For the one you love to the moon and back

     I recently was offered the opportunity to receive a bracelet at a discount for an honest review on Amazon.  I was so excited. I have a wonderful friend who uses this phrase about her children and grandchildren and ends it with something about and even more than ice cream.  I don't know about all that.  I mean ice cream is good stuff.  (YES I AM KIDDING).  I received the package and was immediately impressed with the jewelry store box it was in.  Great for gift giving.

     I was immediately impressed when I opened the box to reveal my bracelet.  I am still not sure if it will end up in its intended location, but I had given that friend a gift of a sign for her home that said that phrase and another friend had commented how she uses it for her kids too.  So, we will see what friend ends up with that amazing bracelet as a gift.  Well if I don't keep it.

     It is beautifully engraved with the saying  and has some extra charms on the bracelet as well.  I love the playful font they used.  The bracelet slides on nicely.  The only thing I found 'wrong' with it is a preference thing.  Some of the charms are on the adjustable part and some float around the bracelet.  Makes for it to be a little weird initially but overall the bracelet is just amazing.

     Here is a closer look at the bracelet itself.....

     I have seen similar bracelets in the same price range with less detail and less charms. I feel like this is a great value.  You can purchase your own here.

I do not receive anything for you purchasing the item. I only list links for poeple looking to purchase the items I do reviews on.  I hate when I find an item and then want to get it after reading a review and can't locate it.  Definitely a great bracelet.

Why would an orphanage NOT allow adoption?

     So my husband and I have been talking for a couple of years about adoption.  We have weighed in between us on all options.  An infant, an older child, a teenager have all been options we have discussed.  But there is a struggle in that. How would a teenager handle being in a foster to adopt situation.  We have more questions than we have answers.  It is something we definitely want to do this.

     Recently, members of our church went to do a mission trip in Mexico at an orphanage.  I had asked someone so do they do adoptions out of the orphanage?  It was something we would consider.  I was told no the children from the orphanage are not adopted out.  That broke my heart. I am not saying these children are not shown love.  I am not saying they are not educated.  But, what do these children do at 21 when they are getting married and need someone to walk them down the aisle.  What do they do when Christmas comes?  There is no family for these children.  No one to go talk to about their problems they just grow up and get out.

     I sincerely do not want to think about the lives these children will have as adults.  Yes they may be well versed in the bible, and they may have people who come in for a week and work with them and then leave.  So their frame of reference is I have met many wonderful people. But they just stay for a little while. They don't know the love of a family that will stay with you.

    I have decided to write a letter to this orphanage and ask them why they don't adopt any of the children they get.  This would make room for another homeless child and give the children they have there a wonderful life.  Just because an American church pay them money every month should not stop them from helping these children find a forever home.  I am very upset about this.  As we struggle to figure out what we will do knowing there are children out there that were orphaned, who would probably love to have a mom and dad, are being refused that right just bothers me.

Shieldo Sport Sunglasses Review

     My first review item I have to share is a great set of Polarized sunglasses.  View this item here!  I was really excited to get these glasses.  My husband has spent a small fortune on sunglasses.  He recently purchased a pair of Costas and another pair that I can't recall the name previous to that from Ron Jons Surf Shop.  

     I never really got what was so big about polarized lenses till I got my Bahko shades.  But once I had a pair I got it.  It is almost like life in HD.  When my package of sunglasses arrived, I honestly thought ok, these retail for $60 normally.  I had a small discount to purchase them.  But I honestly had thought the quality just wouldn't be there because of the price.  I was wrong.  

     They came in a very sturdy protective case and when we opened the case the glasses themselves were inside of a soft bag to keep them from getting scratched.  I was impressed with all of that because like the more expensive brand name glasses they come with that as well.  Then the tests.  We went outside with them.  They do have very good polarized lenses.  I was happily surprised.  It has a nice plastic attachment on the inside that will help them stay comfortable on your face.  Also the sides of the glasses have a little bit of a bend to them so you don't have to worry about breaking them easily.  

     The only confusion I had was that it does state the lenses are interchangeable.  It didn't come with an extra set of lenses and I never saw where you could purchase replacement lenses.  That being said, I am very impressed with these glasses.  They have great definition when you look through them.  For the price they are an amazing deal.  They also have a LIFETIME breakage warranty for frames and lenses.  I went back to the posting and it does say that there is supposed to be a second pair of lenses.  I will check that package again, if not I guess I will have to check with them on the other pair of lenses.  I will update this blog if I locate the lenses and post a photo with the other lenses.

Things have been quiet lately! Sorry about that!

Well I started a new job.  Like with any new change in your life things have to be reassigned and reevaluated.  We have had to realign all of the things I did when I was home all the time so that some other people could pick up the slack.  So, we have been working towards a new norm and the family stuff and home stuff came first.

In that time, we have finished tiling our bathroom floor.  For a small room that was a lot of cutting.....probably why there was so much.  We then realized we are noticing some mold spots that keep showing up in our other bathroom.  I think we have to pull out my dream spa tub that came with the house and find out where they put the short cuts in that room.  I don't like that things were done half way in this house.  But, it is what it is.

We have also been struggling with our church.  You see, my son had been waiting since March to get together with our minister. The minister had offered to sit with him and work through some of his transition issues.  Well the call never came. I had gone to the minister a few times about his need for some guidance outside of our immediate family.  It wasn't followed up with.  My son pretty much turned away from the church we have been attending since shortly after we moved here.  He wanted to check out some other churches in the area so we have been doing that.  Sad part is noone from our old church has asked if we are ok or anything.  That has kind of made me not want to go there either.
We are also getting an exchange student in 2 weeks so we have been overhauling a bathroom for a while but now need to step it up.

This whole making a new schedule thing and keeping the house up and getting it where we want it to be has been tortuous haha.  But we are getting there.  I also started getting discounts to do reviews on Amazon!  So I have a LOT of reviews coming up.  Make sure you stay tuned because like life we review tons of things.

Again sorry for the short hiatus but I had to get straight again and just pull it all together.

Bahko Shades - Amazing

So I will start out by telling you....I know the owner of this company. I grew up with him.  We hadn't talked in a number of years till I caught up with him on Facebook.  Then he started talking about this new company he was working on.  It is called Bahko Shades.  They are made out of wood and have polarized lenses. He was doing some work on getting the name of the company out and he did  a drawing for a pair of shades.  You earned an entry each time you shared information on fb etc about the sunglasses.  My name got drawn.  So when they came in I was sooo excited!

Ok so I will admit.  I never in my life have worn polarized lenses.  I first tried them on when we went to visit my cousin in Cocoa Beach.  And i was shocked the things you can see that you maybe couldn't without that type of lens.  They are really light weight.  I was really surprised that they were so light weight. I guess I thought everything that was wood was heavy.

They came in a nice zipper case which also had a cloth bag inside to store your glasses in.  I love how beautiful the wood-grain in these glasses is as well.  Very beautiful wood and gorgeous coloring.  Since I had never used polarized lenses before I was laughing.  My phone looked like it was 3D.  It was awesome.

Feel free to check out their website.  I am really excited about the lines of wood that will be coming.  I am already eyeballing a few of them.  Im so excited.  I am listing his business card below. Check out the site.  Get yours.  You will NOT be disappointed.

Toilet On a Mission. Church fundraising in a new and unusual form.....

So....we finally got it.  We finally got the toilet.  At church one Sunday evening, there was a brightly colored pot.....well some people call it a pot.  Let's be honest.  It was a toilet.  This toilet will be traveling around town to raise funds for our churches Mission Trip to Mexico to help an orphanage.

So my daughter (you would think she was five and it was Christmas) would get out of her bed in the am and immediately look outside to see if they got us with the toilet.  You can buy toilet insurance that means if you think a lot of people will pay to put it on your lawn, you can only have to pay $1 to have it removed.  Or you can pay $10 to have it removed if you get it on your lawn.  OR you can pay $10 to have it put on someone else's lawn.

This was awesome!  We paid our $10 to haul it away.  Now just hoping no one else puts it on our lawn haha.  But my daughter was thrilled that we got the toilet.  She posed with my husband with the toilet.  Jeez who does that?  Yup my family.  Great cause though.

If your group is looking for an innovative fundraising idea check this out.  It may work for your group too!

50 cent Fun from Walmart

So, we were in Walmart and I felt like I got swept right back to the 80s.  Shrinky Dinks!  They had a small package of 4 shrinky animals.  They did not call them Shrinky Dinks but lets be honest they are what they are.  Haha.  There was a turtle, an owl, a cat and a frog.  My daughter colored hte turtle and owl.  I colored the cat and the frog.  We put them on the oven and preheated it.  I remembered we had to cut out the hole before we cooked them so we did that.

I vaguely recalled as a child that putting parchment paper under it made it a little easier to cook and not have issues...so we did that too.  Then in the oven it went to bake.

I think the most fun part of this is watching them curl up and thinking there is just no way.  I was shocked, my husband had never done shrinky dinks at all in his life!  I sometimes think he missed out on all of the best things in life.

Finally we had success.  No idea what we will do with them.  Maybe make some bracelets for some of the kids at church.  No idea.

But it was fun.

I did not receive anything for free and I did not get paid to do this blog.