January, 2009 | The Angel Forever

Monthly Archives January 2009

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If they come, it will snow

Posted on January 11, 2009 11:18 am by TheAngelForever

Several weeks ago my brother, sister-in-law and niece were supposed to head here for an early Chanukah celebration. The weather had different plans, so they never made it here. That was the weekend that we had 18 inches of snow, went to the ER via ambulance, and had the party at our synagogue canceled.

Friday night everyone made it into town safely before what was supposed to be a small snow storm on Saturday. Yesterday morning, we packed up the boys and our presents or Cousin S and brought them over to Nana and Papa’s house. The kids immediately started playing and had a wonderful time. Of course, the adults were planning strategies to get a photo of the three kids together. This has become an on going joke with us. The blooper photos are often more interesting than the so called "good’ photo that makes it from the group shoot.

Here is one of the three kids that was not too bad.

Everyone loved the David’s Cookies prize that I won. A lot of the ones on top of the container were gone long before dinner time. I was a good girl and snacked on tomatoes, a few pretzels, and hummus. I was saving my points for later in the day.

We watched to see if/when the snow would finally show up. Just as we sat down to eat dinner the snow started to come down. We ate dinner, and then quickly had some cookies and brownies and packed up the boys. By the time we went outside there was probably 1-2 inches out, but the roads were really slick. This morning there was probably 6-8 inches outside of our house. Thanks to this we opted to keep NHL home from Hebrew School. It is not worth the risk of going there for the few hours in this weather. JL just got my car out from under all of the snow and we are going back to Nana and Papa’s house. My parents live very close to us, so it should be doable.

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family jsl nhl photos weekend winter

Timing is everything

Posted on January 10, 2009 10:00 am by TheAngelForever

In early November I won a fabulous David’s Cookie and Brownie tin in a giveaway on Mamanista.com. Debbie e-mailed me with the great news and I sent her my mailing information. To make a long story short, things were crazy during the holiday season at David’s and my prize never arrived. A contact at David’s Cookies was great the other day and told me that it was being shipped on Wednesday and would arrive via UPS on Friday. I was never overly worried, just concerned that it had been shipped and someone had taken it off my porch.

Yesterday right before dinner, I popped my head outside and sure enough a package was sitting on my front step. Here is what was inside:

The timing is perfect and ironic at the same time. My brother, sister-in-law and niece are in town this weekend. We kept the tin all ready to take with us to my parent’s house today. This will be our goodies to go with dinner tonight. The ironic part is that yesterday morning I finally signed up for Weight Watchers online. As a non-chocolate consuming person, not too much should tempt me, but I did see some oatmeal cookies. Thank goodness for extra weekly points!

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family me moments photos Web business web fun yummy

Facebook/Nursing photo controversy

Posted on January 9, 2009 1:10 am by TheAngelForever

Breastfeeding is a touchy subject with a lot of people. Of course, there are many reasons that factor into this. Ask one person what they think of public nursing and you never know what answer you may get.

Right now, there is a rather large controversy going on with woman who posted photos of themselves nursing their child/children within Facebook. According to Facebook’s terms of service, these photos are not allowed because they may show the nipple/aerola area of the breast. Groups have been formed all over the internet (on and off Facebook) and many bloggers have weighed in on the subject.

One of the people that has blogged about this happens to be TechyDad. Over the last several days, he has been working on a blog post called The Facebook/Breastfeeding Controversy: A Dad’s Perspective. I must admit I was most impressed with the research that TechyDad did when writing this post. I am not simply saying this because he is my husband either. In reading the blog post, I learned a lot of new information. Head on over if you are unaware of the history and would like additional blogs to check out on the subject.

My question for you:

Should Facebook stop women from posting photos of themselves nursing, yet scantily clothed women in bikinis be allowed to bare nearly all? Please let me know what you think.

My answer: Although I would not personally post photos of myself nursing online, I feel that the application of the terms of service set by Facebook is wrong. Implying that photos of a woman nursing or the act of breastfeeding is sexual is unjustified. Feeding your child is the most natural act and lumping it with sexually explicit photos is ridiculous.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating. Th

Aloha #30

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Aloha Friday interesting jl real world news

Family vacation planning

Posted on January 8, 2009 9:15 am by TheAngelForever

Planning a vacation for our family is new to us. Sure we have gone away before. All of those trips were to visit family and/or friends for a long weekend at the most. Nothing involved a car trip longer than 6 hours, and certainly not an airplane. Fact is, I have not been on an airplane since December 2002 and so much has changed in that time.

In just about four months, we will be heading to Walt Disney World with the boys. This is a huge adventure for all of us. A first time trip to the magical world of Disney for the boys and first time in an airplane. My mother has commented that I am more excited than she has heard in quite some time. This is very true. It is always wonderful to have something to look forward to.

Unfortunately, with the fun and excitement comes the inevitable planning and some stress. Here are a few things that have been on the plate so far.

Which hotel do we stay at? – If you have been to Disney World lately, then you know there are a lot of resorts on ground to pick from. There are value, moderate, and delux accomodations. We opted to try a value resort for the first time. After booking our trip we changed from All Star Movies to Pop Century because of a few items we learned about. JL and I also found out about activities at Pop Century that sound amazing. We do not need the extra frills when we can save money. The money saved now could be for a future trip back to Disney World after all.

Do we haul our stroller or rent there? – This was a question that I posed on a Disney forum that I recently joined. I knew that we would need to rent a stroller no matter what. Although NHL is five, Disney is a lot of walking for my adult legs. When I asked in the forums about this several people suggested not only to rent a double stroller, but to stray from Disney. Everyone mentioned Orlando Stroller Rentals. The people had links to reviews and the website with photos of the stroller that you can rent. The best part is the double jogger can accomodate up to 100 pounds of kids, they deliver and pick up from the hotel, it folds easy, is comfy for JSL to nap in, and saved us about $90 over Disney. Now I just need to figure out a rain cover to buy for it.

Which parks do we go to on what days? – Yes, vacationing with family means being flexible.Fact is that at Disney World reservations for dining book quickly. If we do not set up plans in the 90 days before our trip, we may not get our preferred times to dine (if we can get them at all). Thanks to this, we know our magic 90 day date and have to figure out where we would like to dine so we can attempt to make reservations. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Just note that JL eats vegetarian when out, but this includes fish like salmon (no seafood like shrimp/clams/scallops/lobster).

When will Disney release the park hours for May? – We only have one month before we can schedule our advanced dining reservations (ADR). That means we would like to know the hours of the parks to figure out where we should go. The only definite plan now is to go to the Magic Kingdom the first full day we are there. Beyond that it is hard to know without the hours. We certainly do not want to hop buses for reservations, we would rather just spend the time we want at the park that we will dine at later on.

Should we take our laptop with us? – The easy answer would be no, but TechyDad and I are not sure we want to be without it. Aside from taking the bag with us on the flight, the real issue is internet service. Believe it or not, Disney does not have Wifi at their resorts. We were pretty surprised with that. Disney also charges for use of internet while on grounds. The rate at this point is $10 for a 24 hour period. This is something we will definitely be debating.

What should we do on JSL’s 2nd birthday? – We will actually be at Disney World for the little guy’s birthday. Sure he will not really appreciate a lot of it, but we still have to do something special for him. We will likely do a character meal on that day, but not 100% sure what at this point. Of course we are hoping that he will not be terrified of the costumes like his big brother.

Should we take the travel insurance for the trip? – Right now we are waiting for the information sheets about this from the travel agent. I want to know what benefit it has over what the hotel and airline will cover anyway.

Thanks to these and a few other quetions, we have been doing a lot of research. Amazing people online in the Disney forums, on Twitter, along with other friends and family have been weighting in on some of them.