We’re on an island, with miles & miles of white-sand beach. I get to my room where the butler has already unpacked our bags & has a stroller and crib waiting for the kids.

We leave our 3 year-old at a fun camp & the baby with a nanny in the nursery while I get my nails done at the beauty salon & my husband releases his tension through a massage at the spa. Then we spend some quiet time relaxing on the beach before going back to get the kids.

Following dinner, we catch a “Dive-In” movie poolside, then return to our room, & collapse into our already turned-down beds, unable to contain our excitement thinking about what’s in store for us tomorrow.

Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Too good to be true, perhaps? Fortunately for you, it’s not. With Beaches Resorts’ WonderFall Celebration, this dream family vacation is absolutely within reach! Beaches Resorts gives you a choice of four locations: Boscobel, Sandy Bay, and Negril (all in Jamaica), and one in Turks & Caicos. This upcoming September and October, you can get one free night when you stay 5 to 6 nights, and TWO free nights when you stay 7 nights or longer, at any one of those resorts. That combined with up to 45% off equals a WONDERFALL getaway for the whole family!

Parents Magazine recently named Beaches as a “Top Ten” family beach resort.

They offer tons of amenities:

• Several fun, themed restaurants serving a huge variety of food to suit every palate, available day and night.
• Multiple swimming pools and even a water park!
• A full-service spa, beauty salon, fitness center, tennis courts, and an assortment of water activities. How amazing would it to go snorkeling everyday of your vacation?
• On site child-care, including nanny services.
• Evening entertainment for young and old - from Sesame Street stage shows to dancing at the disco.
• The beach, of course! Lounge chairs and umbrellas are plentiful, as are the tropical drinks.

I’ve been to an all-inclusive resort before, and will never do it any other way! Being able to sit down for a meal or order a drink from a swim-up bar and not have to worry about paying a check when you’re done is priceless! It’s SO nice not having to carry your purse around or keep track of your expenses for fear of running low on cash. It adds another level of tranquility to an already relaxing vacation.

These special savings are valid for travel between September 1st and November 4th, 2008, if you book by July 17th. Just make sure you apply for a passport ahead of time!

** Thank you to Mom Central for sharing this WonderFall promotion with me.

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My luck apparently hasn’t worn off yet, because yesterday morning I had an email sitting in my inbox from Jen at MommyBlog Reviews. I won a lifetime membership to PearBudget.com!!

PearBudget is a web-based budgeting application. It’s simple. No complicated accounting, just expense-tracking and budgeting. It’s safe. You are never asked for any account information. You just enter your expenses into categories of your choice, as well as your total income. To make it even easier and user-friendly, categories are customizable. To any other person this prize might not be that big a deal, but for me it comes at the perfect time.

This is my first time developing a budget, so I know it’ll take a lot of trial-and-error. I need to figure out where we overspend in order to achieve some kind of balance. One of our biggest vices is going out to eat a lot. Seeing it all add up over a month’s time will probably be quite a shock, but I’m looking forward to it! I’ve already registered and put in the expenses that I could think of off the top of my head into PearBudget. Today I’m going to look through all our bills one by one and customize categories accordingly. I’ve strategically place a little bowl right where MilkDud puts down his wallet when he walks in the door, just for his receipts. I know he’s not going to be happy that I’m micromanaging, but we did decide that I’m in charge of all the finances from now on, so he has to deal with it!

If you’re a budgeting novice like me, or just tired of complicated software (Quicken, for instance) check out PearBudget. It only costs $3 a month, and you can even try it free for 30 days. $36 a year may sounds like a lot for a web-based service, but considering its ease of use and the money you’ll save by tracking your expenses, PearBudget will undoubtedly pay for itself many times over!

A big THANK YOU to Charlie from PearBudget and to Jen for her wonderful giveaway!

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I was happily surprised to see this beautiful deer when I looked out my living room window yesterday morning.

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My little brother just got back from a 2 week journey through Europe and Asia, and brought us back those dolls, as well as a few other treasures. Marsy immediately fell in love with them - she calls the set her “Higglytown Heroes.” You won’t understand that unless you watch the Disney Channel, though!

Unfortunately the girls only got to spend a little under two hours with their favorite uncle. Why is that? Because he was only here due to a layover at the airport. My mom and my siblings live half-way across the United States. 1510 miles away, to be exact. But we have family in 7 countries, on 4 different continents, so as hard as it may seem sometimes, we’re used to the distance between us.

I communicate with my mom and my brother and sister everyday, whether it be through a phone call or over the Internet. I recently discovered Twitter, which is a great tool to let your friends and family know what you’re doing throughout the day. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already! At this point the only family I “tweet” with is my brother, but hopefully others will hop on the Twitter train soon enough!

Since we’re trying to focus on selling our house, we’re not planning any big trips anytime soon(or little ones, for that matter). On that account, I’m especially grateful for ANY time we get to spend with our loved ones. Just this past Sunday we had dinner with my grandma, who was in town for a conference. We hadn’t seen her in almost 6 months, and it’ll probably be almost that long before we see her again.

But that’s okay. After all, it’s not the quantity but the quality of the time spent together that really matters. Now I just wish I could get Sister Sledge out of my head!

*** If you’re family, please leave me a comment so I know you’re reading my blog! If you’re not a relative, leave a comment anyway =)

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Apparently all a super hero needs is some shades and a cape.
And yes, she actually calls them “shades” - her word, not mine.

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I needed something to distract Marsy during the yard sale, but a lemonade stand sounded like too much work on my part, so she had to make do with bottles of water and juice. I can honestly say that I was amazed at her sales skills! She would stop potential customers with bottles of water in each hand, as soon as they stepped foot on the driveway. “Water and juice for 50 cents!” she would exclaim… and that was without any coaching on my part! Not a single person said no to her, and the cooler was easily cleared out by noon. She even used her toy cash register to organize her change.

Overall, I was happy with the outcome of my first yard sale. If I gather up enough junk within the next week or two while packing, we may even hold an official “moving sale” next month!

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Photo taken just down the street; perhaps the culprit behind our power outage:

Going back to what I mentioned before, about looking at houses - I have some big news! I’m just now bringing myself to write about it because I’ve finally come to terms with it all. Enough with the suspense, right? So here goes - we’ve decided to downsize. We’re going to a) put our home on the market and b) either rent a place for a year or buy a house that costs significantly less than what our current house is worth (not sure about part b yet).

I know this is a HUGE decision to make in just a few days time, but it’s for the best. I think we need to try to live below our means (for once) and focus on what’s important - ourselves, not our things. The housing market isn’t getting better, so I realize this isn’t the ideal time to sell, but I really do believe that our house will sell itself. Right now we’re basically paying to be close to the city, which would make sense if either one of us actually worked there! We’ll use the equity gained towards a down-payment on a new house and to pay off all our current debts (this is assuming we get our asking price). Our new mortgage will be less, freeing a significant amount of income every month and leaving us more financially (and psychologically) secure.

Our ultimate goal? To eliminate all our debt and save, save, save! Retirement & college savings accounts are established, but not anywhere near where they should be. If something unexpected happens - a tree falling on the house, let’s say, I don’t want to lose sleep agonizing over how we will pay for the repairs. I’d love to have 4-6 months of salary in the bank, so if we go through another bad period, it’ll be okay. I would definitely upgrade our health insurance plan to something with better coverage, expand our investment portfolio, and perhaps plan regular vacations - I’m dying to go visit my Aunt in Paris!

Right now it makes sense in my mind and on paper. Just thinking about it feels so liberating! Let’s just hope it all works out in the end. The hardest part is letting go of our house. We’ve done so much to it; definitely made it our own over the past 6 years. We’re already known as the “fun” house in the neighborhood because we have a great backyard, a home theater room, and host various events throughout the year. I’m definitely going to miss that, but I’m holding out hope that we’ll find something similar, if not better!

Please, please, please don’t worry about us! We’re okay at the moment; not defaulting on any payments or anything, just tired of being overextended. I’d rather be proactive and move now, when the girls aren’t in school, then have to uproot them later on if we are in worse circumstances. Since we’ll most likely move to a smaller house, my focus now is just getting rid of stuff. We’re kicking it all off with a huge yard sale tomorrow. This annual neighborhood event couldn’t come at a better time! I’ve been sorting through all our belongings the past few days. My method: I pick something up and ask myself if I’ve used it in the past year. If not, then it immediately goes in the “sell” pile - which has now taken up the entire dining room! Luckily, we don’t have to lug all our junk around because I volunteered our front yard for the sale. This is the first yard sale I’ve ever participated in so I’m kind of excited (as pitiful as that sounds!) I’ll let you know how it goes, and post frequent updates on the whole selling/moving process, so stay tuned!

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One night last week, I had a vivid (yet completely random) dream in which I was no more than 3 or 4 years old, and having a blast playing on a Slip ‘N Slide in my front yard in Austin. The next day I went to Target and bought one for Marsy:

She hasn’t done much slipping or sliding, but loves being in the water nonetheless:

Her baby sister enjoyed some juicy watermelon from the sidelines:

Click here for more photos!

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