In 85 days, big things will be happening in our home.

In 85 days, Zack turns 16.

In 85 days, Zack will be taking his road test to get his drivers license.

In 85 days, I will be the parent of a teen driver.

In 85 days, I will be scared out of my mind as my son, gets behind the wheel of the car for the first time and drives away from our home, without an adult in the vehicle.

Remember back in August when I shared this photo?

Look at the smile on his face.  This was the day Zack turned 15 and a half and was able to go to the DMV and get his temporary driving permit and start driving, with a licensed adult, legally.

Since that day, I have been preparing for February 12th, the day he turns 16 and the day everything changes.

We’ve been going over the rules he will have to follow when he gets his license and explaining to him why the rules need to be followed.  I feel that it is important for all teen drivers to have rules to follow when they get their license.  I’m sure as time goes by, the rules will change and be adjusted for different circumstances.

The next 85 days, I’m sure, are going to fly right by and he’ll be pulling away from the house, for the first time without one of us in the car.  

Did you put rules in place when your teen got their license? 

For years I’ve been planning our dream family vacation and for years, our vacation has been pushed aside for other things.  We have now set a goal to go on a real family vacation before our 10th wedding anniversary which means we have less than 3 years to make it happen.

Ideally, I would like to take the entire family to Florida.  None of us have been to Disney and I think it would be a great thing to do at least once, as a family.  

I have visions of the kids running along the beach, playing in the sand and someday, I want to make that a reality.

The question is, how to do I make this dream a reality?  How do you save for a vacation for a family of 7 when you are just making it payday to payday?

We have attempted to save over the years and then something comes up that eats up our savings and we have to start over again.  

I’ve been thinking of starting to buy Disney gift cards since they can be used at anytime and that it might be an easy way to help save up but I’m open to suggestions from people too.

What are your tips and tricks for saving?

If you haven’t noticed by our holiday gift guide, we are crazy busy around here getting everything ready for the holidays. It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just over a week away and before we know it, we’ll be celebrating Ellie’s 3rd birthday and then Christmas will be here.

Before we jump ahead to Christmas, we have a few plans in store to celebrate the holidays around here starting with attending a few community events.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, living in Green Bay, we are lucky to have the Packers and their generosity.  Every year, there is a family friendly event at Lambeau Field, that is free to the public.  The kids get to decorate Christmas cookies, listen to a choir, visit Santa and more and it is always a lot of fun for everyone.  This will be one of the things we are doing in the upcoming weeks and we can’t wait.

Another item on the agenda this year is to head out and cut down our own Christmas tree.  We haven’t had a real tree since the year before Ellie was born and I’ve decided that it is time to bring a real tree back into our house and why not go cut it down ourselves?  It should be a lot of fun and the kids are pretty excited.

Since most of the excitement isn’t taking place until after Thanksgiving, we’ve kicked off the season with just getting the lights up on the house so I will share (a not so perfect) picture of the house with our new lights.  

What are you doing to kick off the holiday season?

Having a dad who enjoys working on cars, rebuilding engines and just tinkering, I have to admit, comes in quite handy.  I’ve never had to have a mechanic because I’ve always had my dad around to help out when a problem arises.

Now that Zack is on the verge of getting his license, he’s been spending more time working on my dad’s old pickup truck that will eventually be his when it is done.

Once upon a time, the truck they are working on looked like this.

I do hope that someday, soon, that it looks somewhat like that again.

The great thing about this project of their’s is that they are always on the hunt for replacement parts for it and also discarding parts they can no longer use.  One man’s junk auto part is another man’s treasure.

I love to spend a lot of time on Pinterest and lately, I’ve been checking out different projects we can do with some of the junk parts that my dad and Zack come up with and I’ve slowly been pinning them to a board of their own, saving them for when the time comes.

Hopefully, when they finish the truck and are ready to part with some spare parts I can work on a project.  Until that time comes, I’ll just keep pinning.

Be sure to follow me on Pinterest to keep up with the progress.

I know I’ve said it more than once that we absolutely love getting involved in community events and around here, the holidays are a great time to have some fun.

Thankfully, we live in an area that puts on a lot of different events and we are close enough to neighboring towns to be able to enjoy some of their events as well.

Finding events in your community is easy, just remember, Google is your friend.  I like to check local newspapers, newstations and websites for different things going on in our neighborhood but I also enjoy searching Google for random events too, you never know what you will find.

The holidays are a great time to get out and get involved in your community.  You can get involved by participating in an event, donating your time, helping someone in need and more.

We like to donate toys and other gifts during the holidays to those less fortunate and this year we are hoping to visit a local shelter and help as well.

If you like to get involved in your community, please let us know what you do.