This was our last day in San Francisco & also the day we drove home. We drove the most crookedest street & over the Golden Gate bridge. We had beautiful weather all week... up until the morning we wanted to drive the bridge.
We had a great time!
Day 4 involved a little less walking. We took the trolley down to the warf & walked around some more there.
Mr took the kids on the USS Pampanito submarine tour.
I wish I got pictures inside the Musee Mecanique but the camera battery died earlier that morning. It's full of old fashioned to present video games. Really cool!
We also had a sweet treat at Ghirardelli square & browsed the shops some.
Our first day in San Francisco! We did a lot of walking. Walked every where. We started from the hotel & walked through China town eventually making it down to the Warf. By far the best China town I have been to. I bought a nice hand painted cherry blossoms painting.
(the flies were loving the fish... blech!)
From there we saw the crookedest street in the world - Lombard Street. Later on in the week we actually drove it.
That was on our way to Coit Tower. Are your legs tired yet?! If not, they will be after you are done pushing a double stroller up a hill!
While up there we discovered the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. When we first got up there I thought I heard a parrot. After we checked out the tower we took a rest under some trees so I could feed J. A group of ladies came by to check out the birds. Turns out there are over 200 wild parrots in the trees. There is even a movie about them! It all started with a few parrots that got lose & soon they multiplied.
We continued on to the warf where we had a quick bite to eat & then got on a tour to Alcatraz. Took a lot of pictures there, too. After the tour we walked the warf. There is an area where the sea lions sun bath. Massive amounts of sea lions.
Instead of walking back to the hotel after dinner we took the trolley. That had to be R's favorite part of the trip. On the way to the trolley stop L had a run in with a parrot. L-1, parrot-0. I think the owner learned a valuable lesson that evening. Never shove a bird in a kids face. She gave fare warning that she wanted nothing to do with the parrot.
We survived our night of camping! The kids & I ate a little breakfast in the land yacht while Mr broke camp down & re-loaded the car. Our first stop of the day was to Hearst Castle in Cambria. What an amazing estate. It's so HUGE that there are 4 different tours & each tour shows you something different. The smallest guest house on the estate is something like 2400 sq'. That's bigger than our house! Here are only a small fraction of the pictures I took there.
Afterward we drove a few miles to were the seals sunbath on the beach to visit them & have lunch.
From there we drove up the coast some more to Monterey.
In Monterey we visited the aquarium & had dinner with some friends stationed there.
After dinner we finished our drive to San Francisco. It's only about 1.5 hours from Monterey. We stayed at the Marine Memorial Hotel. Their rates for active duty military members, if you are a member of the hotel (which is free), are pretty good. Even includes a nice breakfast buffet. I <3 id="gwProxy" type="hidden">
I've been wanting to take some time to blog about our trip to San Francisco last month. Forcing myself to sit down & do it tonight. We did this while Mr was on his leave. San Francisco is only about an 8 hour drive from us but we stretched it out do do some sight seeing on the way up. We took 2 days to drive there, about 2.5 days there & that other half to drive back.
We started off day one driving up the coast.
We stopped in Solvang for lunch. Not really a child-friendly place for sight seeing. It's known more for its wineries... I guess. We did probably the only two child-friendly activities. Lunch at the Hans Christian Andersen Park & apple picking at Apple Lane Farm. Our ride there, of course, was not with out an adventure. Poor R got car sick literally 2 minutes from the park. He would do this a few more times through out the day. He tried his hardest to have fun at the park but couldn't stomach any food & was not into the apple picking. L enjoyed herself at least.
After apple picking we got back on the road. I like to find odd places to stop & see. One being the Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo.
Day 1 of the drive up was our longest day in the car. R had been asking to go camping so we decided we would camp out on the way up. We stopped at Morro Bay Strand Beach to camp. Beautiful but C-O-L-D!! We're kinda out growing our tent, but since it was cold it was nice to all snuggle together. Poor R was still feeling sick so he wasn't too into it all. He wanted to go to bed instead of making s'mores. You know the boy is sick when he turns down chocolate & marshmallows!
End of day 1....
I've got a few other subjects to blog about but they are long & this one is short & sweet.
Henry's is farmers market type grocery store out here in Cali. It has the best prices, tastiest fruits & veggies that don't go bad super quick. The kids LOVE going to Henry's. Today for $12 & a very small chunk of change we got 6 corn on the cobs, just under a pound of plums, a pound & 3 quarters of grapes, a dutch apple pie & 2 pounds of strawberries. I <3 Henry's!! If I worked there I don't think I would walk out with a paycheck - or much of one.
I went to the grocery store to grab some deals & other items we needed. The grocery game is a learning lesson. My goal is to save 50% or more. Each trip to Ralphs I learn something knew to help me with my next trip. Last trip I realized that they only double the 1st coupon of a product. I went to get toothpaste. It was 4/$4. I had 2 - 50cent coupons & another 75cents off 2. I went in expecting to only pay $1 for 4 tubes of toothpaste. It was $1.75. Lesson learned there. I should have made multiple trips, but who wants to do that with 3 screaming kids? This time I was prepared. I had multiples of coupons so I did 2 transaction. Lesson learned in this trip? 1) My kids can actually behave in a grocery store & 2) Better organize the coupons that get put onto the store card from the internet. I need to print out a list instead of writing them down. My paper coupons were good to go - except I forgot to use 1. Example of the store card coupons - Part of the Mega sale deals were certain General Mills cereal. I had store card coupons (2) for a $1 off Honey Nut Cheerios. I forgot that I needed to grab HNC & instead just got regular Cheerios. I even had it written down!! Guess I was distracted.
I did good with the coupons. All but 4 of my items I had a coupon for & 3 of those items were store brand (milk, sugar, & marshmallows). I searched online for a coupon for the 3rd item but one was not to be found. I'm not going to list everthing I got, but will highlight the deals where I saved 50% or more. Oh, let me explain a Mega Sale. If you buy 10 products that tagged you get $5 off your total. This is also why I did 2 transactions. Doing them together would have not gotten me $10 off.
Transaction #1:
Total before: $38.69
Total OOP: $15.09
Total savings: $23.60 (39%)
Most of this transaction I saved 50% or more.
Betty Crocker cookie mix: $3.49, after sale & coupons - 79cents
Betty Crocker fruit snacks (rarely bought item for this house): $3.59, after $1.09 (x2)
Betty Crocker Warm delights (hold your granny panties for this one!! Too good to resist!): $2.49, after - I made 1cent!!!
Nature Valley Granola Bars: $4.29, after - 1.59 (x2)
Cheerios: $3.99, after $1.49 (x2... If I bought the HNC I would have only spent 49cents/box)
Transaction #2:
Total before: $76.50
Total OOP: $29.19
Total savings: $47.31(38%)
In addition to paper coupons & store card coupons I also had paper store coupons that were mailed to me.
Betty Crocker Warm Delights & Nature Valley Granola Bars are same as above.
Betty Crocker fruit snacks: $3.59, after $1.19
Trix: $3.99, after 94cents
Captain Crunch: $4.49, after $1.49
Golden Grahams: $3.99, after $1.99 (I should have repeated the Trix deal here instead.)
Pillsbury Grands!: $2.99, after $1.49 (x2)
liquid Coffeemate: $4.49, after $2.00
Nature Valley Clusters (Delish, btw!): $3.99, after 99cents (x2)
Wheat Thins: $3.99, after FREE!!
Mentos Gum: $1.25, after 25cents.
For those of you who do not know what a commissary is, it's a military grocery store. Since we don't live super close to one I go about every 4 to 6 weeks & stock up. In between trips I will go to the local grocery stores nearby. I know what I can get cheaper at each place I go to & also study the weekly grocery ads along with my stack of coupons.
The commissary claims to save consumers about 30%. I've always wondered how true that is. For example I know I can get beef A LOT cheaper at the commissary than any sale out in town. But what about other items? I decided to do some comparing. This blog is just based off of my latest commissary trip. I plan on getting extra nerdy on you all & start a spread sheet tracking all items. Eventually being able to fill in price for each store. That will be an on going project. One note, the commissary doesn't charge sales tax BUT they do charge a surcharge. At times this surcharge can be comparable to tax. In California not all food is taxed. I bought a mix of food, cleaning supplies & other necessities. Too much work to figure out what my tax would have been if bought out in town.
On to my comparison...
I spent $224.24 before coupons were taken off (-$20.10)& the surcharge was added (+$11.64).
I compared my purchases to a local grocery store here, Albertsons. Albertsons tends to be a smidge pricier than other local grocery stores nearby. Also, these prices were based off their online shopping. I'm sure they up the prices a bit, just not sure by how much. If I bought my items there my bill before tax & coupons would have been $381.22. That's a $148.52 savings - 39%. So I did in fact save about 30%. If I couldn't find the same exact item I went to the store brand which was always still more expensive than the (name) brand I bought at the commissary. The commissary does not have a store brand. In between trips I will buy fresh fruits & veggies, milk & eggs out in town. A gallon of milk at the commissary is probably $2-something. I don't know the exact price because I have not bought milk there in a while. I can get it often for $1.99 from one of the local stores.
I have lost my train of thought, but I just wanted to share the comparison.
1) (before savings) $17.16
(CVS savings) -$ 2.70
(Coupons) -$ 5.99
(Tax) +$ 1.13=
(Total OOP) $9.60, total savings: $8.69, ECB earned: $7.48
2) (Before savings) $22.70
(CVS savings) -$12.84
(Coupons) -$ 2.35
(ECB's) -$ 7.45
(Tax) +$ 0.06
(Total OOP) $ 0.06, total savings $22.64
**TOTAL OOP: $9.66, TOTAL SAVED: $31.33 (76% savings)
I really want to get back into the groove of blocking. Lately I've either had nothing to blog about & time to blog or something to blog about & no time to do so. The kids are keeping me pretty busy... so do the dogs & the house. My goal is to chip out some time that I can take to blog & catch up on my scrap booking that I am VERY behind on.
I can't believe the newest addition is only a few days sigh of 2 months! He's a pretty good baby. He has 2 six hour sleeps mixed in with several shorter naps. One stretch is in the middle of the day & the other is at night. I've been pretty lucky getting him to eat around 11:30pm. Then he sleeps to about 5:30am. Mr I & Princess love their new little brother to pieces.
Speaking of those 2... I signed them up for preschool. That starts at the end of the month. Three days a week for 3 hours to clean & grocery shop with out having to chase mobile children around. It'll be good for them, too. They are partners in crime.
We're gearing up for Mr's 3rd deployment to the sandbox. My philosophy is to hurry up & get it started so it's over sooner. This deployment could end in 3 different ways - they come back early, come back as schedule, or they get extended. I do not like that part being up in the air. Ugh...
We've been working on the house some more. It's never ending. I have a blog to write on that & pictures to post.
My goal this week was to get to bed earlier. Well I've been in bed earlier but have yet been to sleep any earlier. I'm some what of a walking zombie on auto-pilot these days. Must go get some beauty sleep...
I did some kidless shopping today. 4 CVS trips. I think I did pretty well. :P
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