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Friday, May 28, 2010

Road Trip!!!

Thank you for your prayers - Eden is feeling so much better so Neil and I get to go on our road trip this weekend! WHOO HOO!!! We have been looking forward to this weekend for about a year now. Crazy huh? We wanted to do something for our 7 year anniversary which is June 21st but Memorial Day weekend was easier to get babysitting =)

Well, a year ago we were planning a trip to London to go visit our sweet friend Kyle and travel a little around country side. Then about 8 months ago we thought we should probably save a little more of our tax return so let's go to New Mexico and do some cool things that we've read about - lunch with the lamas, stay in a tee-pee, visit Acoma Pueblo.

Then God's plan for us to start our adoption came a bit earlier and we needed to save all of our tax return so we are now going on an AWESOME low budget, fun trip to Austin and San Antonio. We realized all we really wanted was to have some time together without the kids (we haven't done this since our 5 year anniversary 2 years ago - it was time!) and to SLEEP IN!! Yeah!! Plus we'll be taking two amazing trips to Ethiopia within the next year and a half.

So here's the plan =) We are leaving late this afternoon to drive to Austin and stay with Mike and Heather. Saturday we're going to try a different Ethiopian restaurant called Karibu (Austin has 3 and we've tried Aster's which is SOO good!) and then find something cool to do before we meet up with my sweet, childhood friend Heather Adams for dinner and stay at her house. Then we're driving to SA really early for our shift at Homes for Haiti (check out my earlier post to see how you can still get involved this weekend!). Then it's off to downtown where we had a free nights stay at Hotel Valencia from our 4 year anniversary. They gave us a free night and we've never used it =) We stayed there the night of our wedding so it's a special place for us! Then Monday we're just going to kick back, relax, grab some lunch and maybe a movie or museum before we pick up the girls again. We are so excited!

A huge thank you to my parents for keeping the girls tonight and Sat. night and Neil's parents for keeping them Sunday night. I'm SUPER nervous about leaving them because Eden has never stayed away without us. (except the trial run last weekend at my parent's house which she did well!) This will be a great mini trip for our parents and the girl's for when we have to take our longer trips to Ethiopia. Wow - I STILL can't believe we're going to be there!

Gotta run and pack! This might be a little cheesy. I know there are a lot of you out there who visit our blog and I'd love to hear from you! (I'm a lurker too!) I have a map tracker and it's so exciting to see what cities around the world keep up with us so........
leave a comment even if you don't personally know me!! What are your best low budget trip tips? We will need be using them this weekend for sure! If you don't have any, just leave a comment and tell where you went on your favorite vacay!

4 comments:

Tara said...

Hope you are enjoying the trip. I think snack shopping before trips--instead of shopping at the gas stations is a money saver. My favorite vacation spot is Maui:)

Sara said...

I love this! We're planning something similar - simple but fun - to celebrate Philip's 30th birthday. I can't think of any helpful tips though. All our trips stay frugal because we are visiting family, on a business trip, or in a tent. :)

Have fun!

Claire & Eden said...

YEAH!! I got two comments =) Thanks Sara and Tara! Here are my tips that we used this weekend. They are mostly on food because that's what we spent money on:

1). Stay with family or friends
2). Restaurant.com is awesome! You can buy coupons for super cheap. We got a $25 coupon for only $2! Look for their 80% off sales =)
3). Use an entertainment book for coupons (a lot of buy one get on free and even some completely free)
4). Also check specific websites for stores or restaurants. A lot of times they post their own coupons.
5). Our hotel was a voucher as well so that was free!
6). Most of all, have fun just being together rather than spending $ doing something - a lot of museums have free days or hours, walk along a park, visit a lake, window shop while you walk a popular spot (we visited South Congress)
7). Most of all HAVE FUN!

Any others are welcome!

Cindy Foote said...

Just saw your blog post and wanted you to know that I'd love to meet sometime soon. My email is: info@billyfoote.com and my cell is: 817.821.4767.
Call/email when you get settled back in.

Blessings,
Cindy Foote
www.thispoeticpresent.blogspot.com