My "WE'RE DEBT FREE!" Scream!

When we first got married we sat down and looked at our student loans and probably thought... okay we'll pay them off month by month for the rest of our lives.  Doom and gloom.

About 15 months ago we attended the Dave Ramsey "Financial Peace University" that was being offered at the base.  I love Dave... he is totally blunt, slightly insensitive, completely hilarious, and speaks financial truth into thousands of lives.  Some people probably hate him, but I love him.  He totally opened our eyes to financial freedom and I will be forever thankful for that.

During our class Dave taught us about getting Gazelle Intense about becoming debt free.  This really stuck with me and here is the only video I could find on it.  He uses the example of a gazelle as a person and a cheetah as debt.  I love how fired up he gets.

I love how he says "you can wander into to debt, but you can't wander out.... you need to run like your life depends on it."  So, we made some adjustments, cut our expenses, took on a second job, delayed buying a house and threw loads of money into or loans every month for 15 months and i'm happy to FINALLY be able to do our Dave Ramsey scream (since I know It's unlikely i'll get on his radio show).... WE'RE 100% DEBT FREE!

Our goal... to never have debt again (except a morgage).  To be able to give freely, invest wisely and save up for that nice (never, ever new) shiny car.  And hopefully to be a stay at home mom one day without all of those bills!  (And no, i'm not pregnant... just checking if you read down this far)

"This is not a game, ... Debt has become a part of who we are. It's become that spoiled child in the grocery store with their lip stuck out: 'I want it. I want it. I deserve it because I breathe air.' And, well, that's an uphill climb in our culture right now, to go against that and say, 'Hey, let's be grownups here. Let's be mature, learn to delay pleasure, save up and pay for things.'"

Thank you Dave!

Winter in March

Oh how I LOVE winter in March!  I love the pretty heavy snow and enjoying the last few ski outings in decent temperatures.  We had such a fun weekend! We were pretty much all outdoors this weekend and it was awesome!

We started out the day waxing our equipment and watching the snow fall.  We were soooo excited to get out on the slopes.  P.S. This is the waxing stand my dad built for me out of an ironing board.  Isn't it sweet?!?  I love it.

Robby packed our lunch and put labels on them to tell the difference.  I like extra peanut butter on my PB&J.  Isn't he cute? 

After a long and very fun day of skiing in fresh snow!  I'm disappointed I didn't get any pictures on the slopes.  The only thing that could have made the day better is being on a real mountain instead of a spirit mountain ;)  The fresh snow was awesome though!

After skiing we hit up the Anchor bar... which apparently has been voted best dive bar many years in a row.  It was on Diners, Dives and Drive-ins.  The burgers are ahhhh-mazzing.

Sunday morning view of the lake off our deck.   It was soooo pretty after the snowfall.

We hit up our annual tradition of cheering on the Beargrease Sled Dog race.  I can't capture in a picture how excited these dogs are to race.  It's so fun to watch!

This dog was so excited he kept jumping over the other.

Snowball fight (with the biggest snowballs we could find)!

We made snow angels... he must not have tried very hard because his looks a little disfigured.

Overall... an awesome weekend!!

My life saving friend

I don't know if you know this but my best friend has saved a life.  For real!

Mary + Chipotle + Beth + heimlich maneuver  = life saved

Mary = life saver

Beth = lucky friend

I was at the American Heart Association luncheon and they showed us the new hands only CPR video.  I thought Mary should watch this since she seems to find herself in the most crazy situations.  I can totally imagine her singing the song while doing chest compressions can't you?!

Mary this video is for you...

Laugh your way!

Robby & I went to a marriage enrichment weekend at Cragun's Resort in Brained.  It was really nice to get away and relax.  The program was called "laugh your way to a better marriage".  The speaker was really funny and entertaining but also had some really great points.  I think I finally discovered something I never knew about Robby... his "nothing box".  This stupid box has been driving me nuts for years... and now I get it!  Here's a clip and at around 4 minutes he explains the "nothing box".

Pacific Hwy Coast & Lake Arrowhead - Part 2

After we left SF we headed south on the Pacific Coast Highway 1.  It was on our bucket list to drive the coast and it was absolutely amazing!  The scenery was stunning and the weather was beautiful.

We pulled over because we saw a whale. Do you see it?  Unfortunately I had my camera on manual focus and it's out of focus... lame!

We stopped at a few places along the highway.  One of the my favorite was the elephant seal viewing areas.  They were so entertaining to watch and really cute!  We sat on a park bench and watched the sun set over the ocean... it was a perfect Valentines Day sunset.


We stayed in the cutest little town on the way down the coast called Cambria.  Robby pulled into this motel called the "blue bird".  It wasn't really what I was imagining for our romantic "valentines day" place to stay BUT at $59 the price was right.  I made up for it by ordering the most expensive things on the menu that evening.  I'll take expensive food over an expensive bed any day.

We ate at a place my friend Stacie recommended called Robin's cafe.  We ate outside on a patio with pretty lights and flowers.  It was very romantic and probably one of my top 5 restaurant experiences.  The food (and wine) was fantastic!!  I seriously can't wait to go back there one day!

(my husband is sooooo handsome!)

Coffee on the beach in the morning... lovely!

When we left Cambria we headed for Santa Barbara (my favorite!!).  It was such a beautiful town.  We headed for the fisherman's Wharf and sat out on the pier and ate MORE fresh crab and even got to see dolphins swim by!  It was the most perfect sunny day... Robby literally had to chase me to get me to leave this place.

Another reason for our trip to CA was for our friends Chad & Lana's wedding!  They got married at Lake Arrowhead Mountain outside of LA.  It was so pretty and once again the weather was awesome.   I even sat outside with a mojito and soaked up the sun (amongst some leftover snow).  The wedding was so fun and casual.  A big group of us went out for pizza the night before.

(Yes, we ate McDonalds on vacation which is usually a no no for me... but it did have a nice patio!)

So here is the crazy part of our trip... after the wedding we drove back to SF!!  Yes, I know we're crazy but it was very worth it.  Robby was highly anticipating eating at in-n-out burger while we were there so on our way back to SF we stopped.  I have NEVER seen a fast food place so packed in all my life.  It was insane.  The food was worth the wait though... it was really good!

Before we left town we hit up some tourist attractions like Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was neat to see... but I couldn't get over the traffic and the tourists.  It was so awful I had a panic attack.  I don't think the tourist in Duluth are so bad anymore. :)

We had a super late flight so before heading to the airport we drove around until we found the perfect Sushi place.  The Sushi Bistro did not disappoint... it was soooooooo good!

I love California and can't wait to go back!!

Meet our CA hosts - Part 1

We arrived in beautiful San Francisco to gorgeous weather and our hosts (DoLoris & Doug) picking us up from the airport.  DoLoris is my dad's 1st cousin... but for some reason I've always called her my aunt or great aunt or even grandma.... cousin just doesn't really fit.  We've been really close ever since I was little and when she would visit MN we would always find an adventure to go on.  She was the 1st person I ever knew that would buy half of the inventory in a store in one shopping trip ;)

Meet DoLoris & Doug... a lovely (MN nice) couple.

The first full day in CA we went to see the Muir Woods.  

The redwood tree's were stunning and the park was so beautiful.

We also took a tour around some beautiful country side, visited Stinson beach and ate at a cute cafe.

Picking oranges... I was overly excited about this and finding a huge cactus.

Sorry Mark about accidentally picking your solo oranage!

DoLoris & Doug live just south of Napa Valley.  This was a place that has always been on my bucket list.  It was beautiful and the wine was awesome!  Definitely a place I would like to re-visit in the fall when the grapes are in prime season.

Robby's #1 thing to do in CA was see the redwood's and mine was to eat fresh crab!  So we went & got fresh crab thew out newspaper on the table and cracked away.  It was yummy!

We concluded our lovely time in SF with D&D by a game of dice and waking up to Doug's homemade breakfast!  Thanks for the fun time in SF... it's a trip we will never forget!

Now off to drive down the beautiful pacific coast highway to LA for a wedding.  More on that later...

Worse than a bad hair day

Robby & I had a terrible evening a few weeks ago.  We got food poisoning at the same time... with only one bathroom.  You can imagine.  It was awful.... so awful that i began throwing up blood.  It was really scary so Robby took me to the ER.  It turns out I was throwing up so viciously I tore something in my throat causing it to bleed.  Anyways, we are both fine now.  We don't know exactly what caused it but my gut says baaaaaad guac dip.  I don't want to believe that though because I love guac dip!