Road Trip Part 2

I don't know why he put her on the roof
of the car... but we had adorable paw prints
on the car the whole trip afterwards.

Not only did we get to go out to Utah for our friend's beautiful wedding, we also got to spend some time with South County Boy's brother and their new little baby girl... which made the drive much easier to tolerate on both our ends.

We took our wonderful little pup along for the ride and she was a perfect little angel all weekend... in fact, several of my sister-in-law's relatives wanted to clone her and take her home with them. I was just proud that it only took her about 5 minutes to calm down and stop barking, even with the 20 plus new people to go around and sniff out. Made me a proud of her.

She didn't even growl too much with their dog Arbo (he's big enough to eat Roxy and has way more energy and always wants to play when Roxy doesn't want to). She also was really great around the little baby and the 10 plus kids that wanted to sit and pet her. Naturally this gives us some really good vibes and feelings that she will hopefully continue to love kids as we consider having one in the near distant future. I think it helped that all the kids were pretty mellow and approached her slowly and let her come to them... she gets scared and defensive when people come at her fast.

Kneaders.... I should buy into this company...

We also went to our favorite bakery and sandwich place... Kneaders......

I think SCB made us eat there each day we were out in Utah... and I say made loosely because you don't have to twist my arm too badly to get me there. Between the errands and our busy schedule I was happy to eat tasty sandwiches and salads from kneaders then junk from a fast food dive. We even came home with 3 loaves of bread for the freezer.

Since we were only in town a few days, we got to running our errands... including hitting up some of the "D.I." locations (Church owned thrift shops similar to goodwill but well organized and cleaner).

I always seem to find something really cute for just a few dollars each time we go. I think it helps that they sort similar colors and styles together to help make browsing easier and more pleasant. Its kind of like shopping in a Ross or a TJ Max and not really a thrift store. Definitely not like the goodwill stores out here in California. I ended up scoring a $6 dress, a $3 top, and another $2 top! 3 items all for $11... I call that a win.  I used my fun money for my clothes so you won't see that appear in the end of the month totals... but since we're talking about Money, lets look at what we spent:

Its the adorable baby!

$124.66 on food... (mostly from kneaders)

$187.19 on gasoline

a few dollars on the toll road... (still waiting for that credit to be reversed... had to call again when we got back from the trip)

$49.23 at Walmart on some odds and ends (including yarn to make the baby girl an adorable polar bear outfit).

So our vacation ended up being $361.19... 

Frankly, it could have been worse since I let the budget reins go and let SCB indulge a bit more. All I can say was it was a nice welcome break from watching everything, especially since we were on vacation. Woot for profit sharing checks and Costco rewards Money. ($100 of which we still have left too!)

I think it was uber helpful that gas in Utah was $3.39 a gallon as apposed to $4.09 when we left California..

We also spent $55.45 at Emergency Essentials because South County Boy really wanted to get a 15 gallon water barrel and some re-chargeable batteries... but that came from our discretionary funds. With all the drought talk in California, he thought it was best to up our water storage and since we were out there already it was going to be tons cheaper to buy it and drive it home then to get it on-line. Our new water barrel is going to live on our patio deck once its filled up.

We also spent $35.54 at Deseret Book out in Utah, but that was a gift for a friend of mine who is getting baptized later this month and the rest was a book on tape so it's getting paid with our discretionary spending.

We also put $50 in a card for a wedding present.

After all the errands, we did a lot of wedding festivities as I mentioned in my other post. The rest of the trip revolved around my sister-in-law's family and this adorable baby girl that was blessed :)

I even changed my very first diaper... it wasn't a poopy one, but I can now say I've changed a diaper. I even got the baby swaddled in a blanket... and I only got spit up on once and even then she fell asleep with me holding her a few times.

It's love I swear it is.

The drive home was pretty brutal... we got back okay, but I crashed at 5 pm without dinner and didn't really get up until SCB left for work at 7pm the next day.