decorating, house guests, and everything in between...

it has been a very busy week and weekend but we had LOTS of fun! we spent this week working (of course) and getting ready to host a group of girls from our church's disciple now weekend. i spent lots of time at the grocery store stocking up on snacks, food for meals, etc. for the girls and just for us (because you know, i'm all about planning my menus and couponing and all that ;), and lots of time at target purchasing items to decorate the guest bedroom/bathroom, items for gift bags to give my girls (their very own DNow survival kit ;), etc.

here's a sneak peek at the mini-makeover the guest bedroom/bathroom received...i have bigger plans for that room but those will happen later down the road.

once the girls arrived, we (and they) were ready for a fun weekend and we definitely had a great time! we had an amazing group of ninth grade girls and two wonderful leaders; this was the first time joel or i had ever hosted for DNow and we had such a great experience. we agreed that we would definitely do this again. i hate that i didn't get pictures of the girls but maybe next year i'll remember :). by the time church was over yesterday afternoon, we were exhausted and could not wait for a sunday afternoon nap. thankfully, this week looks like it will be rather quiet (thank goodness) and i know we are going to take advantage of a few evenings at home with nothing to do!

totally unrelated (i guess this fits under the "and everything in between" part of the title of this post ;), i started clipping coupons in january and have really tried hard to figure out all the little secrets and tricks everyone uses to save lots of money on groceries. i've had some success at harris teeter (the most i've been able to save is $43.00, though) but i'm soo open to tips. i tried branching out to cvs this week and didn't really have a great experience so if any of you blog readers have any pointers or tips, pass them on!

also way random, i am loving, loving this season of 24...the old jack bauer is back and monday is definitely my favorite tv night. i do admit, though, that i would seriously HATE to be living any 24 hrs that jack bauer lives. good grief!!

last thing---do you have your brackets ready?? thursday is the official start of the madness and i can't wait! GO HEELS! :)