Aloha Friday | The Angel Forever

Category Archives Aloha Friday

Magical vacation memories

Posted on May 8, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Timing really is everything. Today a package arrived with two pairs of Mickey Mouse ears for the boys. I happened to win a giveaway from MousekeTIPS, the vidcast for Destinations in Florida. Their first weeks giveaway was for a Walt Disney World package that included Mickey Mouse ears, a Pirate Donald stuffed friend and a surprise. Guess what we did when we saw the Mouse Ears? Here is a clue:

Of course, we all took turns. . . even the kids at heart!

Can you tell we are basically ready for Disney World?

So my questions for this week are inspired by our upcoming trip:

What was the most magical vacation that you have been on? Have you ever been to Walt Disney World? If you have, what was your favorite experience.

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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.

Aloha #47

Categories:
Aloha Friday brothers Disney fun jl jsl laughs nhl photos travel vacation

Measuring my daily steps

Posted on May 1, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

It is confession time here at Chez Angel. When in elementary, middle and high school I was the student that could not stand PE class. I hated running, jumping, and climbing. The weeks that we did gymnastics I would cringe. Just the thought of getting sweaty and having to change made me physically ill.

Through the years I have always made excuses about not having time to work out. Several years ago I was lucky and lost a lot of weight with Weight Watchers and never did anything above and beyond that. This time around sticking to points did not cut it. I was older and my metabolism had changed after my second pregnancy. As I have previously mentioned on my blog, I finally found a workout that I really like. Leslie Sansone makes a Walk at Home DVD series. Sure walking sounds easy, but Sansone makes you move and use all of the muscles in your body. Over the last few weeks, I have grown to love these daily workouts and actually get upset if I skip a day.

As I was walking, kicking and sweating away, I was curious about how many steps I was doing. Everyone would always talk about the magic 10,000 daily steps that are key to your health. Was I getting these without my workout or did these 2-5 miles with Leslie Sansone push me over the edge? I started to investigate pedometers. I wanted something that was not going to break easily and that I could toss in my pocket. Below is what I finally found and decided to splurge on:

My new Omron HJ-112 pocket pedometer finally arrived on Tuesday. I quickly calibrated it and put it on. After a few hours I had 1,508 steps. Then it was time to do a 3 mile workout with Leslie Sanson. In 45 minutes I was able to do 39 minutes of Aerobic moving and 4,083 steps! So in the few hours that I wore the pedometer I had almost 6,000 steps.

Wednesday I wore the pedometer the entire day. In the morning, while I finished up my laundry and the little guy slept, I put The Biggest Loser on my DVR and watched it while power walking. I walked for 51 minutes (Aerobic according to the pedometer) and did 6,195 steps. Later in the day, the boys went outside to play. I stayed inside for part of it and did 3 of the Fat Burning Miles with Leslie Sansone. That was another 38 minutes of Aerobic exercise and 4,144 additional steps. For the day I had 13,394 steps.

I am hooked and love this handy dandy little gizmo. It motivates me to do more and lets me keep track of what I have done during the day. I can not wait to see how many steps and miles I log while at Disney World.

So my question for this week:

Have you ever had a pedometer or thought about buying one? If you have used one, do you find that you walk more when you use it?

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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.

Aloha #46

Categories:
Aloha Friday exercise me moments milestone photos

Books for boys

Posted on April 23, 2009 11:03 pm by TheAngelForever

Growing up I remember reading several different book series. My Uncle J and Aunt A hooked me on the Polk Street School books by Patricia Reilly Giff. I recall going out with them to have pizza, playing Pacman at the arcade and going to the book store to get something to read.

There were other series that I read as a child. I quickly became a fan of the Ramona Quinby books by Beverly Clearly. In addition to this, I loved the Anastasia Krupnik books by Lois Lowry (author of Number the Stars) and adored reading about Peter and Fudge in the books by Judy Blume.

As a college student who was an education major, I read a lot of children’s literature. Some of these include Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling), Junie B Jones (Barbara Park), Cam Jansen Mystery books (David A. Adler), Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket) to name a few. As a teacher I read even more. While teaching Language Arts I read many of the books that my students were reading outside of class to keep up with their interests.

This past summer we decided that NHL was ready to start listening to chapter books with us. I had bought a copy of Dinosaurs Before Dark, the first book in the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pop Osborne.

Originally I started reading the books with NHL, but soon JL took over and it became a nightly thing for them. Over the months the boys have been reading the books here and there. Last night NHL and JL finished book #40 in the series. Today I requested the newest book from the library.

So my question for youthis week:

What series of books did you read as a child, or did your children read, that you would recommend for a little boy? NHL is in kindergarten and loves to read so the more ideas the better.

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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.

Aloha #45

Categories:
Aloha Friday books looking back nhl

Lots of lists

Posted on April 17, 2009 12:03 am by TheAngelForever

I admit it, I am a list person. For some reason I do better when I have lists of items that need to get accomplished and can manually cross them off as they are finished. In the past, I have made the following lists:

Things to do during a given day
Groceries needed
Questions to ask the doctor
Coupons needed for a store run
Presents that we need for upcoming birthdays/holidays
Meals for the upcoming week
Items to do at home (when I was teaching)
Phone calls that need to be made

As you can imagine we had a lot of lists for Passover. Now that Pesach is officially over, I can concentrate on the lists that need to be made for our upcoming trip to Disney World. Off the top of my head I need to do the following:

Documents that need to be taken with us
Clothing that needs to be bought before trip (shorts for everyone)
Questions for TSA about bringing medication on the airplane
Items we need to pack (clothing, diapering needs, food, medicine, toiletries and the like)
Things to bring on the airplane to keep the kids entertained (this will be their first flight)
Rides/shows we hope to see at each of the parks

Call it the teacher in me, but lists work well for me. It helps me to organize my thoughts and work toward the goals needed. So my question for you this week:

Are you a list person? Why or why not?

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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.

Aloha #44

Categories:
Aloha Friday Disney looking back me moments

Chuck E Cheese memories

Posted on April 10, 2009 7:37 am by TheAngelForever

Growing up I can recall going to Chuck E Cheese. We did not go there a lot, but when we did it was a fabulous treat. I loved playing all of the different video games, going on rides, watching shows and earning prizes. Of course, my little brother did not like it at first. He was quite afraid of Chuck E Cheese and would hide under the table.

NHL does not like Chuck E Cheese. We think it has something to do with the costumed rodent. He does not like costumes, which will make Disney World interesting in a few weeks. Thanks to NHL we have not been to Chuck E Cheese in a while. Last Thursday my mother had the day off from work and I mentioned that I had a lot of tokens left from our last visit. She and I went to Chuck E Cheese with JSL.

This was really the first time he had been there since he would romp around and try things. At 23 months old he was a little overwhelmed with all of the items, but thanks to no crowds quickly got used to everything. Eventually he tried a few rides, loves the car driving game and played many games of Skee Ball with me. Here are some photos from our trip.

So my question to you this week, assuming you have been to Chuck E Cheese in the past and recently:

What do you think of the new look at Chuck E Cheese? Do you prefer the old style or the new? If you have never been, what is your favorite arcade game?

BTW – Don’t forget to enter my giveaways for the Exergen Temporal Scanner and Tie Buddies.

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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.

Aloha #43