Light comes on and the car dings, ugg…..There’s nothing I dislike more than having to stop for gas! Usually, I just roll in – close my eyes and fill it up. Take my little slip and get on with my day. Today my daughter and I went out. Thankfully I didn’t need gas, but looked at the prices. They went up like $.17 cents in the past few days where I live. That’s insane! Which is what inspired me to check the history of average gas prices. I got this information off of www.thepeoplehistory.com. By the way, this site has some cool information. ANYWAY! Here’s what I came up with:
1986 – $.89
1996 – $1.22
2001 – $1.46
2006 – $3.13
2007 – $3.38
2008 – $3.39
2009 – $2.73
2010 – $2.73
I had forgotten we had these insane prices a few years back.
Whew! That felt better. I’m still not happy, because I know next time I visit the gas station I don’t even want to think about it!
Congratulations to Karen! You won this giveaway! Winner chosen by Random.org. Thanks to all who entered and to Funky Monkey for sponsoring this great giveaway!!!
Funky Monkey Snacks are a line of freeze-dried fruit that are 100% natural, 100% real fruit, and 100% delicious – with 3 servings of fruit in each 1oz bag! Our “fruit that crunches” provides the ultimate snack, fusing the great taste, smell, and nutritional goodness of fresh fruit with the crunch and convenience of conventional snacks. You can read our review of Funky Monkey Snacks here.
Here are some additional Funky Monkey highlights:
• Funky Monkey Snacks have no added colors, flavors, sugars, or preservatives
• Their special, proprietary manufacturing process provides for a crunchier texture vs. conventional freeze-drying techniques
• They use full slices and pieces (not dices) of delicious, fresh fruit
• Funky Monkey is made in Brazil (not China!) using tropical fruits at the peak of freshness
• Their products are gluten-free, certified Kosher, and certified non-GMO
• They have 7 flavors- Applemon, Bananamon, MangoOJ, JiveAlime, Purple Funk, Pink Pineapple, and Carnavel Mix.
Enter to win a Funky Monkey Sampler Kit! (1 bag of each of their 7 flavors) Estimated value $10.
Mandatory Entry:Visit Funky Monkey Snacks.com and tell me what flavor you are most looking forward to trying.
Extra Entries (Please be sure and leave a comment and link for extra entries):
1 Entry: Like Funky Monkey Snacks on Facebook. And leave a comment saying- Faith and Family Reviews sent me.
2 Entries: Follow Faith and Family Reviews on Google Friend Connect (on the our right side bar).
2 Entries: Tweet about this giveaway, but only one tweet per day please. Include your tweet url with your comment. You may write your own tweet or use this one:
Giveaway: Enter to win a Funky Monkey Snacks! http://bit.ly/fadwUL @faithfamilyrevw! Please share! Thx!
1 Entry: for every comment you leave anywhere else on this blog, but please leave a link with your comment!
1 Entry: For every comment you leave on Funky Monkey’s Blog, but please leave a link with your comment.
1 Entry: Sign up for Funky Monkey’s newsletter.
Details:
This giveaway will run from March 4th, 2011 to March 17th, 2011 at midnight CST. The winner will be chosen through Random.org. Funky Monkey Snacks will send one winner their prize. Winner will be contacted via email on or before March 20th and will be asked for their contact and other pertinent info. Winners will have 48 hours to send me their e-mail at [ffr] [giveaways] [at] [gmail] [dot] [com] (without spaces and parenthesis). Please note: This giveaway is offered to USA only.
Spring Break is a wonderful opportunity to spend time with your kids while having fun in a variety of ways. These outings can be expensive, but with some advanced planning, these extra family activities can cost next to nothing.
New and Different Food
Stop by new places, broadening your children’s experiences and respect for food from a variety of cultures. Try sukumi wiki or chapati at an African restaurant, then try out authentic wood-fired gourmet pizza at a place similar to this restaurant in West Linn, Oregon.
Eating in restaurants is a luxury for families with strict budgets. However, there are ways to expose your children to foods from cultures around the world without running out of funds. Use a coupon for the restaurant you’d like to try, or go on a night where kids can eat free with paying adults. Instead of eating at the restaurant itself, get a take-out order of something special and eat it at home with a variety of vegetables, fruit and bread.
Nature-Loving Field Trips
The outdoors offers many opportunities for exploration. Take your children on a simple hike at a local park, using a field guide to identify local flora and fauna. Once this has proven successful, take them on a more strenuous hike, packing a lunch and stopping for a picnic.
If the weather in your part of the world is warm enough, consider taking your children camping for a few days. Hiking can then become a traditional part of your camp-out experience, along with s’mores around the nightly campfire.
Your Inner Artist
Use spare cardboard, paper and other craft items to unleash your inner artist with your kids. Take advantage of the time of year and give these crafts a spring or Easter theme, decorating your home in honor of the season. Experiment with different mediums and techniques, such as oil pastels, watercolors, clay and wire to make truly original works of art.
Neighborhood Play Date
Spring Break is a great opportunity to connect with family, friends and neighbors. Schedule a play date or potluck dinner and invite those who are part of your larger community to share the time with you. Enjoy food and adult conversation while kids play indoors and outdoors. For your kids’ best friends, a play date can turn into a sleepover for some free Spring Break fun!
Rollin’ Along
If you’d like to have more fast-paced family fun, consider a local skating rink. Generally, if there’s a local community center in your area, they charge less to rollerskate or rollerblade, especially during Spring Break. This fun activity can provide your entire family with valuable exercise and wear your kids out at the same time!
Kelly Wilson is a busy mom and freelance writer. For delicious, authentic gourmet Sicilian-style pizza, visit BJ Willy’s, a restaurant in West Linn, Oregon.
Being a single income family we do whatever we can to save money. I do most of my shopping online and will never pay full price or pay shipping. After all my items are in my online cart I go to checkout, then open another tab on my computer and search for promo codes that pertain to the store. There are lots of websites that offer promo codes, some are good and some eh, are no so good. Most stores will offer promo codes, Kohl’s you can use two (2) promo codes at a time! By having two (2) browser windows open at the same time you can check which promo codes will best serve you. Yea, it takes a few more minutes to finish your order, but it’s worth it to save a few bucks. Better in your pocket than theirs, right?!
Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.
This is an amazing product! The product boasts that it has 5 products in 1 for a 3-year system. I can honestly say that it does. The product converts from cradle carrier (up to 25 lbs.) to a bunting bag to stroller bag to play blanket, and lastly to travel bedding. However we did find that converting the product from cradle carrier to any of the other uses is a bit more difficult. The cradle carrier has a stiff board on the inside that needs to be removed to use as any other featured use. The board is secured within the tote and is difficult to remove and replace, so if you want to use the cradle carrier, use it as a cradle carrier and do not expect to be using it as a bunting bag or stroller bag, etc.. unless you have time to do the conversion. With this said…we have decided to use the Eurotote as a bunting bag for the car seat (as pictured below).
We have found that this use is wonderful! The bunting bag style has slits for the car seat straps and adequately covers baby and keeps them warm! When the weather warms we anticipate using the Eurotote as a stroller bag. We have not used any of the other conversions as our twins are preemies and only 3 months old…but we anticipate using the play blanket and travel-bedding feature in the future! Check out http://www.lillebaby.com/products.html for a full catalog of uses for the Eurotote and many other useful products!
Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.
I received samples of the following products to try:
The first product I tried was Caviahue Anti Wrinkle Cream; this was a nice soft cream. It went on smooth and felt nice on the skin. I cannot attest to its effectiveness as I only tried a few samples and was not on the product long enough to see any results. This cream retails at $48.35
The second product I tried was Caviahue Nourishing moisturizing cream. This cream was also nice on the skin, not too heavy and went on very smooth! The cream took away any dryness and did not cause an oily residue that some creams leave. This cream retails at $48.35
The third product I sampled was Mondariz Hydro Woman Cream. This is a very soft non-greasy cream that felt very nice on my skin. The hydration effect felt wonderful on my face and neck and lasted almost all day! This product retails for $ 55.15. They also have a companion Mondariz Hydro Man Cream for males who use face cream.
Overall I have to say that the products were nice. They were a bit perfumed for my taste…I tend to buy fragrance free or lightly scented face creams. These did have a heavier flower scent, not unpleasant, just strong. The only other deterrent factor was the price of the products, they are not cheap, but are comparable in price to many name brand creams on the market.
AcquaEssentials.com is having a shipping special if your order is over 60.00 it ships free. There is a myriad of products for anyone to browse on the website and you can easily place an order for 60.00. The company has products for hair, body, anti-aging, solar protection, Mineral Oil Free, and much more…take a look around they have much to offer.
Posted by html404 on March 2, 2011 in Family Stuff
This is Mr. I Love Elmo who turned three last month. We were on our way to the state capitol on the morning of his birthday and I wanted to be sure to get a photo of him. But what does he do? Plays shy boy! Silly little boy 😉
This week I will make sure I make it to your blogs. As a matter of fact, I am going to back track and visit those links that some of you posted last week! I also got through a few pages of blog comments to visit some of your blogs too…now that is progress, eh?
The older girls and I attended an organic farming conference (MOSES) over the weekend as a part of my duties as a Growers Group Facilitator. Yes, this is another “job”/client of mine. To be honest, it was great and really did not seem like work. Just gives us more yearning to farm. So in honor of the farming and gardening bug that we have, we thought we would share with you a garden special at Gardener’s Supply Company-Copper Snow Gauge
Gear up for Gardening Season and Go Green with Gardener’s Supply Co.! Get all of your houseplant solutions, composting, gardening tools, and plants and seeds at Gardener’s today! Plus, now through March 9th, receive free shipping on orders over $75 with promo code XNET8320! Now through 3/9/11
Is it worth it to buy organic? We think so! Especially since the below fruits and veggies are filled with deadly pesticides and harmful chemicals that can cause fertilely problems, cancer, and more! See below:
Cherries- have a thin coating of skin that chemicals and pesticides can leak into. You should always buy these organic whenever possible. Because cherries contain ellagic acid, an antioxidant that neutralizes carcinogens, it’s worthwhile to buy organic.
Potatoes-Who doesn’t love potatoes? You should think twice before eating the skin as potatoes skin are coated with chemicals 36, according to the EWG.
Grapes- Like cherries, grapes have a very thin skin and chemicals can easily leech into this delectable fruit. Also think twice about buying non-organic wine as the chemicals in the grapes are in the wine.
Leafy Greens (spinach, kale, collards, and more)- These leafy green vegetables and more on our top 10 list. with spinach loaded with 45 different kinds of pesticides and kale 57. In 2006, Dole recalled bagged baby spinach after multiple E. coli illnesses associated with the vegetable made their way across the country.
Sweet Bell Pepper-This yummy vegetable contains up to 63 types of pesticides. Ewww!
Apples-need alot of attention from fruit growers and and pesticides are used to stave off mold, pests, and diseases. Research found 47 different kinds of pesticides on apples. And washing your apples with soap and hot water just doesn’t cut it anymore!
Blueberries- 13 pesticides are on a single blueberry. If you eat a handful of blueberries how much pesticides are you putting in your body?? Since blueberries have such a thin skin like grapes and cherries chemicals easily leech into the fruit.
Strawberries- Research has shown that a single strawberry can contain up to 53 pesticides.
Peaches-Are filled with 67 different chemicals, making them number two on the list of most contaminated fruit. On fruit farms they are sprayed frequently to ward off pests.
Celery- A single stalk contains 13 pesticides, while a whole, celery contained as many as 67 pesticides. Chemicals are all over this yummy vegetable and it doesn’t help that it has no protective skin. So if you like this crunchy veggie, go organic!
Buy locally, grown organic produce whenever possible for the best results for you and your family!
