Saturday, February 16, 2008

Travels

Our Mexico trip with Justin and Kim fell through, so Ethan and I are going to take a cheapie trip to Mazatlan on our own, instead. We have never been, and found a great hotel deal through our timeshare membership with Interval International, so off we go. Likely to be in late April, but the details are still being worked out.

We DO have our Hawaii trip sorta sorted out. We are going to head out Wednesday morning (in September), get there around noon and spend a couple days in Honolulu. Do Pearl Harbor and the PCC. Friday, we will hop a flight to Maui and check in to our hotel there on Kanapaali beach for a week, then fly home the following Friday. Lots-o-fun. Still need to book everything but the Kanapaali hotel, but we will get there...

Lets see.....I am going to the scrap convention in Portland at the end of this month. I am taking 5 classes and saving all my spare cash to spend on tax-free goodies. I am making a list of things I actually NEED for scrapping, so hopefully I don't buy a bunch of flashy crap I won't actually use. My list so far is cardstock in all colors, lots of alphas in every form, and flowers galore. I also need more neutral colored brads in different sizes, and I am sure I will be adding to this list daily...

In March, Ethan and I are heading down to McMenamins' Edgefield property--a hotel with a restaurant, pools, spa, mini golf course, theater, etc all together on one property. You can roam around and have everything end up on a single bill. We are going with Justin and Kim for Kim's birthday. Should be a fun weekend.


In May, I am hoping to head to San Jose for an orthopedics nursing conference. I have an orthopedics certification, and it lasts 5 years unless I get enough education hours in to renew it--I get an extra $1 an hour for having the certification, which really adds up. And I am one of only 2 staff nurses at Harborview with this certification (4 total-on ARNP and one MSN-CNS). Pretty cool to have, definitely a must to keep. If we are a nationally recognized ortho unit (which we are), we need to have nurses with specialty knowledge. ANyway. I am trying to get some assistance with paying for it--continuing education funds will give me $500, but that is how much the conference alone costs. I may apply for a scholarship that can give me another $500, and pay the rest on my own. Even if I only get the first $500, when you think about $1 an hour over 5 years, it is TOTALLY worth my paying for this trip. Plus, it is a tax writeoff.

Speaking of tax writeoffs, we got our refund today. Woohoo! We are planning to use the money to remodel our kitchen--new floors (tile or laminate), new cabinets (darker, more red-toned wood to match the rest of the house), tear out the 5 foot wide dividing walll and make an L-shaped island, new gas stove with a microwave mounted above it, granite countertops......we shall see how far our money will spread. I am trying to talk Ethan into going to the Seattle Home show this weekend--lots of contracters there and lots of ideas for what we can do.

So there we are. Not much excitement lately in the Amerson household. Lots of same old, same old stuff......

1 comment:

Sabrina said...

Because of the new tuitian laws ( higher percentage deductable!!) that didn't go into effect till Feb 11th ( which is why we delayed filing) we are still waiting for our return. Each and every penny is going to debt reduction, but we'll be saving more then $300 a month because of it! WOO HOO for a tax return!!
Travel plans sound busy, have fun!