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Surprise Daddy!!

See below to find out the deets of this video.

B left to go sell in SoCal again {5th year of summer sales - it's gettin old} and me and the kids stayed in Utah to finish up a few things and we were set to join him in Cali a month after he left.  We decided to surprise him and take the trip a week before he expected us to.  We missed him so much and he had NO clue what was about to happen.

How the surprise went down:

He thought we were coming the NEXT Sunday.

I told him I had to make a video for work {which occasionally I do - so this was normal}.

I told him I really procrastinated the video and he needed to set an alarm to watch it and critique it once I was finished and it had completely finished downloading{we were set to show up at like 3 a.m. - no way was I going to be stuck outside with him asleep after a 12 hour drive!!!}

So I sent him the video, he set his alarm, he woke up to us waiting outside his door.

We missed you B!!!

20 year old with a new car

Okay so I don't like to blog too much about my job and where I work. Not because I don't LOVE it because I actually do. It is the perfect job for my family and anyone who wants to put their priorities in order of God first, Family second and Career third. But because this is more of a personal family-life blog. BUT - I couldn't help but pay respect to my fabulous job that I came across accidentally.

and yes it was by COMPLETE UTTER accident.

Here is how my journey began... please please please PLEASE take a second to read this. If you have ever wanted more out of life.... more meaning: more time with your family, more freedom and flexibility for vacations, more from a job, more time with friends... really more anything - then please just take a second to read my story. This may or may not be for you and that is totally fine. BUT i love sharing because this is the greatest thing that ever happened to me besides my family.

I was a young high school graduate - 18 years old just after graduating. You guys know how those girls are. They think they know everything.... right? :) well that was me. I thought I had life figured out. I had an awesome boyfriend and great friends and was going to go nanny and then go to school and then marry a doctor... yada yada yada. I had lots of cinderella dreams..

Then reality sets in. you actually start paying for your own things. Then the "I'll nevers" set in. "I'll never have enough money to do this.. I'll never finish school. I'll never be able to go there. And your cinderella dreams fade away.... How sad is this but oh how true.

Long story short I found myself married and expecting a baby with a whole lot of "I'll NEVERS"

Then my cute mother-in-law signed me up for Mary Kay... WHAT?!?! ABSOLUTELY NOT!! I WILL NEVER DO THAT.. Sure I will take that discount though!
I was taking 18 credits for an elementary education degree had a year and a half year old daughter and worked about 20 hours for an eye doctor. Life was hectic and crazy and I never saw my husband and I had to have someone else watch Tylee... I was her mom.. I was supposed to raise her. Not her grandma, not her aunts, and not some babysitter.

My husband was working full time and school full time. He would go to school at 7:30 am and get done at 3:00 pm. then have to be to work by 3:30 pm till midnight. Yeah we saw him for about 15 min a day... crazy.

I was desperate for a change.

Here is when the accident happened. We did not have a washer and dryer so I was at the inlaws (they've got three sets) and I was busy folding clothes up on a balcony that overlooks there living room. Julie was holding her weekly night unit meeting and I heard all of the consultants talking about the prizes they were earning and how much they had made during the week and I was in awe to what they were experiencing in their job life... so i broke down and decided to give mary kay a shot. and yes I had been surrounded by consultants all growing up.

My first week of actually working mary kay I made almost as much as my husband did but I was only working like 6 hours and he worked 40.. talk about an awesome week.

Well my life and job took off from there. I earned my car 2 months later and became a sales director the month after that. And yes I was only 20.

I had no idea what I was doing. My first facial I forgot to wash off their cleansers. and from there it just got better. All I did was share the products I loved and shared my new job with those who were looking for something similar. IT IS AWESOME and it is not a job. I love it.

I now get to stay home with my daughter. I get to spend time with my family. I get to choose my own schedule, I drive a free car. I can write off almost any trip I go on. IT is the best job for a housewife. I love it.

Now there are different reasons why people do it.

Money - there is an endless amount available to earn
Recognition - there are so many prizes. I have earned dishes, luggage, purses, tv, stuff for my daughter, jewelry, etc
Self Improvement - Its the best self improvement course you can take. I actually feel comfortable in front of groups now
Girlfriends - meet so so many new friends that I love
Cars- they pay for 85% of the insurance, registration, and get a new one every 2 years (never buy tires)
Advance at your own pace - THERE ARE NO SALES QUOTAS OR OBLIGATIONS
BE YOUR OWN BOSS - you choose your work schedule. I usually do "nap time" facials.

** Anyway this is a little bit about my journey and I still love everything about it. I would love to share more with anyone who is remotely interested in this. (I get credit just for you listening and you get entered in to win $100 worth of free product. It is a win-win) PLEASE contact me if you are interested. You can reach me at 435-764-7524 or you can email with questions at camillebales09@gmail.com ** It may or may not be for you and that is ok. But you never know until you ask or try so please call or text or email. My name is camille and I can promise you it can change your life if you let it.

Park Date

Okay here's to another cheap date night!

Once again we didn't have a babysitter (We could probably find one. But like I said in earlier posts, summer is about us making/saving money so date nights are catered to that.)

This week the sales team is in a great area. They have been selling really good numbers and getting good results, BUT the one problem is that it is about 1 hr and 20 min away from home. This means really late nights with them rolling in about 11:00-11:30 at night. Now I don't know about you but this is a really late time to start a date night so we decided to improvise to a Sunday Date.

We always get ourselves up and go to church at 9:00 am. We love our new ward. It is so much fun and everyone is so nice there. Tylee loves her nursery teachers and friends and we always have very interesting lessons in Sunday school. It is quite a bit different than in Utah so we get to do a lot of people watching.

Anyway back to the date. After church we come home and it is nap/quiet time. We always relax with books, a movie, or something quiet. Then after some much needed relaxation time we spend time together doing something fun.

This week we chose a park date. We grabbed some $0.99 tacos from taco bell and cherry 7-up from the grocery store (oh and by the way $0.77 to fill our cups many times.) *** DISCLAIMER: We really try hard not to shop on Sundays or eat fast food other than going out to dinner Saturday nights but seeing as I have the rest of the summer planned out for meals and plan to do minimal grocery shopping we were a little strapped on what there was to eat. So we decided to splurge and break a couple rules :)

We headed over to the local park. We ate some yummy food and we played some fun games of tag, taking turns swinging and being little kids again. Not only did Tylee love it, but it was so much fun for me and Brandon to act like little kids again, running around chasing each other and climbing up slides and going on the monkey bars. I forgot how much fun playgrounds are.

Date nights are so important and you don't even have to spend money. You just have to get out and do. Keep that love spark alive.

Snuggle Fest

Moving every summer is a lot of fun. We get to meet new people. Explore new areas. And most of all we get to rely on each other. This is probably my favorite part. I love living near family and being able to borrow things as needed, always have a babysitter on hand, and just being able to see family anytime we want. Moving away has its downfalls, all of that goes away. BUT, my husband and I have to rely on each other for everything. This is a great marriage strengthener. I know that our marriage has been greatly strengthened by these summer excursions.

And something else that I have loved is being able to get creative for date night. Obviously we don't have babysitters at the drop of a hat, and by the time we meet people and trust them enough to let them take care of our little one, its time to go home so we get creative. Date night is extremely important. So we try to find something every week to be able to do to give us some alone time as a couple.

This is our latest date night! Not much but it was so relaxing and it was a blast. 

While Brandon was slaving away in the hot sun, I got the surprise ready. I pulled out an extra twin mattress and all of the couch cushions. I got pillows and blankets. We don't have much here on our summer trips (We can only take what will fit in our cars, this includes everything you need to live so we are limited on supplies). So I pulled out some of the boxes we used to pack and stacked them up for a makeshift tv stand. 

I put all this out on our balcony that overlooks a pond area.

I snagged us a Redbox (The Host), and our favorite Ice Cream. I drug it all outside and set up the theater. 

I hung up a blanket to help keep the nasty Minnesota mosquitos at bay. And as you can see our t.v. this summer consists of our famous MAC computer that we love. 

When Brandon got home from work he hurried and showered and he took us girls out to dinner at a yummy mexican diner. When we got home I hurried and got Tylee ready and in bed. Now was the time to show him our little surprise. 

We dished some ice cream and went out on our balcony for a night under the stars. IT WAS so relaxing and such a blast and the best part about the night was HE LOVED IT!!!!! SUCCESS.

It was so relaxing and comfortable that we both fell asleep. It was awesome!! Such an easy and fun date night. 

Saving Money with Packed Lunches: CHIPS

Okay so those of you who read the blog know that my husband does summer sales. What you probably haven't even considered though is lunches. He is gone every. single. day. all. day. long. (except Sundays) What this means is he is out working during lunch time. Well most guys, especially single guys in his past offices got takeout for lunch almost daily. Okay so yeah you make a lot of money with sales $5 a day, no big deal right?! WRONG! It adds up and it adds up fast. $5 fast food is a cheap fast food lunch. If you get fries and a drink or shake or extra add ons, it costs even more. Lets do a little bit of math. There is close to 100 knocking days for a door-to-door salesman. Some stay longer, some stay less. Lets just base it off 100. If a sales rep only spends $5 on a lunch that is $500 just on lunches!!! Most people spend more than that. If they are spending that kind of money you just go ahead and take off a weeks worth of work or so to pay for your lunches. This doesn't include dinner, snacks, drinks, breakfast, or any other living expenses.

So with this factor in mind, I pack his lunches. And I also decided with all the free time on my hands while he is gone, that I will share some of my secret tips to packing a lunch and saving money with packing lunches to make them even cheaper.

Todays post is about chips. I know this is probably silly but I also know that people out there a spending way more than they should on chips. I was one of those poor souls trapped in that. Until I figured out the new DIY world that I have been loving.

Now you have all seen those big boxes that you can get at WALMART or TARGET or SAMS CLUB of variety chips in one person portion sized bags. Yes they are convenient. Yes they have a good variety. And they are really easy to just pop in a lunch sack and send them on their way. But our summers are all about making/saving money so that the hubs doesn't have to work during school. (This year he will because we have a LOT more school coming up that is EX PEN SIVE). So I am all about saving the dough. Okay so these prepackaged boxes of chips range in price but are usually about $6.00 for a bag of 20 individual packs. So that is about $0.30 for a bag. Not bad really but you are going to LOVE this.

So our local grocery store here in Minnesota is Cub Foods. So naturally this is where we end up shopping. Well they had some of their chips 3 bags for $6 so that is $2 for a big bag of chips. And they just happend to be some of our favorite chips. Kettle Cooked Lays and Cheetos. So I decided to 'prepackage my own chips.' It only took me about 10 minutes to do this so for those of you that don't have much time on your hands you can still do this.

I got a bunch of ziplock baggies and went to work. First I tried to decide on a good size portion of chips. Seeing as he doesn't just eat chips for lunch, I used a good size handful for my measurement.

I added this to a ziplock baggie. Be sure to squish out all the air. You will see why at the end of the post. Also I am sure that this will keep them fresh longer so just do it. 

Continue to bag all of your individual size baggies. 

All right now that you have all your individual baggies, now is time to store them. Where are you going to keep all these little bags? Well first your going to wipe out that convenient bag that you got your chips in with a paper towel. 

Then because you squished out all the extra air in the baggies in the previous steps you can now conveniently fit all of the individual baggies in this bag. 

I folded the top ridge of the bag inside. See above picture.

Then you can even add a clothespin, paperclip or chip bag pincher (ha ha don't know the name but you get the idea) to the top to keep it closed. How convenient. Now you don't have to label the individual flavors of chips. Plus it will keep your chips fresher longer in case someone doesn't shut the bag completely. 

Check out my bags of chips filled with my own 'prepackaged' chips. 

Okay so back to this math of mine. Was it worth it?!

I got 11 baggies out of each big bag of chips. 

I got 33 individual bags of chips from my 3 big bags of chips. So that makes each individual baggie just $0.18. Now those of you might not think that is a big savings, but over the course of the summer if the hubbie took chips every single day for the 100 days of summer he would spend $18.00 on chips verses $30.00 buying the prepackaged ones. This saves $12.00 just over the summer on CHIPS. Who the heck wants to spend a lot of money on chips? You eat em then they are gone. So it might not seem like much but add it with all of my other summer lunch saving ideas and you will have yourself a yummy inexpensive home lunch!! 

Home of the Free. Land of the Brave.

I LOVE the 4th of July. It is such an amazing holiday. I love that we celebrate those who have and are fighting for our country. We truly have a great free country and I am in love with it. For the fourth, the sales crew decided to take the day off to spend with their families. The day was full of sunshine, friends, good food, and great families. Here is a few pictures of the day!!