Freebie Friday

I have been receiving a steady flow of freebies lately. I love the magazines I get and I like to keep a couple in my car just in case. I also love the deodorant , shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste samples for keeping in my gym bag or vacations. I was very happy to get the Biospot 3 month flea treatment last week that I posted about here.

Now on to this weeks freebies.

Free CFL Lightbulb
Free True Lemon Sample
Free Playtex Sport
Free Pantene

Thanks Money Saving Mom and Freebies 4 Mom for making these known.

Homeschool Freebie ~ Games

The featured Homeschool Freebie site for this week is not just for homeschoolers.

Game Theory.net

If you are a fan of stategy games like Stratego, Risk, or Lord of the Rings, then you have got to check this site out. There are a ton of free games to play. From the old dots and squares game I played as a kid to Monopoly. They've got it. And it is totally free!

Who said school can't be fun?

Here is a list of what they've got to offer:

Nim (many variants)

Othello

Mankala

Reversi

Risk

Stratego

Monopoly

and many more.....

Chicago Day 1

We got to the hotel at about 11:30 pm on Thursday night. We got all settled in and ate our ice creams that we picked up on the way to the hotel. Then we went to sleep.

Rich got up early and headed out to see the Navy graduation. The kids and I straightened up the hotel room, went down for breakfast, and watched a movie. Richie was getting really antsy so we decided to see if we could get lost in the massive hotel that we stayed at. We explored every area we could find until everyone arrived from the graduation, including David!

We spent some time at the hotel just talking. David really was looking forward to a couple of things. A 30 minute shower, a real meal, and a nap. So after his shower we headed out for dinner. It was a nice time.

We left from there to go to Chicago since David was going to be sleeping anyway. We decided to check out the Navy Pier first. It was so much cooler than I even could have imagined. Everywhere we looked there were things going on. The street performers were great. We got some ice cream, checked out all the shops, walked the whole pier, and went for a ride on the ferris wheel.

At about 8:30 pm we saw that a bunch of people had started to gather at the entrance to the Navy Pier. So we took our spot and waited about a half an hour for the show to begin. It was something that is hard to describe with words. The best way I can describe it was a human carousel that was hoisted up 200 ft. by a crane. There were girls doing trapeze acts. And each of the people suspened by this contraption were playing bells and drums and making the most beautiful and enchanting music. The pictures really don't do it justice. It had me completely mesmerized the whole time. It was beautiful.

After that we decided to walk the pier one more time to see it all now that it was dark out. We left the pier at midnight and drove around the city for about an hour before heading back to the hotel which was an hour away.

Some Photos

It was really great to be able to visit with my brother in law.

The Navy really does seem to be a good fit for him. I was not able to attend the graduation because he was only able to choose 4 people to go. But me and the kids had fun hanging out at the hotel. We weren't all that disappointed since we knew that we would be able to spend time with him each of the days we were there.

Here are some of the pictures we took of him while we were there.

New York Here We Come!

Well we are back and tired!

I think this was the most memorable vacation we have ever had. We loved Chicago so much that we are already planning our next trip there! Let me just start off by saying how easy it is to just wander around the streets of Cdowntown Chicago and have a blast. This is what we did on the last day. Before we knew it 4 hours had already passed by. It seemed like only an hour. So maybe it would have been a good idea to have an idea of all of the things to do in Chicago. I had no idea how huge this place was going to be. The folks at Trusted Tours and Attractions would have been more than happy to help us plan our trip. They even offer a great newsletter and online travel guides all to help you with planning your vacation.

I never had any desire to go to Chicago, but now I think I am in love. Another place I have never care to visit was New York. But after visiting Chicago I am so exciting to look into things to do in New York. I will definately know better and spend some time really planning a trip to New York. There is so much going on there too. Of course there are traditional things like The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. But there is also places to see like Hard Rock Cafe and Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Our biggest obstacle is just how much we enjoy just walking around and being in the big city. It has such a life that it can be intoxicating. One of my favorite things to do was leave the windows down and the radio off so I could hear the city. I grew up in Detroit and I live very near Detroit now. We spent many weekends downtown in the city when I was growing up. But I have to say that I wish it was as alive as Chicago is. My 87 year old neighbor told us before we left for our trip that Chicago is what Detroit used to be. That is so sad to me. I really hope that all of the efforts to revitalize the city will work.

Another thing that would definately helped us on this trip would have been a handheld GPS. We didn't get lost, but it might have cut down on any confusion about where we were and where we wanted to be. If you sign up for the newsletter I mentioned above you can be entered for a chance to win one of those handy handhelp GPS units.

Coming Home!

I'll be heading home from my trip to Chicago today!

I can't wait to share our trip with you.

Photos coming soon......

Web Counter Tool

Well as I was going through all of my favorite EC card sites I of course came to Tina's blog. This girl is the sweetest thing. She always shares so much of her heart and her home that I always leave there with a smile on my face. She is also one of my most encouraging commentors to my blog.

Well as of this week she is also my hero. As you probably can tell I do some paid posts from time to time. It has become a nice source of extra cash for me. And I love doing it! But.... I hate how much time I spend counting every single stinking word in those posts. It takes me forever because somewhere between 57 and 58 I start questioning if I skipped from the 30's to the 50's. Then of course I have to restart over and over again.

So when I saw that Tina was showing off a nifty word counting tool my spirit did a backflip. Oh my the time that will be saved by just copy and pasting my posts into this tool to let it do the counting for me. You can go to this tool here.

So thank you again Tina for sharing this with people like me who apparently have short term memory issues :-)

Lasik Eye Procedures

I am so amazed by the technology that is available to give us better more fullfilling lives. When I first heard about the Lasik procedures a few years back I have to admit that I was a little concerned by the idea. I mean they are going to cut off a part of my eye while I am awake and watching it all. No thank you! That is honestly what I thought about the whole thing back then when it was new.

However now that it has been around for a while I have had to change my opinions about the whole thing. This has become such a common practice now. It seems like every other person is getting this done and finding new freedom from bad eyesight. It is almost like taking care of a bad tooth but without all the pain afterwards.

Even though I am changing my opinions regard Lasik surgery, I am still concerned a little about the idea of allowing someone to stick a laser in my eye. So I figure I need to look into as much LASIK information as I can. After all you should really educate yourself thoroughly before having any kind of procedure done to yourself. I have found a lot of great information to educate myself at www.thelasikfacts.com.

Freebie Friday

These freebies were found at the Mommies with Cents site and Money Saving Mom.

Free Tony Hawk Poster
Free Post-it Flags
Free Crown Mural Design
Free Sample of Seattles Best coffeee
Free Sample of Tide with Dawn scrubbers
Free Sample of Betty Crocker Warm Delights

7-11

Yahoo!!!!

Today is the annual Free Slurpee Day!

Check out all of the details HERE!

Free Gas

Are you looking to change or upgrade you internet service?

Maybe you need a faster connection so that downloads would take seconds instead of minutes. I just found a great offer for super fast, super cheap internet. Charter internet has so many features besides its speed. The cost is $14.99 a month with a 30 day risk free cancellation time. The service provides up to 10 email account and automatic protection from virus', hackers, and spam.

And as if all of these features were not enough to make you want to try this service, if you sign up before July 31 they will also send you a $25 Shell gas card. I do not know of anyone who couldn't use some free gas.

Homeschool Freebie

This week I have a freebie from Kidswealth.

This is a 28 page financial stewardship activity book that you can download for free. And in a world where money seems to be so important I think we really need to be sure that we are teaching our children God's truth even in the area of money. This book is a great way to shred God's light on this subject for our kids who may be getting a message that money is most important.

You have to enter your email address and they will then send the ebook to that email address. I have received this activity book and it looks great.

You can get the activity book here.

Back Up Glasses

We were at the community pool the other day. It was a great time.

All of a sudden Kalene is like I lost a contact. Well we are sitting in a hot tub and I am thinking yes you definately lost it.

Apparently her brother had been splashing her in the face like a good little brother should. Even after she asked him to stop because she could lose a contact. Still he saw this as a legitimate opportunity to be an annoying little brother. Well sure enough it worked, and she lost the contact.

Unfortunately we were not going home after that so she spent the evening with the ability to see only out of one eye. Of course if she had a pair of glasses with her this would not have been an issue at all.

She just went to the eyedoctor less than a year ago. So I'm not looking forward to doing it again so soon. At zennioptical.com you can order prescription glasses right over the internet. They offer everything I can get at the store, and without the middleman their prices are really great too.

Kalene on the other hand is not interested in getting new glasses because then she just might have to wear them too.

Wordless Wednesday

Let me first say that I have a very weird family!





Rich and Richie went fishing and all they brought back was this stinkin' fish :-)

Rich was vey happy to have been able to bring this huge fish home.

And of course Kalene and Rich always have a bit of fun with the poor dead fish before actually cleaning it.

These are their goofy pictures. Rich is not really as crazy as he may look in the picture











Kalene is by no means afraid of any fish, especially a dead fish.

For more Wordless Wednesday posts you can go Here.