My poor forgotten blog needs an update!

Today, I bought all of this stuff at CVS for $8.69!!! My receipt says I saved $51.44!!! Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just had to share! Couponing is helping us save money and buy better stuff at the same time....I love it!

The summer is flying by. In another month and 2 days, we'll be moving back to Tuscaloosa for the school year. I can't believe it's going by so fast!

This weekend is the Dvorak family reunion, so we're looking forward to that. We'll actually be staying in town (well, in North Alabama) for the weekend. That's practically a first for this summer. We tried out a new homemade ice cream recipe (strawberry) last weekend with my family at the lake, and it was pretty good, but we're going to make some changes to hopefully make it over-the-top good!

Travis found out yesterday at work that he got a 6% raise, so that was really good news! I'll brag on him since he never brags on himself :) He hasn't had a whole lot to do this summer at work, so that's been kind of frustrating for him, but it's not for lack of trying to find something...I think it's just hard since he's only there for a few weeks at a time out of the year. Whenever he starts work full-time after graduation, I'm sure it will be much different!

Well, there's my quick update. Hopefully it won't be another month before I update again...but who knows, with time flying so fast! Hope everyone is having an awesome week!!

Busy, busy busy!

Well, so much for the summer being slow-paced! Seems like we have something to do every night after work, and we're traveling a lot of weekends too. It's still better than being in school and having to study so much though!


Week before last we went to Fripp Island with my family. We had a BLAST! That's one of the weeks I look forward to most out of the whole year. We went kayaking this year...so that was something new I'd never done before. It was really hard, but lots of fun too. We're planning to go again next year at Fripp if we get a chance! We also did lots of swimming, body surfing, reading, Wii fitting, and eating. It was a wonderful week!



This past weekend we visited Elijah and Leisha, two of our friends from Tuscaloosa. They live in Atlanta now, and this was our second time to spend a weekend with them. We really enjoyed spending time with them. We ate at a neat little restaurant for lunch Saturday, played foosball, Rummikub (wow, someone else knows about that game too!), and grilled out for dinner. Sunday we were able to eat with them and Dan and Alicia and their kids for lunch after church!
This weekend, we don't have to go anywhere, so that will be kinda nice!

Our Super Fun Break So Far

Well, it's been a month since I updated this blog last. I'll blame that on being entirely way too busy for the last 2 weeks of school and then being entirely way too lazy for the past two weeks. We are really enjoying our summer break so far! We successfully got everything in our apartment packed up and stored away in storage (thanks to the help of our friends, Ashley, Seth, and Paul....and my mom). We also got all of the food planned and bought for Aaron's bachelor party. Travis and the guys had a lot of fun...and ate pretty good too while they were there!

Aaron and Emily's wedding went off without a hitch. Everything was beautiful, and I got some pretty good pictures while we were there. It'll be great to have another married couple our age in t-town for the upcoming year!

I went to work at the hospital for one day last week (only for a few hours). I had to take some tests online and get caught up on things since I'd been there last August. I may not really start work until after we get back from the beach next week (but there's a small chance I may work this Thursday or Friday or both).

We've gotten summer memberships at Anytime Fitness, which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Baugay's. We worked out almost every day last week, and we're enjoying getting in shape together (or trying to anyway!).

This weekend we spent time with my family at Smith Lake. It rained almost the entire weekend, but we still had a blast! We made homemade ice cream (which I've decided after completely leaving one ingredient out of the recipe that it's impossible to really mess homemade ice cream up), played Yatzee, watched Madagascar and Bedtime Stories, and ate some really great food. I hope we'll get to go back to the lake several more times before the summer's over.

This week we have a lot of little things to take care of. I'm making ravioli for one of our dinners at the beach, so I have to get all of the ingredients for that sometime before we leave. We'll also be making more homemade ice cream...yum! Travis also has to get his driver's license renewed, and I have to get a TB skin test done at the hospital.

We're leaving for Fripp Island this Saturday morning. Leaving from Huntsville instead of Birmingham adds an extra hour or two onto the total drive, so it may take us about 9 hours to get there! Next week is going to be so much fun! We'll be there until the following Saturday (June 6th), so we also get to celebrate Travis's 23rd birthday while we're there. Yay! Let the fun continue!! :)

Summer...

...is almost here!!

In the meantime, though, I've got 6 tests in the next 2 weeks. The 3 next week are my big exit exams (the HESIs), and then I have 3 finals the week after next. I also have one more clinical day next week. AAHHH!! And, Travis has a couple of more lab reports to write, a project due next week, and 6 finals to take.

We also:

• Have a gospel meeting at church next week
• Are moving out of our apartment in about 2 weeks (which means boxing everything up beforehand)
• Are trying to buy all of the food and get last minute details planned for the bachelor party (which starts on the same day we're moving!!)

Double AAHHH!!
All of this equals "way stressed out Erin and Travis" until May 11th.
Please pray for our sanity!!! :)
That's all for now...back to studying!

Blue Angels + Garlic Chicken + No Tests = A GREAT WEEK!

Well, it's been a great week so far! We went to see the Blue Angels on Saturday, and that was a lot of fun! Travis saw them last year in Mississippi, but this was my first time to see them. They sure are loud and fast. It's hard to get any good pictures of the planes because by the time you see them, they're practically gone already!

Last week I started community health clinicals. For these clinicals, I'll be doing something different each Tuesday and Wednesday. Last week, we had orientation on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday I did home health with a nurse from the county health department. It was pretty cool to see a different side of nursing than just being in the hospital all day. Today, I did WellBama...a program that my instructor started on campus to monitor to health of the employees at UA. Basically, I took a lot of people's blood pressure and checked some blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Tomorrow, I'm going to an inpatient hospice center on the VA campus.

Last night, we had two friends over for dinner, and I made Garlic chicken, corn, rolls, and brownies. It was yummy! I'd like to start having people over to eat dinner with us at least once a week until finals start. Being hospitable is fun!

Travis is as busy as ever right now. It seems like all his professors have been postponing tests and deadlines, and now they are all panicking and making everything due NOW! He's been working really hard though, and he'll deserve his 1-month break once finals are over. I think our last day of finals is May 8th, and he isn't starting work until after our trip to Fripp Island with my family at the end of May/early June! I'm so excited!

Speaking of work, I am hopefully going to work one or two days a week at the hospital doing what I did last summer. I don't think they really needs me that much, but I don't mind...I really just want to keep my foot in the door there. Plus, I can take my CPR recertification class and get my TB skin test (that I have to do every year for nursing school) done for free as an employee at Huntsville Hospital!

That's about all that's going on with us. We're excited about coming to Huntsville this weekend! Can't wait to see everyone :)

I'm so excited!

I think this means I'm getting old. I just saved a bunch of money on my grocery shopping today, and I'm super excited! Overall, I went to Winn Dixie, Publix, and CVS and spent $61.39 total. Here's what I got:

• Pantene shampoo, conditioner, and hairspray
• Lysol toilet bowl cleaner
• 4 packages of Ziploc bags (sandwich and freezer sizes)
• 2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide
• Colgate toothpaste
• Colgate 360 toothbrush (Travis's favorite kind of toothbrush!)
• 2 pkgs of Secret deoderant
• 1 bottle of All laundry detergent
• 2 bags of Doritos
• 1 bag of Ruffles potato chips
• 2 boxes of Klondike bars
• Carrots
• 2 boxes of muffin mix
• Fresh strawberries
• 3 packages of Crystal Light mix
• 2 boxes of cereal bars
• 6 2-Liters of Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr. Pepper
• 1 bag of salad
• 1 cantaloupe
• 1 package of french onion dip

YAY!!!! So I spent $61.39, and my receipts show that I saved $67.98...that's 53%!!!!!
I've been doing a 4 week trial on a website my mom found, and it basically gives you a list for the different stores in your area of what the good deals are for the week. If you cut coupons from the Sunday paper and use them on top of a sale price, you can save a lot of money! That's what I did today!! The idea behind the website is that you want to stockpile items when they are at "rock botttom prices"...that way you don't have to pay full price when you need something like shampoo, laundry detergent, or Ziploc bags. And the website tracks the prices of different items in each store, so they know what's really a good deal or not. They say that a certain item, like Pantene shampoo, tends to go on sale about every 12 weeks...so you want to be sure that your "stockpile" will last you until the next time it goes on sale. Obviously, this won't work for things like milk and produce, but you really can save a lot of money on toiletries, makeup, and other household items!

Our Apartment in T-town

I wanted to take some pictures of our apartment since we'll be moving out in May and living in a different apartment this fall. After dusting, vacuuming, and scrubbing, I decided it was presentable enough for pictures. It will be neat to look back at these one day and remember our "first home". Without further ado, here are some of the pictures of our humble abode...all 425 sq feet of it:

We'll start with the bathroom. Not much to say about that, besides that fact that I really like our shower curtain!

Our closet...either we have too many clothes or not enough space!

Travis's desk...this is where you will find him 90% of the time he's at home (and he's usually doing homework)


Our bed (with clean sheets on it for once!)

Now onto the kitchen...

We have a "mini" stove and oven!

This is the other place you might find Travis...in front of the TV!

Front door of our apartment and the entrance to the kitchen

Living room and closet/pantry (with the door closed)

I organized all the stuff in our "pantry" before taking this picture!

Our kitchen table

Another shot of the living room

Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures! I know several of you haven't ever seen our apartment before. We're really enjoying our spring break so far! We've done lots of boring "married" stuff so far....taxes, filled out the FAFSA, did some spring cleaning...but it's been SO nice to have a break from class and clinicals. Tomorrow we're planning to go to my parents' lake house for some R&R...the weather's supposed to be really nice, so we're excited! Hope you all are having a great week too!