow along with the cold temperatures which pretty much iced the roads.  School was cancelled for two days and we basically just hunkered down in our warm house.

The day before the actual polar vortex hit, was Sunday and we got so much snow that church was cancelled.  Paige helped Dave shovel, but it was hard work.  When I opened to door to check on them, Paige had been reduced to shoveling while sitting down.

This was day one of being frozen/snowed in.  By the next day we were frozen, even Dave's company advised it's employees to work from home.  I was so grateful for a working heater and pipes that didn't freeze.

So what did we do?  Well, we got to sleep in!  We watched tv, movies, and read some books.  I also had everyone work on a family project, tying fleece blankets.

We made blankets for each of the girls and a baby blanket for Debby.  These sure have been handy this winter considering how cold it's been.

We also ate lots of comfort food, including Thai Sukiyaki.  I even made my own sauce from scratch, it was yummy and I've found another use for my fondue pot.

It was so cold Ashley wanted to do an experiment that everyone was doing which was to throw boiling water outside and watch it freeze/vaporize in mid-air.  I told her she could do it.  So she boiled the water in a pan, opened the door and threw the water into the air and right back onto herself, earning a pretty good burn on her arm.  Honestly, I didn't even think about safety, I figured she was old enough to throw hot water out of a pan, but obviously not.  Anyway, she had a pretty good blister on her forearm for a few days, but she is okay now.

One of the things Paige did to keep busy was to make us all lots of rainbow loom bands.

Fortunately, before we went too crazy with cabin fever, it warmed up to -10 wind chills which was downright balmy and good enough to return to school.

Bundled up and ready to step outside and catch the school bus

I wish that I could say these few days were the end of our harsh winter, but honestly it was more like the beginning.  We have had several snow storms since then and many days of harsh, subzero temperatures.  Two more days of school were cancelled and the forecast is still pretty grim if you're hoping for spring.  Just this past week we got about 10 more inches of snow and the temperatures were -32 wind chills this morning and we aren't even canceling school anymore.  We just get calls warning us about poor road conditions and late running buses.

It's good times around here.  Everyone is officially done with winter.  Here is some of the commentary about winter this year:

"die winter, die"
"this is reverse hell"
"Chiberia"
"definitely buying a snowblower next year"
"time to hibernate"

Sledding

For the past few years we have had the mildest winters with hardly any snow.  Three Christmas' ago I bought the girls an awesome new sled and they have NEVER used it.  This year we were finally able to break the sled in.  We have had a good amount of snow already and it has also been pretty cold too.

Paige had been asking to go sledding during the whole winter break, but anytime we were free it was FREEZING outside.  Paige wanted to go on a day that it was 11 degrees outside, luckily, I was able to convince her to wait two days until it was 28 degrees.

Even then it was pretty cold, but being the awesome mom I am, I took Ashley, Paige and our neighbor/friend Samantha.  I will admit however, that I wasn't awesome enough to stand outside with them.  I sat in the warm car and watched them go up and down the hill.

I'm just grateful we have a hill to sled on; Illinois is pretty flat.  In fact, the sledding hill is right near our house and it's man-made.  A local church created the hill when they dug the foundation for their building, hence the huge cross in the picture.  On the top of the hill, they have instilled a fire pit so parents can keep warm and at the bottom of the hill are a bunch of hay bales to safely stop the sledders.  Maybe if there are some warmer days ahead, I'll get out of the car next time.

New Years Eve

Happy New Year!  This year, everyone in our family was healthy.  Hurray!  I swear the last few years we have had to cancel our plans because someone had the flu, a cold, or some kind of illness.

Our family went over to our friends' the Thompsons with a few other families to ring in the new year.  All the teens left about 9:30 to go to their own party, but the rest of us stayed at snacks, played board games and watched a little of Shaolin Soccer.  We love that movie!

We rang in the new year, hopped in the car and went over to pick up Ashley from her party.  We had another pretty significant snowstorm that night, but fortunately we all made it home safe and sound.

Here are our first pictures of 2014:

Christmas Vacation Recap

We had over two full weeks off of school for Christmas vacation!  It was a great time of relaxation, sleeping in, few obligations and fun.  For a blogger, I pretty shamefully did not document much with photos, so I will just give a short recap.

1.  MOVIES, MOVIES, MOVIES!  Our family loves movies and we watched a lot of them.  We got an awesome amount of movie theater gift cards for Christmas so we were all set.   We saw the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Frozen, Saving Mr. Banks, and Anchorman 2 (just Jen and Dave.)  Plus we ate lots of popcorn!

At home we watched Elf, A Christmas Story, White Christmas, RIPD, and Lord of the Rings.

2.  Double feature movie night with friends.  We also had our friends the Griffins over for a double feature and pizza party.  We watched the new Superman movie and Wolverine along with eating some yummy Jet's pizza.

3.  Midnight bowling.  Ashley didn't want to go the whole break without a little bowling practice, so we decided to go to the "all you can bowl" from 10pm-12am.  I mean, it's not like we had to wake up early the next day.  Ashley bowled her personal best so far 190!  That girl is getting close to 200!

4.  Hanging with friends.  Both girls went to parties at friends houses and spent other time with friends. Paige went to play with friends - American Girl and Minecraft were favorite past times.  Ashley went on mall shopping trips and to the movies with her friends.

5.  Friends and family parties.  We are so very fortunate to have good friends here.  We were on the receiving end of some great holiday invitations.  We spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve with friends at family dinner parties.  Besides delicious food and awesome company, we played games, chatted, went caroling, and had all sorts of fun.

6.  Binge-watched "Once Upon a Time."  For the past 6 plus months, the girls and I have been watching the tv show "Once Upon a Time" on Netfix.  Currently, season 3 is running on tv, so we have had to watch two seasons to catch up.  It hasn't been easy because the three of us can never sit down at the same time to watch tv, so it's definitely taken longer than expected.  Well we are now all caught up thanks to binge-watching over Christmas break.  Of course, the down side is that now we have to wait every week like everyone else for each episode.

7.  Eating lots of junk.  My sister Debby and her husband, Sam, sent us one of those gift towers of fruit and candy.  9 levels to be exact.  That along with other treats, gifts, and candy left us with a counter full of food.  At the beginning of the break, I thought there would be no way we could get through it all.  Update - we pretty much were able to eat our way through it.  It has been junk food city around here.  I've hardly cooked any regular meals because we've been eating out or eating so much other crap no one was ever hungry at dinner time.

The tower of treats - pears, apples, candy, chocolate,
cookies, nuts, crackers, oh my!

A fun gift we received, homemade vanilla extract

8.  Candy-making.  I know that it is kind of ironic to follow number 7 above with a story about making lots of Christmas candy, but it's just not Christmas to me without making some candy.  I will report that we did gift over 75% of it.  I made fudge, English toffee and sugar cookies.  I didn't have to make caramels because a family friend makes the best caramels and gave us a huge tin.  LUCKY.

9.  Games.  Each girl got a board game for Christmas.  Ashley got a chess board.  The girls are just beginners but they have been playing a lot and honing their strategies.  Paige got the game Hedbandz which is always good for a laugh.

Christmas Day

When I think back on the Christmas mornings for our family, they really have always been pretty peaceful.  Our girls never wake up too early, usually around 8 am.  Our tradition is that we can each look in our stockings while we wait for everyone to gather and get in position to open presents.  After that we each take turns opening gifts which include gifts from Santa and family all mixed together.  

I don't make my kids get dressed before they open presents or anything like that.  I figure they are wearing brand new pjs why not enjoy wearing them for a little longer.  This year, the girls really didn't even know what they wanted.  Neither of them had any big ticket items on the wish list.  In fact they barely had wish lists, maybe that's why I had such a hard time getting everything ready.

 Paige got some Minecraft plush figures in her stocking which were a major hit.  That girl, along with all her friends and about every other kid her age is OBSESSED with Minecraft.  I read an article once that said it can be an educational game as it teaches kids to build societies and prioritize needs and supplies, etc.  I cling to that in order to convince myself that it's okay :)

Paige got Monster High doll she wanted along with some American Girl books, crafts and clothes.

Ashley got some gift cards and her very own CHI flat iron.  She straightens her almost every day and she has been using my flat iron.  Now with her very own, she doesn't have to come into my bathroom every morning at 5:30am to get ready.  Hey, I think I'm a winner with this one too!!

As a surprise, Dave bought me a paperwhite Kindle which I love and I bought him a new sport coat.

Part of the aftermath
 

After gifts, I made a bacon and egg breakfast and then we lounged around and played with our new things.  The girls had fun playing Hedbanz and Chess.  Dave and I played too and honestly, not sure what I'm supposed to say about this picture:

We also got a very sweet Christmas surprise from Dave's parents Jim and Carolyn.  They sent us a fresh flower arrangement for our Christmas table.  It was such a kind gesture to let us know that they were thinking of us on Christmas day even if we are far apart.  The carnations came in a beautiful red vase, which I love having, and were a welcome addition to our table during Christmas break.

Later, in the evening we went and had dinner at our friend's house, Alan & Julie Thompson.  It included the Thompson family, our family and the Sister Missionaries in our ward.  I didn't get any pictures, which I feel bad about because we had a great time.  We had a delicious ham and potato dinner and then we played a hilarious and rousing game of Apples to Apples.  Speaking of apples, Julie made a delicious apple pie for dessert that had shredded cheddar cheese in the pie crust.  What a great idea and it is very tasty.  I better get the recipe for that one.  

Christmas Eve

Wow, Christmas Eve?  How did that happen?  It literally snuck up on me.  The last week before Christmas was busy, busy and sick.

Ashley survived her first finals week at school.  This is different from when I was in high school.  We didn't have finals or anything like that.  Schools around here are a little more like when you are in college.  During finals weeks, you don't have regular class, you basically go to your scheduled finals (1-3 tests each day) and then go home early.  Finals do count towards a portion of your grade but it's not your whole grade so that is a good thing.  Basically, going into finals week there was really only one class that she needed to do well on in the final and that was Honors Biology.  The rest of her grades in her classes were pretty much set, which means that in order to have an effect on her grade she would have had to either fail the test or ace the test, since neither scenario was likely it took a little pressure off.  For Biology she had a high B+ in the class, right on the border between an A and a B.  If she could get an A on the final she could get an A in the class AND…..she did it!  Phew, what a relief to have that behind her so she could enjoy Winter Break with no homework or school worries.

I unfortunately, got sick during this week.  It wasn't the flu but it was a horrible virus.  I caught it from Ashley and man did it kick my butt.  The worst part is that it basically put me out of commission for 4 days---4 days that I needed to get ready for Christmas.  Basically, it left Dave to try and help and then just an acceptance that some stuff wasn't going to get done.  I barely got gifts to extended family in the mail and for our family it was "we have to go with what we got."

This is when I became extra thankful for invitations from friends to have holiday dinners with them, because honestly, preparing or even shopping for Christmas dinner was not going to happen.  We had Christmas Eve dinner with the Oscarson family.  They hosted us along with two other families - the Stradlings and the Flinders.  They have their big Christmas dinner on the 24th so they can casually enjoy Christmas Day - it's a great idea.  Again, I failed at the picture taking thing but I can tell you what we did.  We had a fabulous prime rib dinner at the Oscarsons.  After dinner the younger children played some Christmas songs on the piano as Corinne Oscarson teaches piano to 4 of the kids, including Paige.

We then bundled up and went caroling and took some treats to different neighbors and friends.  Paige absolutely loved this part.  As we were caroling she told me this was a great Christmas Eve.  I guess we better take her caroling more often.

After the caroling, we went over to another family's house for dessert.  We all brought a different dessert to share.  I made a mint chocolate brownie trifle.  It was delish.  Along with dessert, we acted out the nativity, with scripts and homemade costumes.  Our girls were two of the three wisemen.

It was a fun evening of good food and friends and were very grateful to be invited to share Christmas with them.

Afterwards, we came home and opened our Christmas PJs and as it was already pretty late, it was time for bed and dreams of sugarplums dancing in our heads.