Grocery Savings

A friend of Rob's at work pointed us to a WONDERFUL grocery store that I just LOVE! It is in Provo on University Ave, but is SO worth the 15-20 minute drive. They have produce on sale every wednesday and meat on sale every friday. It is a great store, the manager is awesome and super friendly and has even bagged our groceries a couple of times. Anyways today I went an picked up some fruit I got 30# of fruit (Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Tangerines, Tomatos) for $12.00. I LOVE IT! Oranges were 4 lbs for $1.00, Apples were 4# for $1.00 for Cameos or 3# for $1.00 for Red Delicious. Nectarines were 1# for $1.00. You have to get there early to get some of their deals they have. We normally got at 7am (when they open) on Wednesdays and hit their clearance meats, we save a TON that way.

It is Buy Low Market: http://www.buylowmarket-utah.com/ Seriously may be worth the drive if you live in Utah for the savings LOL! The manager said they are trying to find more places to open. We keep telling him to open in the place where Smith's was that closed in American Fork but he said they have some sort of No Compete Clause or something so a grocery store can't open in that location (dumb if you ask me) they are out of business.

I do know there are more locations in California.

Our little Chihuahua

As many of you know, Zoey our little Chihuahua has mild hydrocephalus which makes her a little bit more difficult to train such as potty training etc. Well when she was a puppy Rob and I clicker trained her, and have worked with her off and on, Sit was never a command that she mastered. Today Rob was working with both Shellie and Zoey on some commands. She gets so excited when she does something right, she does a little 'wiggly' dance. She's such a sweetheart! She is wearing both a sweater and a coat because she's been colder lately, her CDA (Color Dilution Alopecia) seems to be active right now she's got spots along her spine where her blue hair is really really thinning out and not coming back in. Part of me thinks it's because she wears a sweater most of the time to keep her warm and it may be rubbing it off? Don't know what to do to 'stop' it. We did bloodwork on her Friday as she's been eating voraciously, losing weight, peeing/drinking a TON, but otherwise happy and active as ever. Everything was pretty much normal so we pretty much attribute it to the steroids and drugs she is on for her hydrocephalus/copd...which sucks, but we can't cut her back, she's on 1.25mg of Vetalog every other day right now, if we back off she starts showing more symptoms. I was worried she might have had cushings as long-term steroids can cause cushings and she's been on steroids since she was a year and a half old when we discovered the hydrocephalus. Cushings can also cause hair loss along the spine, so I was worried about it, but her bloodwork all checked out. You can see she's not looking as 'red' on her legs anymore with the homecooked/limited diet. Which makes me happy, she's not near as itchy as she was either. Anyways here are some of the tricks that Zoey showed off today:
1: Bow
2: Down
3: Sit
4: Stand (this one was the hardest for her, after a few times of mommy helping her she finally caught on and was 'offering' it herself.

Rob's New Invention

Last week Rob decided he wanted Roasted marshmallows so he used out toaster to make them. Well last night I was cleaning and pulled out our old toaster and asked Rob if he wanted me to throw it away, his eyes lit up and said hey.....so last night he modified it and made a desktop 'roaster' out of it! It was broken, it's an electronic one and the circuitry that told the toaster the toast was done and to pop up was broken so it would burn the toast (to the point it caught on fire), so we bought us a new one. Anyways, he even made it 'Heather' proof so to speak, bending a 'rack' to protect from the inner heating elements. He is so smart, I married a Genius! It roasts them really well and even roasts hot dogs!

We got a new car today

As for us...well the past few days have been an adventure, having car issues. Started out with the oil light flickering on, so Rob ended up putting like 4 quarts of oil in it, and the dipstick was sludgey and just plain yucky....k we haven't been the best at changing the oil in it like we are supposed too....EXPENSIVE lesson learned (and getting lots of grief from Rob's brother about it). So the past few days there has been a clicking noise, had the oil changed yesterday and it made it worse...it sounds like a helicopter, or as I describe it a harley davidson. Rob had to baby it home from work yesterday going 35 on the freeway with flashers on, it was so loud when he got home it woke me up from a sound sleep....FYI, I sleep through nuclear bombs, I am such a sound sleeper. So hmmm...how am I going to get to work, who's going to cover if I can't get in...blah blah blah....the original plan last night was to take my car to Rob's brother in the morning and have him take me to work and look at it (he's a mechanic) but we decided we better not drive it but have it towed there eventually. Montess the receptionist at work was gracious enough to cover me at work today. Rob has a car, but it hasn't been driven in months, needs a new radiator, headlight, tune up, struts etc but it's really old like a 91 Taurus, so we figured we would try to get a loan for a new car. There is a place that is literally basically across the freeway from us that advertised 100% approvals on a lease to own basis, so my mom drove 30 minutes to take us there lol. We told them what we could afford and they gave us a few options on what car we could have. It was between a Ford Focus, Honda Accord, or PT Cruiser.....well the 2002 PT Cruiser won (it has less miles than my 2004 Chevy Malibu), but it smelled like antifreeze so they had one of their mechanics look at it, and it needs a new heating core, they knew we were desperate for a car so they offered us a loaner car (chevy cavalier) until they get the pt cruiser fixed hopefully monday or tuesday. Well Rob 'fits' better in my car (Chevy Malibu) as far as head room goes for comfortable driving, and I was wanting a 'mormon' mom van but not a van if that makes sense....a bigger car for lugging my dogs around lol....so Rob is going to take my Malibu (once it gets fixed) and I am going to have the PT Cruiser. Merry Christmas to us lol. It's basically all our christmas money for the down payment/1st month payment but you have to do what you have to do...we say we are going to keep our Christmas tree up till the end of January and have our 'christmas' with Rob's 2nd paycheck in January. We will have small things on Christmas day and I have 3 Secret Santas from 2 chihuahua groups and a golden retriever group so we will have that....oh the trials and tribulations of life....lessons learned.....have oil changed every 3000 miles, start christmas shopping sooner.... A VERY VERY big thank-you to my mom for coming to get us, an spending over an hour waiting for us at the dealer to make sure everything worked out well.

Re: Family Recipes & More Website

I guess it would help if I posted the link to the Family site wouldn't it? He He...sorry about that

http://family.rnht.net

Briggs & Sims Family Website

This is for the "Ronald & Gilda Sims & David & LaVerne Briggs Families, so if you are one of our friends...ignore :)

Dear Family;

We have been busily working on a family website for both the Briggs (David & LaVerne) and Sims (Ronald & Gilda). We have finally got it up and running. This website currently has a recipe database that has the "Sims Family Cookbook" that Jennifer Sims put together many years ago (the one you have in a 3 ring binder) that you can search as well as a couple of other recipe databases that have TON of recipes in them. On the recipe site if you select "Ingredient Contains" you can enter multiple ingredients separated by a comma. So if you are in the mood for something with cheddar and broccoli just enter "broccoli,cheddar cheese" in the search field and you will get the recipes containing those ingredients from the cookbook selected. Then there is the Blogs Section this is a current listing of all the blogs that I (Heather Sims Thompson) currently have listed for the families, just select the person who's blog you would like to see. If the name is not listed that means I have no blogs for that family. If you have a blog and would like it to included, please send me the link :)

Forums:
This is a COMPLETELY PRIVATE forum, you have to register with a password to view anything on it, and we will moderate the users, so the content and information stays within the family. To register on the upper right hand side where it says login, then under the username click on register. Then fill in the spots that it asks. This is an interactive place where we can 'chit chat' share ideas, recipes, events, family news, prayer requests and anything else you would like to share. There will be a place for an 'address' book so we will have everyones addresses, birthdays and contact information in one centralized location.
For now when you are in the forums if you click on "User control panel" and then "Profile" you can enter your websites, IM adresses, Birthday, etc.

There is a recipes section on the forum for recipes you would like to add, right now you cannot add them directly but put your recipe in a post on the forums and I will get them entered.

We are going to work on a genealogy page with genealogies of our families as well.

Please let us know of any other ideas you may have to make things better. We would love to have everyone join us on the forums, and would appreciate everyones input on the website.

Thank-you so much

Heather & Robert Thompson

RIP Sweet Viggo

I am posting this as there are several who read this blog who have worked at Camelot Pet Resort, and probably knew him:
Yesterday my sisters dog, Viggo, a miniature schnauzer passed away suddenly. My dad let the dogs outside before he went to an orientation at school (he teaches vet tech students), and my mom went to let the dogs in about 20 minutes later and all the dogs but Viggo came inside, my sister was talking about taking Viggo to work with her for her trainee to learn how to groom schnauzers so my mom thought that is where he was so didn't think anything of it, so when my dad got home they called my sister and she had not taken him, so they went to go find him, and found him dead outside. He had an autopsy performed today, and his heart basically ruptured, it had a hole in it. He wasn't showing any signs of having any problems, was always a very active sweet boy, he was our Little Doggie Daycare Mascot at work, so I got to seem him 4-5 days a week, as he came to work with my dad, as well as I lived with my sister for the 1st year of Viggo's life. So please keep her in your thoughts. He was only 5 & 1/2 years old.