L.O.V.E

First off, not only did my dream come true, I received more than I could have ever dreamed of...I have 29 followers! I got 9 followers on Friday and 3 stragglers over the weekend- thank you Friday Follow and those that chose to follow me. Whether it was out of pity, or not, is of no meaning. I will remain naive in denial and believe it was out of love for me and my blog...we have become one.

We have had a great, relaxing, love-filled weekend. I don't even think we argued once. I guess all the more reason to make everyday Valentine's, right? That would be pretty amazing. Mr. B's parents were supposed to be visiting this weekend, but there flights were cancelled due to all the snow storms. Huge bummer. No free dinners. No expensive restaurants. No steak. No Busch Gardens. No deep cleaning the apartment. Yes to cooking this weekend. And of course, most importantly, no quality time with his parents. We haven't seen them since Thanksgiving and we were looking forward to having them here and for them to see our first place. The good thing is they have rescheduled their visit and will be here in March! Hopefully by then the weather will have warmed up! Yes, we are unofficially officially Floridians and 65 degrees is not warm.

Yesterday Mr. B sent me to the salon to fix my hair!! When you are a poor newlywed couple a trip to the salon becomes a gift and is no longer a mandatory occurrence. I think this was both a gift to himself and to me. I may have gotten the impression he was tired of hearing me complain 1,897,765 times a day about how much I hate my hair and how ugly and pale I look. Every woman knows a haircut and color can make all the difference in the world...clearly both good and bad. So praise the Lord the dark hair is gone! I had some highlights put in. It's not as light I would like it to be, but again newlywed + no money = no appointments to fix dark roots. So the blondes are on hold for the meantime.

Later that afternoon we saw Valentine's Day. We had some good laughs, but morally it was pretty depressing. George Lopez's relationship was basically the only honorable one. A key theme I did like was the importance of being married to your best friend. I couldn't agree more and I can't picture spending my days any other way. I am so thankful to wake up with my best friend by my side every day, knowing we are going through this journey together. Anyways we gave the movie a C.

Today we had church, went to Smokey Bones and then grocery shopping. I had a coupon for SB $10 off $20 so it only costs $12. Score. We split an extremely healthy meal consisting of Chili Nachos and Fire Stix (Cheese fries, with bacon, chipotle mayo, BBQ sauce and ranch dressing) aka clogged arteries for $12...not bad at all. Need I remind you, you are reading Ms. Bargain's blog.

Also, apparently Valentine's is the perfect day to go food shopping. The stores were dead. Walmart. Weekend. NO LINE. Could this day get any better?

Oh yeah, maybe if Mr. B smiled while taking a few hundred pictures...

Happy Valentine's Day!

<3 Smelly Love

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them altogether in unity.

Colossians 3:14

Weekend Getaway

Mr. B's birthday weekend getaway.

We began the weekend with lunch at Mr. B's favorite place: Quiznos.

We drove down to Clearwater Beach and stayed at this lovely little hotel

(priceline is a great way to get good hotels at a cheap rate!)

It took me a while to get over the fact that this hotel is the kind with doors on the outside, rather than a hotel building with a hallway.

For some reason I feel safer in those ones.

Blame it on the TV and the movies, but it seems like bad things happen in these kind of hotels. Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me. Mr. B threatened to take away my shows if this was how I was going to act and I needed to stop complaining and enjoy the weekend. After all..this was his weekend. It's difficult sometimes to be on the giving end. Of course, I knew no matter what, I was safe because my sleep through everything, snoring, unaware of his surroundings when sleeping macho protector of a husband would fight off any danger after I try my hardest at waking him.

The highlight of our trip, the number one reason we stayed in a hotel:

The blackout curtains that make it legit and easy to sleep until 10.

Surely, if there is no light coming into the room you must keep sleeping. It's a rule.

Ready for dinner at Carrabba's

My all-time fav and the only thing I ever get: The Pollo Rosa Maria- delish!

Mr. B tried something new- Margarita Pizza = fail. It's a let down when

your birthday dinner is not up to par with the Pollo Rosa Maria,

hence why it's so crucial not to order anything else.

What's left to do when your dinner isn't up to par and it's your birthday?? See if YOU are up to par! Hmm...I was trying to think of a good segway here..talk about failure.

For once in our lives we were spontaneous--we decided to play some mini-golf instead of going to the movies. Although I had an outstanding come back, Mr. B did beat me. Clearly, this was on purpose... seeing as he was the birthday boy and all.

What better way to play golf than in 3 inch boots, right?

The best way to finish off any night.

We were excited because the hotel had a lot of new movies to rent. We selected Couples Retreat....$15.99 + tax!!!!! umm..nevermind. Are you kidding me?!?!? We could GO to the movies for that much! It was $5.99 + tax for an episode of The Office that you can get for FREE online. Needless to say, we did not watch a movie, instead we spent an hour (maybe two) flipping through channels-- which really was a luxury. It's not as entertaining at home with our basic cable.

Spontaneity #2: Waking up at 4:35 AM for the shuttle launch.

Do you see it?

Neither could we...turns out it was delayed until Monday night because it was too cloudy. A little warning or automatic shut off of the alarm would have been appreciated; talk about rude! Although, as mentioned in my previous post, I might have already been up at that time sleep walking searching for batteries. As I stated earlier, those hotel curtains work really well and I was getting very irritated that I could not a. find the light and b. find my batteries...no, there were no batteries in our room, but ever try to convince a person sleep walking that they are wrong? Not a good idea...we will only get more annoyed that you don't know what you are talking about.

Mr. B's actual birthday day was spent sleeping in, getting Firehouse subs and heading home. (Mr. B really likes subs can you tell??) Who picks a sub shop for their birthday meal?? I was ready for some steak, but once again, not my birthday so I have no say...

After lunch, we went to the movies and saw Edge of Darkness. The action packed, kill everyone, blood everywhere kind of flick is not exactly my type of movie, but we are seeing Valentine's Day on Friday so it cancels out.

I made him some extra moist cupcakes and sang "Happy Birthday"

And made some queso as we watched the SuperBowl and fell asleep at 10.

Perfect weekend.

Thankful for this day...

The day

this blue eyed,

blonde haired,

Bills bred,

little boy entered the world.

My best friend,

my support,

my life partner,

my better half.

I am a huge fan of cards. Whether they are already written or I write them myself- it's the perfect way to share true feelings, love and appreciation that is often overlooked or not said enough. It usually takes me at least 45 minutes to find the perfect card, but this time it was the very first card I picked up. It was as if Carlton Cards went inside my head, stole exactly how I feel, and put it on paper better than I ever could have done. I just had to share it because it is that perfect, maybe even worth a duplicate for another year (my mom did that to me, same birthday card, same words underlined, same side comments added, totally different year...at least her feelings remained the same for me).

When you reach for my hand

when we walk through the store

when you call me from work

when you open my door

When you get me a blanket

when you cover my feet

when you pick up to-go

when you put down the seat

When you watch a chick flick

when you share the remote

when you kiss me goodbye

when you leave a love note.

When you clean up a mess

when you fix the PC Mac

when you turn down the volume

when your team's on tv

When you don't get upset

when you patiently wait

when you're ready on time

when you hate to be late

When you tell me I'm sorry

when you care how I feel

when you listen to me

when you just keep it real

When you open your heart

when you share something new

when you're easy to love

when you're just being you...

I love you.

Happy Birthday, Babe!

Our First Place

Special shout out to: Craigslist, Kirklands & Ikea--thank you for allowing us to make our apartment feel homey on a budget! And an extra thanks to everyone who blessed us with wedding money so we were able to purchase that homey decor!

Welcome to our home!

Floor # 3. Yes, it is a workout and I am out of breath everyday.

Yes, I might be out of shape, thank you.

Mr. B's dad made us this beautiful table.

I know it comes as no surprise that I make a 5 course homemade meal

and we eat on this table every night.

Ok, ok the truth is...we eat on that table about once every 2 weeks, the breakfast bar about 2 times a week and on the couch watching TV the majority of the time. In our defense, we don't have a DVR (extremely tough life, we are well aware) so we obviously can't miss our shows. This could just be an excuse because we don't typically eat past 8, but it sounds better than we are lazy and like to watch reruns of The Office and Friends, and the occasional (if I'm lucky) TMZ/Extra.

Our craigslist deal of the century couch. We purchased a couch on craigslist before this one. A scratched, faded leather, 3 piece set, sold it for double what we paid for it, bought this perfect condition, basically new, hardly used couch with the profit we made and ended up spending a total of $25 out of our pocket. This included matching pillows and rug! I wasn't kidding when I said my middle name is bargain. We are very thankful that the couch is divided into individual pieces, we have two more pieces of the couch in the storage closet. It was taking up too much space, but now it's perfect.

No need to panic, we have since hidden those cords from showing underneath

and purchased 2 more baskets to our unique TV Stand from Ikea that we are in love with.

Mr. B's $130 juicer that he had to register for...that he has used maybe 10 times.

Definitely a good choice to get that instead money towards a new camera.

Beautiful sunset from our kitchen

Sage green= my favorite color

Perfect little TV stand for our room

SO thankful that our apartment came with a washer and dryer!!

Bathroom connecting hallway and our room. All of those towels are now designed with wonderful orange streaks, apparently thanks to the bleach in my hair.

*Christmas Time*

We didn't go too crazy because we spent 2 weeks in NH for Christmas. It's also not the easiest to get into the Christmas spirit when it is 90 degrees out and the AC is on, but we did what we could.

Our first Christmas tree....we can only go uphill from here in the years to come.

We had a fun little Christmas night making gingerbread houses and playing "The Newlywed Game"(funny game!) with our friends before heading home for the holidays!

Pictures can be deceiving...Honeymoon Pt 3

July +

The Majestic Resort +

The Dominican Republic =

NEVER. AGAIN.

After our smokey, emergency landing, I am never sitting in an exit row again incident, getting off the plane and walking to the airport (a beautiful huge hut), getting our picture taken with native beach girls (like getting a lei and an aloha in Hawaii, but minus the lei and aloha), paying $20 a mandatory do not pass go until you pay situation (never given the picture and still don't even know what we paid for), the life-threatening taxi ride-- the kind with no speed limits, no pavement, no street lights, sharp turns and a driver that doesn't speak english-- we finally made it to our destination. As I mentioned before, I might be a pessimist and I might watch too much TV, so I can't help but wonder... how do we even know this driver is taking us to the right place and not going to steal us and kill us?? Fear not, in this case, he was the right driver and he did get us to our hotel. Although it was very possible he could've unintentionally killed us. I won't say it was the safest, most comfortable drive I have ever been on, I think I was white knuckled and holding my breath the whole time, but he did get us from point A to point B and that's all that really matters. FYI: A taxi ride needed in order to get to my destination creating panic as to whether or not I will even make it to my vacation... is not worth it for me, especially this vacation.

This all-inclusive resort had a lot of potential. Key word: Potential.

A "butler" aka a guy that shows you your room on the first night and is never to be seen again

.

The ability to choose the type of pillow and aroma of your room (Does this really matter? No. But when given the opportunity and excitement of a tempur-pedic pillow and vanilla lavender aroma and it never happens, is indeed a let down.)

An option to pick a day and time to have your bubble bath with roses ready when you return to your room. Apparently Tuesday night at 9 PM means never.

We are thankful for the pictures that give us the illusion that this was in fact the honeymoon of our dreams. Maybe one day we will forget how it really was.

It was SO. incredibly. hot. Felt like you were walking behind 193,785,785 car exhausts. A giant bubble of heat that literally takes your breath away. Sweating as soon as you step outside your door. No use in straightening your hair, the second you go outside curls and waves you didn't even know you had appear out of nowhere.

We discovered that a cheap all-inclusive resort does not use their money on good and/or American food. Typically, when in doubt, you can rely on room service as your last resort for a relatively decent meal. Not at The Majestic, unless you are craving an uncooked burger--which we still don't think was hamburg, but I'd rather not think about that.

Dinner # 1. FAIL.

Dinner # 2. FAIL.

Dinner # 3. $7 bag of Cheetos...success?

The cabanas were wonderful for approximately two whole seconds. Perfectly placed next to the pool to cool down...oh wait the pool felt like a bath. Never mind.

We thought maybe it would be cooler down by the beach. Finding a nice spot under the palm trees, Mr. B went and got us some drinks while I relaxed and people watched (one of my favorite things to do). It didn't take long for me to realize how perfect- we are on a topless beach! For some reason, other women's ta-tas splashing around in the waves and soaking in the sun while taking a stroll on the beach wasn't exactly what I had dreamed for our honeymoon. So I packed up our stuff and headed back to the bathwater pool. We ended up spending a lot of time in our room with the AC blasting (until it broke and we thought we might die) because it was so unbearable to be outside in the heat.

We made the decision that a float was needed in order to make our stay a little more enjoyable. Apparently it was a great idea because turns out every shop was sold out of floats. Why? Because it seemed to be the only source of survival.

That night we were walking back to our room from dinner and there, right before our very eyes, was a float with no owner! There was not a single soul in sight so we were certain God placed it perfectly in our path. We couldn't believe it. We may not have been 100 percent certain it was from God or we probably wouldn't have been so stealth: taking a different route back to our room, doing the fast walk, but trying to look as casual as possible while wearing dress clothes and carrying a huge pink float.

I was so excited, hence the over cheesing face. Not gonna lie, I was also a bit thrilled that the float was pink therefore a limited amount of sharing with Mr. B was necessary. If that's not God taking care of his daughter, I don't know what is.

The rush of stealing God sending us the float remained for the rest of our stay (two extremely long days). Somehow someone was going to know this was their float that they lost. Out of fear it became our new best friend. Our shadow. Never left our side.

We thought about doing an excursion, something to mix up our day. This little ride looked like fun. Turns out it's a 5 minute ride for about $50. Let me remind you that $50 in newlywed money is about $5,000. $5,000 for a shark to think I am bait for 5 minutes. All set, thank you.

A picture lasted longer and it was free. Yes, my middle name is bargain.

The question of the day was why pay for that when there is a free water aerobics class going on at our pool??Pretty much a no brainer and yes I convinced Mr. B to do it with me. Sorry, no pictures.

Notice the shiny faces in every picture. The heat and humidity was no joke here in the Dominican. This was our last night here, those are smiles of relief. I understand it is hard to believe there was so much dissatisfaction when there are palm trees, sun and pina coladas everyday, but you will just have to trust me.

Our last dinner was actually our first decent meal, we ate at a Japanese Steakhouse. On our walk back to our room we passed another couple. The woman and I were wearing the exact same dress. We noticed. We looked away. We kept walking. Her husband stopped walking and decides to blurt out "Hey you two are wearing the same dress!" We act like we had no idea, we exchanged some comments about the dress, it was extremely awkward and the walk continued. Note to guys: There is a sense of awkwardness and embarrassment to be wearing the same exact thing as another woman.

Everyone is probably thinking we are the snobbiest couple in the world. Maybe we just aren't experienced enough in cross-cultural lifestyles and food. Although, we have been to Mexico, Romania and the Ukraine for missions and survived, but maybe that's because we were supposed to be roughing it out so it's a totally different mindset. Who knows... but I'll make it known, I am very simple when it comes to food-- give me chicken fingers and fries and I would have been content in the food department (which would then effect (affect? I will never understand the difference) my self-esteem because fried food everyday + bikini...not the best mix). Having been to some resorts in other countries we expected them to be more Americanized with the all the signs, menus and food, but expectations certainly got the better of us.

Unfortunately, food and weather from hell wasn't our only problem. As you saw in the picture at the beginning of this post...we were Honeymooners. Apparently this sign should have been in Spanish as well since we had Mr. Bug Guy & Ms. Cleaning Lady walked into our rooms 4 times!!! Yeah...4 times!! Yeah...on our honeymoon!! We may or may not have been honeymooning (once again- you're welcome for the visuals). Now Mr. Bug Guy came at about 10 PM, he knocked on our door. door was locked. we were busy. we ignored it. He walked in. "Spray foh bugs??" umm...how about "Pay foh privacy?!?" Horrifying. So good to know that a. employees have access to get into rooms even if they are locked and b. there is a need for them to spray for bugs every night. Comforting . Eventually we learned to get to the door in time, if possible, or to quickly hide under the covers and pretend to sleep.

By day 4 we were beyond hungry and having horrible stomach aches/digestion/bathroom problems from whatever food we did consume while at the resort. We were ready to go home. We honestly did not think we would make it 4 more days. With only 1 day to be with family before our move to FL, we realized the time we were having was not worth missing extra time with our family. We were able to change our flights for a ridiculous fee of $150 per ticket, bought them at 12 am on Wednesday and left about 6 hours later that morning. Yes we paid $300 to leave our honeymoon, yes we used some of our wedding money, yes in newlywed money that is about $30,000 give or take--it was that bad. Even better we paid that much money for a tiny, little propeller plane, in the last row (row 12), right next to the well-ventilated bathrooms. But none-the-less we were ecstatic to be leaving the Dominican Republic.

Ahhh...finally real American food-Chinese!

We definitely had an unforgettable honeymoon, and we will just have to have a second honeymoon one day to make up for this one- fine with me!

I will never live down that I wanted Caribbean and palm trees over an Alaskan Cruise like Mr. B.

Shortly after arriving home we were visiting with some friends. We told them about our trip and our current digestion problems. They informed us of some people whose stomach took six months to recover. July + The Majestic + The Dominican= Never. Again.