Author: Jenny

Not to brag or anything.

Because I have nothing to do with his genius (clearly!!), but my nephew Drew just one-upped himself, or two-upped himself, and won not one (like last year) but three national championship titles at the Rubik’s Cube 2015 US Nationals last week! He not only won the National Champion title in his specialty, the Pyraminx (the pyramid-shaped one, which you will see below) he also won the top spot for a crazy puzzle called the Skewb, and the BIG one – the 3×3
“regular” Rubik’s Cube! He literally won that one by .01 of a second. It is like the OLYMPICS up in here!

And that’s not ALL! He holds the world record on Pyraminx for an average solve time of 2.56 seconds (that’s an average of 3 solves, dropping the high and low times of 5 solves). But at Nationals, he also set a new North American record for the single-solve of the Pyraminx in 1.68 seconds. Yeah. You’re gonna need to watch this about 1o times to grasp it!

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?? I love the crowd’s reaction on this. These people are USED to this kind of thing and they were still blown away!

Oh, and here’s a Skewb solve, in case you were wondering what that is.

Drew says over and over when people are amazed at his skills, that he practices about 2 hours a day. Also, he started this when he was nine, and he’s almost 16. So, he’s been working on these mad skillz for almost 7 years!

Needless to say, the family is quite proud of this kid! I am super-proud of ALL my nieces and nephews. I am totes biased but I think we have an exceptional family! My brothers and sisters-in-law have set the bar pretty high for kid raising. No pressure…

Way to go Drew! You kinda rule, and I really enjoy being your #FanAunt.

Everyone, do Drew a favor and go like his Facebook page, Drew Brads, Speedcuber! Since I contributed nothing to his genius, I DO like to contribute to getting his name out there. 🙂 You can also subscribe and share his YouTube Channel, XTownCuber.

I am super-excited to bring you a sponsored giveaway from LivingSocial! All opinions are my own.

You guys KNOW I love a deal, so when LivingSocial debuted a few years ago, I was on it like white on rice. If there is an event or activity my family wants to do nearby, I always hit LivingSocial first to make sure there’s not an awesome deal. We’ve done some really fun family activities on the cheap with LivingSocial including our favorite local waterpark, bowling, and mini-golf! Bobby and I have also had some frugal date nights by purchasing LivingSocial vouchers for some local restaurants. And – beyond local, I’ve gotten some great deals on gifts at LivingSocial, too! I even got my Costco Membership for an awesome price there!

Another fun way I use LivingSocial is by checking out their local deals when we go on vacation! I’ve added some bang to our vacation budget by finding LivingSocial vouchers for family fun activities and eateries in the town we’re vacationing in! Bonus!

If you haven’t tried LivingSocial yet, you are REALLY missing out! So,  I am going to give you some incentive. To celebrate the end of summer and making the most of what’s left of fun in the sun, I’m giving away $50 in Deal Bucks to LivingSocial!! Whoop whoop! It’s easy to enter: simply leave a comment below telling me the BEST deal you’ve ever gotten on LivingSocial. If you’ve never tried it, go to your local LivingSocial page and tell me which deal you most want to purchase.

One winner will be chosen at random on Thursday, August 6 at 6pm EST. GOOD LUCK!! Don’t forget to share this giveaway – and the LivingSocial love – with all your friends!

My family and I are on vacation at my parents’ house in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And it. is. fantastic! See?

This has been a weird summer with me working from home, squeezing in 30 hours of work with just 14 hours of childcare, and still taking the kids to all their camps, summer school, VBS, speech therapy, and other activities that they want to do. I get up at 5:45 so I can get work done before they wander downstairs. I tell them they can’t get out of bed until 8, since they all still don’t know how to sleep in (although that’s not quite fair, Joshua WOULD if Jonah would let him, but alas, they share a room.)

So, basically, I have never needed a vacation SO BAD in my LIFE. And I am super-thankful for this week with my fam to REST and chillax.

I love my job, and I love my family, but I can’t wait to get back to the school schedule so that I feel like LESS of a CRAZY PERSON!

26 more days for the big kids, but I am still not sure how many days ’til Jonah goes back, because it’s always different for the preschool than it is for the elementary. But for this mama, it can’t be soon enough! I am ready for me work-life balance to go from non-existent to at least kind of existent.

In the meantime, I am soaking up this week with my beautiful family in this beautiful place!