Geocaching at McDonald's on Leap Day (spoilers!!)

Today I wanted to do something special with my kids when they got home from school. I decided to take them to McDonald's for milkshakes. I took my niece and my mans son as well. My sister and father decided to meet us there to celebrate as well.

They had to stop for gas so while we were waiting for them to arrive at McDonald's we wanted to try another time to find the geocache hidden there. We had looked back in May but had no luck finding it.

The title of the geocache was "This cache can be seen from the highway". That gave me a pretty good clue as to where it was hidden.

I spotted the magnetic key holder underneath the base of the huge McDonald's sign that indeed could be seen from the highway or probably a half mile away at least. The outside of the bag was a little damp but the log inside was dry and wrapped around a silica gel packet. I thought that was an excellent idea! I will be keeping that in mind for the future geocaches I create. Our total of geocache finds is now 68.

Once my father and sister arrived we went inside and got our milkshakes. I let the kids choose what they wanted. Three wanted shamrock shakes and my son wanted a chocolate milkshake. 

My daughter didn't realize that a shamrock shake was mint so she took one sip and didn't anymore. I drank it and bought her an Oreo McFlurry. My son also hates whipped tipping so he did not like his chocolate milk shake either. Boy I have such picky children. 

Geocaching Leap Day Weekend (spoilers!!!)

Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was just under 60 degrees. A perfect day for my son and I to go geocaching. I got out my geocaching t-shirt and we got our boots on and headed off.

The first geocache we went to find was called Great Bend 155 mm. The coordinates led us to the Musa-Stiles VFW Post 6223. There was a number of places it could have been hidden but we found it in a little hiding spot on the cannon. Great place for a hide but I think there were lots of other hiding places that would have been better as the log was soaked. The hint for this was "You will have to feel for this one". i I am thinking that whoever found this last might have moved it because I noticed it as I walked by without having to feel for anything.

If they had hid this in the gun book compartment it would have stayed dry. 

The second geocache we went to find was called Great Bend Hose Co. No. 1. The coordinates led us to a place I recognized easily by the name. As we got closer I assumed the cache would be hidden in the rocks somewhere. We looked around awhile and then my 8 year old son reminded me to look for a hint. The hint said "Oh say can you see..." I read it out loud and said hmm something to do with a flag. I was looking at the building for one and my son ran behind me to a flag pole and lifted the bottom up and there was the cache. He was so excited to find it and laughed at my airhead moment that I didn't even notice the flag pole there.

The third geocache we went to find was very close by. It was called "Tie" Down. I drove along the road as far as I could and parked in a local park called the Billy Greenwood Memorial Park. As soon as we parked and got out a couple of kids ran up the bank and yelled to us that this was their territory and for us to get the f out. Not a very nice welcome to a public park. 

We left the park and walked .20 miles down the railroad tracks to a light wooded area. The coordinates were absolutely spot on with this one which is always a huge help. At GZ I spotted this within seconds. Unfortunately the metal can was crushed on the one side so it was very hard to pry open. We had brought a long tradeables so I was determined to get this open for my son. I got out my knife and pride it open only to see it was all moldy and wet inside. I marked on the app that we found it but it needs maintenance. I am always sad to see a fun hide wind up damaged. 

My son enjoyed our day out geocaching and our total is now at 67. Since we found a geocache on Leap Day weekend we also earned a new souvenir. 

You must do this to complete your Smiley360 missions and earn a badge

If you are a member of Smiley360 pay attention to what I am going to tell you. I missed out on earning a badge and completing a mission because I was sure I had completed all the tasks. You must reach at least 40 points per mission. I did that. In fact I was at 47. So I thought for sure I had done all that I was supposed to.

I received an email saying I had not yet completed the mission and would not earn a badge. I was irritated by this and so I emailed them. It went back and forth for a bit getting emails from the company which didn't seem to know what they were talking about. Finally I got the correct answer though and with it completed the next mission and earned the badge!

Not only do you have to reach 40 points you also HAVE to share at least once to twitter, facebook, face-to-face AND to SmileyConnect. If you do not share at least one to each of those you will not finish your mission or receive a badge.

The thing I had missed out on with the InkJoy Pens mission was that I didn't see anyone to share face to face information. My children had been sick so I had not seen any family or friends to talk about the products face to face so I left it blank. Had I known that I absolutely had to at least report one face to face I would have went out of my way to find someone to talk about this product to in person.

At least now I know for future missions. I hope that my writing this will help you finish your missions and earn a badge as well!

I originally wrote this post on personapaper.com on February 24, 2015. The site is shutting down and I never earned any payment. I have transferred this post here on this awesome new blog site and deleted the article on personapaper.

Smiles4Keeps Dentistry complaint

At the end of 2015 my son went for a cleaning at our regular dentist office. We found out that my son has 4 cavities. They are in between his molars on top and bottom on the right hand side of his mouth. Unfortunately at this office they can only fix one cavity at a time. They gave me the option of going to somewhere else that could fill them all at once.

I asked around and was told that Smiles4Keeps in Scranton PA is a pediatric dentist will do them all at once.

I waited along time for the xrays from our dentist to send them to me. When they came they were terrible photocopies. When we went to our first appointment at Smiles4Keeps on January 15, 2016. They didn't think the xrays were good enough so took some of their own and set us up with an appointment to come back another day.

Today was the day. I was up all night worrying. I got my daughter off to school and got my son breakfast and dramamine so he wouldn't get car sick. He had to fast for 4 hours so nothing after 8am. He was very hungry by the time we arrived at noon for our appointment.

A girl took us back to the consultation room and told my son she would take him to drink a sedative. He asked me to go with him. I told her that he wanted me to go with them. She said that I could do this but when the time came in an hour for his dental work to be done I would not be allowed to be back in the room with him. I asked him if he could be brave and go with her and get it all done. He wouldn't and I could not see making him do something that will traumatize him so we left.

My son has terrible anxiety since his father died. He has been in an out of therapy for years. He follows me from room to room around the house. He does not feel safe being away from me. Taking him back to get a shot in his gums and having a cavity drilled would be absolutely terrifying for him.

I cannot understand what the reasons would be to not allow parents in the room to comfort the children. The girl told me why the parents aren't allowed with the patients but she didn't speak English well at all so even after I asked her to repeat herself I still could not understand.

Now I have to find another pediatric dentist to take him to who will probably also want to take their own xrays. I do not want him having any more taken. This was two wasted trips of an hour drive one way as well as two days missed of school.

My review of Reynold's Cookie Baking Sheets Parchment Paper

As a member of Crowdtap I was sent a package of Reynold's Cookie Baking Sheets parchment paper to test out for free. In the package were 25 pre-cut sheets.

Over the years with failure after failure made while trying to make cookies I can tell you one of the most important things you can use to improve your cookies is to use parchment paper. I have never used these pre-cut sheets before but found them very handy.

The first challenge I was to do for Crowdtap was to try out a new cookie recipe and make them on the Reynold's Cookie Baking Sheets parchment papers. I found a tasty looking cookie recipe at Carl's Bad Cravings. The link to the cookies is here : Soft and Chewy S'more Cookies

I followed the directions and they turned out perfectly. They were very easy to make and tasted amazing. They were a big hit with everyone in my house.

Tonight my Sample mission is due so during a hectic day today I needed to make a quick batch of cookies to complete another challenge for Crowdtap. In my cabinet I had a package of Betty Crocker Pumpkin Spice cookie mix. The challenge was to bake one pan of the cookies using parchment paper and one without to see the difference. I thought a better way to get more accurate results would be to cut the parchment paper in half and cook half the cookies on the pan coated with cooking spray and the other half on the parchment paper.

The picture is hard to tell but in the cookies cooked on parchment paper they turned out perfect and chewy. The ones on the pan without the parchment paper were browned and slightly over done on the edges and bottoms. There was no mess left on the pan where the parchment paper. The cookies on the pan without the parchment paper left a little cookie residue behind but nothing major. I just got lucky with these cookies because it really does make a huge difference with some cookies if you use parchment paper or not.

I tried geocaching for the first time and failed miserably

I have recently decided that a fun hobby for my kids and I to do would be geocaching. I tried out a few free apps but one would not work with my phone and the other isn't good enough to find things. While my kids and I were out yesterday I downloaded the geocaching app by groundspeak for $9.99.

The kids and I were really excited to try this so we searched for nearby caches. The closest one was right in the walmart plaza that we were in.

I could not understand the compass so my daughter just walked around until the amount of feet lowered and then we knew we were close. It said 0 feet and we still could not find it. We searched for along time. I gave up before my kids did.

I was so disappointed and so were the kids. We left and I was in tears on the way home getting their hopes up like that and then failing so badly.

After I got the kids to bed I tried looking up some information on how to do it and some of the terms used. I realized that even though the cache was close that is not the one we should have tried to find the first time. It was an extremely difficult one.

The kids asked me to try again since they got up. Its 10:30 am and I finally am having my coffee after doing the dishes and laundry. We are going to head out locally and try to find some of the easier ones. There are a lot in the area. It's going to be a beautiful day so wish us luck!

I added a picture of a screen shot I took of what the compass looks like. I am so confused I don't know how to read the compass if I am the white or the orange direction.

I originally wrote this post on personapaper.com on May 3, 2015. The site is shutting down and I never earned any payment. I am transferring some of my posts here on this awesome new blog site and deleting the articles on personapaper.

Broccoli and Tortellini Salad recipe fail

I love trying out new recipes. I saw one on pinterest that looked like a dish I had eaten that my sister made about a year ago. It took me a long time to get all the different ingredients to make this dish. Savingstar.com had a healthy cash back offer for 20% back on fresh broccoli. I thought this was the perfect time to make this dish so I picked some up some Broccoli at Walmart on Saturday and made this dish last night.

The recipe is called Broccoli and Torellini Salad. You can find the original recipe by AMFC on allrecipes.com at this link Broccoli and Tortellini Salad.

The recipes is :

• 6 slices bacon
• 20 ounces fresh cheese-filled tortellini
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 tsps cider vinegar
• 3 heads fresh broccoli, cut into florets
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1 red onion, finely chopped

1. Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook tortellini in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente. Drain, and rinse under cold water.
3. In a small bowl, mix together mayonnaise, sugar and vinegar to make the dressing.
4. In a large bowl, combine broccoli, tortellini, bacon, raisins, sunflower seeds and red onion. Pour dressing over salad, and toss

Simple enough recipe. I wanted this to be the best it could be so I browsed through the reviews that others had posted who made this dish. I decided to make this as Mom2Be! suggested by following these two different steps she wrote :  

•  Blanch brocolli peices in almost boiling water for about 1 minute, scoop out and put in ice water to shock and produce a beautiful green 
• If you use frozen tortelinni, cook for only 2-3 minutes in not-quite-boiling water- they will be done enough, any longer and they will be mushy and fall apart 

Like Mom2Be! I decided to skip the onion as I am not a huge fan of fresh onions. I like them sauteed or fried.

The other differences I made to the original recipe was I only used 2 heads of broccoli and being a vegetarian left out the bacon. I doubled the amount of dressing. After mixing all the ingredients I covered it and put it in the fridge for about 24 hours. I took it out and stirred it up. Here is a photo right after I mixed it today before dishing it out to sample.

Looks pretty good right? Wrong! Check out the next picture after I took out a bowl full. It was so watery. I should not have doubled the dressing at all!

I hated this dish! I really don't think I will be able to eat any more of this. I might try draining out the extra dressing or simply just throw the whole thing away. I really loathe wasting food. I ate this about an hour ago and my stomach is still queasy. I am hugely picky about the food I eat. This ruined my appetite for the rest of the night.

My review of Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners

As a member of Crowdtap I was sent a package of Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners to test out for free. In the package are 4 liners. My first thoughts were that there is no way these thing plastic bags are going to work. I thought they would tare from scooping out and stirring ingredients or melt from the heat.

The first recipe I tested out the liners with is Crock pot Cinnamon Roll French Toast. The recipe I used can be found at this link : Crock Pot Cinnamon Roll French Toast Recipe

Although it took hours longer to cook in my crock pot then the recipe said it was very easy to make and absolutely delicious. It was so rich though I was only able to eat a little bit. This was a huge hit in our house everyone who tried it loved it. I took some over and shared the extra that was left with my father.

I think this would have been easier to dish out on plates if it didn't have the liner. It was so sticky to scoop out that it kept pulling the liner out. It made it so much easier when we were finished eating this to just toss the liner out. There was no cleaning needed to the crock pot at all. This next photo is how clean the crock pot was after removing the dirty liner.

The second recipe I tested out I combined a few different recipes to make my own batch of chili. I won't bother including the recipe as it wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be. I will however share a photo with you of it.

I cooked this for about 6 hours on high. It was so hot that it was bubbling. The liner didn't seem to hold up as well as my previous test as there was a little chili sauce that had seeped through the bag somehow. It was easy to wipe clean with a wet cloth though.

I still have one liner left for another day but the third recipe I will be sharing with you is Slow-Cooker Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. I made this last night for Valentine's day dinner. Here is the link to the recipe Recipe on Betty Crockers site

This was by far my favorite of the three recipes I tried. It was delicious. It took 40 minutes longer to cook in my crock pot then the recipe instructions said. I think what made this so easy to cook was that once it cooled I could carefully life out the liner and peel it off to set it on a fresh plate to add frosting.

I really hate using products that I just toss away as I hate clogging up the landfill. I would him and haw highly on when to use these liners as the little time soaking a dirty crock pot in water and elbow grease doesn't hurt. If you are going to cook a cake in the crock pot though these liners are a must!

My review of Hello toothpaste

As a member of Smiley360 I was sent a smileykit for Hello toothpaste to test out for free.

In my Smileykit I received :

One tube of hello kids fluoride toothpaste in bubble gum
One tube of hello kids fluoride toothpaste in blue raspberry
One tube of hello kids fluoride free toothpaste in watermelon

I have never used natural toothpaste before so I was nervous about the effectiveness of it. We always use whitening toothpaste because of all the tea and coffee we drink. This actually polishes teeth very well and they were left looking white without any whitening agents.

The first tube we tried was the watermelon. It smells amazing. It smelled like scented body lotion. My son disliked it so much that he would not agree to try any of the other flavors. I thought it had a really bad aftertaste. My daughter however really liked it. It is flouride free and I felt that my children would benefit more from flouride toothpaste so I gave this to my little nephew who is 3. He hugged it and was so excited he said he loves toothpaste. Little ones are so much easier to please.

My daughter and I tried Bubble Gum next. My daughter and I both picked this as our favorite. My daughter has used this each night since we tested it out. I don't actually like it enough to use it. It tastes just like the bubblegum polish they clean your teeth with at a dentist office.

The last tube that my daughter and I tried was the Blue Raspberry. Neither of us liked this it was very sour. I sent this tube over for my niece to try.

This hello toothpaste has no dyes, no artificial sweeteners and no SLS. That is the best part is how healthy this is to use. I don't like my children having dyes in their food. I never even thought about toothpaste containing dyes. I don't think coloring toothpaste is necessary. It works just as well without dye and is healthier.

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