So I'm sitting here with this empty little box that needs to be filled with typewritten letters and I think I've forgotten how to blog. I take a week off and suddenly I'm at a loss for words. Well, writing that is at least a start.

I had a fabulous time on my vacation and the really great thing is that I spent less than I budgeted for it. My roommate for the trip is an excellent deal finder and was finding cut rates right up until about a couple days before I left. So four days in the suite at the one hotel came to $249 for my half and three days in the second hotel came to $149, also for a suite.

Airplane tickets were free of course, through DH's miles, and since I was in first class there was a free meal on the plane on the way there. It was a good one, so I ate it and only had to buy dinner the first night.

It was $189 for the five day park hopper for Disneyland and California Adventure and I spent $48 for four hours at the Glen Ivy Spa and $29.95 to go on the Queen Mary with the historical tour, the World War II tour, and the ghosts and legends tour, which were all guided tours. So that comes to $664.95.

I came back home with $150 on souveniers for me, my kids, and my DH. I spent about $300 on food and bottled water. That puts me at a total of $1114. I came home with $286 and various amounts of coin.

So that $286 becomes the seed money for our new vacation fund. We are going to Victoria, B.C. Canada at the end of July. We are staying in my parent's travel company's condo up there as my folks needed to use their points or lose them, they reserved it for us. They have given points to both my sisters and my niece and figured it was our turn this year. They are joining us for two days, but its a three bedroom condo with a pullout couch so it should accommadate everyone just fine.

So anyway, that part will be free and we will just need to save the money for the ferry ride there and back, for food (which will partly come from the grocery budget for that month anyway, one meal out a day for each of us, and admissions into places we want to visit, like Butchart Gardens, The Butterfly Garden, and The Center of the Universe. I'm thinking we can probably get away with around $700 since we can bring a lot of our own food over the border. I will have to get a list on what is currently allowed and what isn't, aside from apples which I don't think have been allowed in my lifetime.

Hmm...guess I haven't forgotten how to blog after all.