Bring your lunch: Built NY Lunch Bag

This is the best lunch box!  It is so stretchy, flexible and washable.  It comes in lots of designs and shapes.  Paul surprised me when he came home with one he had found on sale at Wegmans.  I had showed it to him and had told him about how I had wanted one of these for so long, but how I didn't want to spend $20 on a lunch box.  For whatever reason I had finally decided to bite the bullet and buy one at Marshalls a few years ago and changed my mind at the last minute.  If I had known that was the last time I'd see one there for more than 50% off of the retail price I never would have done that.  I was so happy when Paul splurged for me and brought me this cute little bag home.  I love that I can make all my lunches fit and then when I'm done, I can fold it up and put it in my purse for the ride home.

Well, here is the funny NON Frugalicious end to this post.  This always happens to me.  Whenever I end up giving up hope of finding a particular item on sale and finally decide to buy whatever it is that I wanted for more than I wanted to spend I end up finding it soon after for cheap.  Remember I told you about our trip to Walmart in Guilford CT?  Well lo and behold there they were, built NY lunchboxes for $8!  Normally they are $25-30, Paul found mine for $20 and my sister who originally told me about these, waited even longer than me to indulge in this beauty walked out of Walmart with one just one week after Paul splurged for me.  Ugh, FML.  Can't win them all I guess!  I'll just have to make up my losses with all the bringing my lunch to work savings.

End of Summer Recap Pt 2 Labor Day!

Labor Day was AWESOME this year.  We got to go out of town to my sister's brand new to her lake house in Guilford CT.  First of all it was fun to get to hangout with my sister whom I never see two weekends in a row, but secondly her house was BEAUTIFUL.  I mean, if you looked up beautiful in the dictionary you would find her house.  The first pic is of Bailey, he was SO happy because he originally thought we were leaving him and then realized he was coming too!  I love my doggie, especially when he smiles this huge smile as seen below.

 

 After Paul, Bailey and I soaked up the beauty of her house, my sister wanted to show me around the town.  Somehow this started with a pit stop in Walmart for some food and supplies, but that's cool.  We actually found these really cute shirts!  The first one I found was perfect for her.  It was this little red tshirt with some writing that said "Trust me I'm a Dr." then a label of Dr. Pepper on the bottom.  Nothing could have been more perfect for my "20 year old looking" sister who is a Dr., but who manages to get carded more than me more often then I'd like to mention.  We then walked around the Guilford Green which has all these cute mom and pop artsy type shops, went to bishops orchard where I had my first honey crisp apple of the season.  If you haven't tried a honey crisp apple get on it!!  We also happened to be in town for the taste of Guilford, I was honestly more psyched for this than I should have been.  Taste of Reston was much better.  Taste of Guilford was kind of expensive for not a lot of food.   

The best part of the weekend was just relaxing with the fam and watching Bailey hang out with his cousin dogs Sam and Pasha.  I can't wait until my sister and I to both have kids and we can watch them run around with our dogs in this beautiful new house.  What a wonderful dream fulfilled.  Here are some pics from the weekend.  Bailey even got to go kayaking and canoeing!

End of Summer Recap Pt 1

Originally I started writing this post a few weeks ago but got too busy and had to rename it from weekend recap to end of summer recap..OOPS

I'll start off with the last weekend in Aug.  What an awesome weekend!  The weather in DC was perfect!  What was even better was that my sister Ruth came into town on thursday night for a long weekend visit.  We woke up friday morning, relished in the fact that neither of us had to go to work and took off for a walk with Bailey on a glorious, sunny, cloudless and most importantly workfree day.  It was awesome.  We came back from our walk and decided to do our normal Ruthie comes to town routine and hit all her favorite fairfax shopping spots.  Our first stop was the brand spanking new Nordstrom Rack that opened the day before within walking distance to my house (yes, be jealous)!  The new store is great, super clean, organized and loaded with lots of cheap, but formerly expensive items.  The shoe section, especially for men is great.  They had loads of cole haan men shoes for $60.  The shoe section overall is also great because you no longer have all these left shoes where you have to go ask them for the right one to try on the pair.  The lingerie section is also fabulous.  I scored some great calvin klein bras for $10 (normally $50).

Saturday rolled around and my neighborhood had a community yardsale.  My sister in law Anita lucked out because 99% of the sales were baby things which her Mom, twin sister Christine and I proudly scooped up for the 2nd newest baby to be in our family.  For about $200, she got an almost new chicco travel system (next door neighbors, car seat = no accidents), an awesome electric swing and few bouncers and an activity mat.  Paul and I bought some books and a couple cute items to decorate with over the upcoming fall and winter holidays.  All in all, it was a success!  My sister and I did show up about 5 minutes too late for a beautiful $2 grey cashmere sweater.  Probably for the best though; how would we have decided who got to keep it.

I had planned for us to go to Eastern Market, a local DC landmark that we'd all never been to.  Apparently, I was the only one who wanted to go :(  Instead they wanted to go outlet shopping.  Still cool by me, but hopefully one of these days this born and raised DC girl can make it to Eastern Market!  After the outlets, our neighbors told us to hang out with them that night at the nearby Tarara winery.  They were having an 80's band at their outdoor pavilion.  I love Tarara and I love summer picnic concerts, so this was an awesome saturday night.  Sadly though, Tarara no longer carries their most popular and my personal favorite: red table wine in a pretty blue bottle.

Sunday was my Uncle's wedding.  It was held at the cabin john park in Bethesda under this HUGE sycamore tree.  What a beautiful and simple wedding.  I'm so happy for him that he was finally found such a great woman.  Perfect weather for a perfect couple on their perfect wedding day.