**Dh's stars must be aligned on the friendship front, lately. He had his grade school reunion last night, and one of his old friends is a "stay at home dad" who lives a couple of blocks from us. (Keep in mind, we live 110 miles away from said grade school, but then again it's not the first "neighbor who used to be a neighbor." Happens all the time in our affordable mecca - our neighborhood attracts Bay Area types. Our next door neighbor grew up down the street from dh, for example).

**Looking at the weather for our impending camping trip, and am glad we are staying in cabins. Night time lows in the 30s? Yeesh. Not necessarily prepared for that. Looking on the bright side - don't think we will need mosquito spray.

We will just have to do more active things, to keep warm. Looks like one of the days will be warm enough for the beach, but too far ahead to tell. I won't hold my breath!

**Yesterday I ran to the grocery store. Frozen mango orange juice was all on sale for 99 cents. I bought 2 more (and then found one in the freezer) for smoothies. I generally just grab what is on sale, and that is the best kind anyway. But, none of the fruit was on sale. I thought I had some strawberries already, so grabbed blueberries and peaches.

We have so many cherries left from the farm, that I should probably freeze some of those too.

I cut up and froze some browning bananas.

We picked out a tub of strawberry banana yogurt.

I didn't get frozen mangos so I couldn't use my recipe:

Thin/sweet (juice) version:

8 oz peach yogurt
1/2 can mango-orange concentrate
8 oz water
1 cup frozen mango pieces
handful of ice cubes

Thick/less sweet version:

8 oz peach yogurt
1/2 can mango-orange concentrate
1 cup milk
1 cup frozen mango pieces
1 frozen banana (peel and chop before freezing)

I suppose I forgot the peach yogurt, too.

SO, we tried this:
some strawberry banana yogurt
1/2 can mango-orange concentrate
some milk
some water
4 frozen peach slices
1 frozen banana (peel and chop before freezing)

I was pretty tempted to throw in some blueberries, but didn't want to go overboard. In the end, they probably would have been good. The kids told me it was the "best smoothie ever." It wasn't near as sweet as it can usually get with the mango orange. I think peach/mangos does better to bring out the awesome flavor of the mango orange juice, but this worked quite well for that we had.

Oh, I also let the kids get watermelon juice. Maybe we will try to do watermelon smoothies today. I probably should have gotten some plain or vanilla yogurt for that.

**I supppose it is Father's Day. Dh is the clever/thoughtful gift giving type. I am not. I let him buy a new monitor (already got it) and forgot today was the big day. I could have the kids make a list of why they love their daddy - something like that. He is not home since he went to the Bay Area for his reunion. He won't have to know I FORGOT. I suppose that is good - we have a crazy/busy day otherwise. Some last minute kid cuteness will have to do.

**I have been catching "Til Debt Do us Part," show that everyone has been talking about. I had never noticed it before (current episodes first aired in 2005???).

Two observations:

-I think I have come to understand the "Head in the Sand" types a bit and have an extra understanding how frustrating that could be. I don't know - I don't think I could do it. It just hit me one day watching that show - how nice it must be to not have a care in the world - let someone else worry about all that. A terrible thing to do as a person (in a marriage), but I can see the draw. Especially if your partner lets you get away with that! Anyway, I suppose this may be the first show of this type that really focuses on the financial dynamics of married couples. Kind of fascinating.

-The money jars. It always strikes me that their "cut it to the bone/get out of debt" budget strongly resembles our budget. Usually something in the $1k range for variable expenses like food, transportation, eating out, etc. Not that we follow is strictly, but we generally go $800 for food and gas, $150 misc, and maybe $300-ish per month for a few other variable items. We are not trying to get out of debt, but are trying to not get into debt, and also would like to be able to retire some day.