Justin and I spent the majority of Saturday with his father followed by some time with cute little Charlie, his buddy Teddy, and Charlie's older brother Ben.
On Sunday, Justin and I went to visit with my family after attempting to make some Julia Child something or other (dessert) that didn't turn out. I'm guessing it might have helped if we actually looked at and/or followed the recipe. Seeing a picture of a recipe in a book probably doesn't produce the best results. (Or at least that is the excuse I'm sticking with!)
Over the weekend, Justin and I got to enjoy the fruits of our budgeting. We were able to pay for the entire meal when we went out with Justin's family still managing to fit it under the umbrella of our food budget. We were also able to bring food to my family's get together despite not being asked to. And guess what? We still have money left over in our food budget and a FULL fridge. Do you know what I mean when I say FULL? ... I mean to the brim. We couldn't fit anything else in there if we tried! We have at least 4 different types of meals frozen, some fresh vegetables, and some meal "parts" that we can combine to make different, fresh meals. Plus, we have at least 3 gift cards to different restaurants if for whatever reason we just cannot eat at home.
Check out how well our budget is doing:
With two weeks to go, I'm optimistic. The best part about being on budget in so many areas is that we are able to experiment a little.
On Friday night Justin and I pulled out all of our cookbooks and went through them until we had decided on a recipe we were interested in cooking. (We settled on chicken pot pie and cream puffs.) Justin pulled up Alton Brown's recipe for the chicken and he used Julia Child's recipe for the cream puffs. Dinner was absolutely amazing, and it was fun eating something different. It's definitely nice having the money and time to experiment. (Justin is on summer hours at his office, and he gets half of Friday off!)
We also managed to call up AT&T and get a cheaper price on our internet, call our car insurance company to get a cheaper price on that, call around to different car rental companies about our upcoming vacation, and start up a savings account for our trip to Germany! (Until this point, we had just been saving for NYC and developing our emergency fund.)
I was also really excited to get a picture of my brother printed for my father and grandfather. My brother has been impatiently begging for a new profile picture for his facebook, and it's taken me a good two weeks to get it to an acceptable quality (for me). My parents kiddingly asked if I had used Photoshop on the image when I gave them the photo last night. They seemed a bit shocked and surprised that the camera doesn't perform miracles. (Why no, the camera itself will not take 20 pounds off of you and get rid of your pimples. My apologies.)
Unfortunately, with regards to iphoto, I have no idea when it will be fixed. :( Justin mentioned it may be running badly since my new camera takes larger images than my old one. (18mp vs. 8mp.) So I'm thinking I may have to give up my image library with iphoto and consider using either Lightroom or Aperture. Hmm ... Decisions, decisions.
Did you all do anything fun this holiday weekend? Do you have any suggestions/recommendations for me regarding replacing Iphoto?
