Los Ebanos Ferry Junction

This afternoon, we took a family outing in our area! There were some 'landmarks' we thought sounded interesting, and so we went to check them out! The first was a salt lake (El Sal Dey Rey) near Raymondsville, Texas. It is only acessible by walking and since it was hot and with only 7 more weeks til my baby is due, I really wasn't up to doing that, but we are gonna go back sometime when we are a little more prepared! =) Then we drove up right past La Joya to this little town called Los Ebanos to see the only hand drawn working ferry in the US! It was closed because the river is too high, but we enjoyed exlporing the area! We ran into some US Border patorlmen and they told us we could go right down to the river and check it all out! It only costs $2.50 to have your car taken over to Mexico on it. I really want to go back sometime when its working and do that. This is really an official border crossing also. As you can see the River is not really that wide. We could see people walking around over on the other side.

The Rio Grande River

Sunday Smiles

Memorial Day 2008

We wanted to dedicate another blog post to our friends & family who served and are serving for our Country.

~Family~

Harold Bryce Younts

Born May 21, 1930

Died April 10,1983

Served US Army From 1949-1952

Pvt First Class

Served in the Korean War, stationed in Frankfort Germany

He was a jeep chauffear for top commanders

William Fetzer

served in the 101st Airborne Division. PFC Co C327 Glider Inf WW II Disabled American Veteran. He also earned a purple heart for being in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII

Burns Vance Springer (no picture)

US Army, Served in WWII

Matt Fetzer, Army National Guard

Served in Kosovo

Todd Fetzer, Army Special Forces

currently serving in an undisclosed location
Brent Springer, US Army

awaiting assignment

Troy Springer, US Navy, veteren

Kurtis Allen, US Navy

~Friends~

Jeffery Velasquez, US Army, 1st Lt, serving in Iraq

Adam Roth, US Army, Major, currently serving

Ismael Villareal, Army National Guard, Combat Medic, veteren

Jeremy Velasquez, US Army, ROTC

Korey's 1st lollipop!

Korey had his first taste of pina-loca lollipops last night! AND HE LOVES THEM!! We bought some for my mom the other day while we were in Mexico but decided to open the bag. =) Sorry, mom...there is plenty more where they came from!! =) Oh, by the way, he was under close supervision! (That message was for the aunts!! LOL!) (They are pineapple flavored so that's why the little screwed up face...just a little sour at first!) "No, daddy its mine!!"

"YEAH!! I WON!!"

Why I love shopping at Walgreens!

I know I've shared some deals on this blog before but I just want to show you quickly how I've been able to save tons of money by shopping at Walgreens lately!


This first picture is from 2 weeks ago - I was able to purchase all these items for right around $4.00! (I can't remember the exact amount with tax) and I didn't even spend cash because I had $36 on my gift card from rebates!


Here's how I did it:

First transacation:
Zantac $3.99 - 3.99 coupon (free! and they gave me a $3.00 register rewards)
Dawn (I can't remember the before prices but I ended up only paying $.54 and the tax for it.)



2nd transaction:
2 Charmin flushable wipes $1.99 each and I had $.25 coupons so they were $1.74 each
Freebreeze Noticeable $6.99 - $5.00 coupon = 1.99
Freebreeze Air effects spray $2.50 -$2.50 (I had a buy a freebreeze noticeable get a FREE air effects coupon)
candy .99 ( I didn't have enough items to match the coupons so I had to get a small filler)
Anyway - with tax it all came out to right around $4.00 becuase I used my $3.00 register rewards from transaction #1!

And I got another $6.00 Regiester rewards because I purchased 4 items in the proctor & gamble promotion! I took that and bought diapers that were on sale. I ended up paying $19.99 for 3 jumbo packs of huggies diapers and I'll get $5.00 back from Huggies for a rebate promotion they have right now!! $14.99 for 3 packs is $5.00 each!! Much cheaper than walmarts brand, and they last so much longer!

Then this week ~ I don't have pictures (I'll try to add them later after I go outside & get the stuff!) but I got tons of stuff again for right around $6.00 and

1st visit:
2 colgate maxfresh toothpastes (one was free!)
1 Pert plus shampoo
I will get a $2.50 walgreens rebate on the shampoo, so after I receive that I will have paid $1.20 for all those items!!

2nd visit: (I really didn't want to go back this week, but I had a coupon for more flushable wipes, which I'm stocking up on for potty training!! And the first time I was there they were out of them.)
2 colgate max fresh toothpastes (these were free this time b/c of coupons, I don't need any more toothpaste but free is something I can't pass up!)
2 clear & clean cleanser bottles (they were on clearance for $3.29 and I had a $2.00 coupon and a $1.00 Walgreens coupon, so I paid $.29 each for them!!)
2 cottonelle flushable wipes - on sale for 2/$4.00 and I had a $2.00/2 coupon.
And I had to get 2 small bags of M&M's because I had too many coupons again.
My total last night was $3.88 (paid with my gift card again!) My gift card still has around $5.00 on it!! And I used if for all these purchases!

I'm so thankful that God helps me find these deals, ~ most of the human credit goes to Crystal at http://www.moneysavingmom.com/!

More adventure from the Springer zoo!

If you've been reading my blog since I started it, you'll remember that I HATE critters and somehow they LOVE me and my house! They all think they are welcome here, but really they are not!! =) We had some other vistors who we turned out into the heat last night...BIRDS!!

For a few weeks, I'd been noticing my dryer wasn't getting clothes dry in the time that it used to. We'd check it and it'd be hot but it would take 2 or 3 times longer to get things dry. This was puzzeling, but since the weather's been great lately, I started hanging stuff outside and only drying things that I needed right away. Last night, I put Jonathan's uniforms in there since he had to work today and it started to smell like something was burning. (We had some smells the day before when I started to dry something so I turned it off and Jonathan looked at it and couldn't find anything) But last night it was bad, so I called him to come smell AGAIN, well, he pulled the hose off the vent and this is what he pulled out...

A birds nest!! It was totally blocking the dryer vent. It was complete with 3 eggs!!
Jonathan wanted to keep them and heat them til they hatched but this zoo keepers wife was not impressed with that idea, so they got thrown in the trash! :)

Does he have Fetzer in him??

Ok, if you don't know my family, you'll think this is werid, so I should explain! My grandfather was a garbage man. My dad & his brothers grew up working on the garabage truck and then my uncle took over the business when my pap couldn't do it anymore, then my cousin took it when my uncle was too sick. Korey LOVES to play in the trash in their room, but for real, this is the only time I let him and only for a second til I took this picture!!

Our baby is...

A GIRL!!

She doesn't have a name yet, but we are thankful that we were able to find out. Everything else looks great! She's as wiggly as ever, just like Kylie was! We were sorta hoping for a boy but oh well!

Mother's Day 2008

Pictures!

I finally got around to taking my kids to Sears again for pictures. I'm slacking, I know!! =) Here is the finished products! They are growing up so fast!! =) Kylie will be 23 months on the 20th of May & Korey will be 11 months on the 19th of May (next week!)

Revolutionary Money Exchange

Just a quick Thank you and a reminder:
Thanks to the 1 person who signed up under us for Revolutionary Money Exchange! Becka & I each got $5! And just a reminder to those of you who didn't sign up yet, you have until May 15th to get the $25 in your account! Sign up by the link on my sidebar and read my other post about this here.

San Antonio Zoo!

Thursday found us on our way to San Antonio! (Ok, maybe I should take that explanation point out of that sentence, we left at 5:30AM, there is NOTHING exciting about that. Smiles!)It was a business trip but we were able to make it a fun family day! We were not able to find a good mechanic shop here in the valley to do the correct work on the 4runner differential part that we needed done, so thanks to a friend, Paul Taylor in San Antonio, we found the 'right' man for the job! Thank you Sil, for taking time out of your busy day to work on it for us. He had it done in about an hour!! Jonathan got it all back together last night and it doesn't make any sounds!! YEAH! And it was a perfect day for the zoo (not too hot, not too cold and a little overcast!) We spent about 4 1/2 hours there and were all very tired when we left, but it was lots of fun! The kids had a great time, petting the goats and seeing the monkeys! Kylie was so fun to have there, she was talking to the animals! She told the monkeys that were playing "nice" (they were getting to rough I guess!!). And then was telling the duck to 'smile' and pretending to take their picture! They have some really neat interactive areas for toddlers there and we had fun exploring those as well. There is also a really nice park around the zoo that you can get a quick tour of by riding the little train. It was a nice way to relax at the end of the 4 hours of walking in the zoo!! We got home around 11:30PM so it was a long day but well worth all the fun we had! I usually don't like pictures of myself, but I wanted my picture with this majestic bald eagle! Most zoos I've been to, the bald eagles are in a cage and they hide so you never see them, right?! These two here were shot in the wild and injured so bad that they were not able to live in the wild anymore so they were brought to the zoo, had their wings clipped so they can't fly anymore and you can see them up close! We were very impressed with their posture! I guess that's the reason its a symbol of the USA! My two favorite guys riding the train! Korey wasn't exactly happy at this point! He fell asleep almost right away on the ride.

Brushing and petting the goats. Kylie would chase them saying 'Mere goat' and Korey was very excited!Playing in one of the interactive areas - her and her daddy crawled though these 'tunnels'! Bouncing around on the water bed in the baby area!