Lots of money going out this month.

Starting out with DD'2 16th b-day. Spent about $100 on her gifts. She also had 3 friends over to celebrate. Part of the cost for the food was for myself, dh, and dd1. Got gourmet cupcakes $19.50 (coupon used), pizza $30.00 (Pizza Hut special) and a movie for 4, $32.00 (used Regal Entertainment coupons). We are also having a family potluck on Sunday so that will be low cost.

DD2 has a 4 day soccer tournament coming up the 25th. We will be heading out of town for 3 or 4 nights. We were hoping to avoid a hotel stay Friday night but it turns out their first game is at 8:00am on Saturday. Since it is a 2 1/2 hr drive we will have to drive up and stay Friday night. What really gets me is that for these out of town tournaments is that they force you to stay in hotels they have arranged.(The club that is putting on the tournament that is) The girls room together so theirs is a shared cost there, plus dh and my room, and we all have to split the cost of the coaches room. Is it bad to hope that only 1 of the coaches will come Plus it is a lot of meals out. We will have to see what is planned for that. Usually they like the team to eat together and do activities together. I am ok with eating together as long as we are not eating at spendy places every day. I know I am not the only one who feels that way. We won't have dd1 as she will be working Monday through Friday and won't be coming with us. We will have to see what kind of activities are planned as we only have 1 game a day Sat, Sun and Mon and depending on how we do, possibly Tuesday. We will be in South Seattle so a trip into town and the waterfront may be in the works.

We are ok with all of this though....playing club sports comes with a price....literally but we have made many friends over the years and lots of memories and we feel it is an investment in our kids. Well worth it (most of the time) in our opinion. It's not for everyone but it works for us

I also forgot to mention that we also booked our cruise! We are starting to pay for it now so when the time comes it will be all paid for. We have paid the $600 deposit, $80 in gratuities, and also travel insurance. After some summer expenses are over, we will have her run through more on the card so it will be fully paid for by the time we leave, including shore excursions which you can book online and pay for in advance. Just hoping we can get some good airfare!