Who wants to save money???

Since I haven't blogged in a while, I decided to hopefully help a few of you out by letting you know how Tyler and I just saved a bundle of money! Who doesn't need to with today's economy?
Tyler has been reminding me, for probably over a year now, to call around to see if we could get some lower auto insurance rates. Well, I've been procrastinating doing that because I hate making phone calls... especially those kind! Come to find out, I wish I had done it a lot sooner because I just saved LOTS of money! I ended up calling AAA and asking about their auto and homeowners insurance rates. (We've had State Farm for our auto insurance ever since we were married.)
When I told the guy at AAA who I had for auto insurance, he said "We are going to save you a TON of money!" Well, turns out they did. They are actually saving me $1100 A YEAR on my auto insurance, and $90 a year on my homeowners insurance. I did combine the 2 insurances to get a cheaper rate, but even if I only did auto insurance with them, it would have only been $70 more a year. Crazy ha?!! I was pretty excited when I got the quotes and just kicking myself that I didn't do it before!
Anyways, we ended up calling State Farm to cancel our auto insurance and the guy at AAA told me that they probably wouldn't be too happy about it. Well he was right...they weren't! The lady that works for State Farm actually laughed at Tyler because he wouldn't tell her who we were switching too...he didn't want to give her the help of knowing since all they ever did was rip us off! After she laughed, she said a quick goodbye and hung up the phone. Tyler had more questions for her and tried calling back a few times, with no answer. He called again, left a message, told her not to take it personally and that he didn't appreciate getting hung up on. She immediately called him back, nervously apologizing for not knowing that she hung up on him. (Tyler called her on that too. Brave guy!!!) We got our questions answered after that and everything is good now.
So, to all of you who need to save some money, and especially those of you who have State Farm insurance, I'd recommend giving AAA a call or just shop around! Trust me, it's worth the time!

Happy Birthday Dylan!!!

Oh, how the time flies! My oldest child, Dylan, was born 7 years ago, on July 5th. He weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz. and was born at 4:02pm. Now, I actually have a kid that's 7? Do I feel old or what??? We had a birthday party for him at the park, where lots of family and friends were in attendance, but we missed our family from California this year. We had lots of fun visiting, eating cake, and breaking open a transformer pinata! Dylan loved his presents...especially his new Nintendo DS. Lucky boy! Here are some great qualities about Dylan...

Dylan is...

1. A very loving and helpful boy. He loves his mom, dad, brother and sister and helps his mom out by taking the "oldest child" role and helping her out with them.
2. A comedian. He has got such a funny personality and is quite the class clown at school. He has lots of friends (and lots of girls) that like him!:)
3. A good student. He reads and writes so well! His teachers always tell me how impressed they are with how well he does in those areas. It sounds like he's above average!
4. A good baseball player. He loved playing baseball this year and improved so much from the first couple of games. He can hit the ball so hard...past 2nd base!
5. A daddy's boy. He loves to go places with his dad! He loves to golf, camp, fish, hike, rappel, and rock climb. Does that sound like Tyler Jr. or what?!! Oh, and I'm sure hunting will be added to the list within the next year or so!

I'm so grateful for Dylan. We are so lucky to have him in our family. He's such a good boy and I'm so proud of him for the person that he is. I still can't believe that in only one more year he will be getting baptized! He can't wait! Love you Dyl!

In Memory of my brother, John

My sister Lisa, posted the story of my brother John on her blog, who died 16 years ago today. I couldn't have put the story together any better myself, so I'm giving you the link to her blog so that you can read about him. I love and miss you John!

http://lisapetrarca.blogspot.com/