Fresh&Easy $1 Bottle Big Kahuna Wine Sale? Don't mind if I do...

I'm a HUGE fan of Fresh&Easy and have been since they opened here in Southern California.  I have done a large percentage of my grocery shopping there ever since!

I wanted to be sure you heard about the absolutely fantastic wine sale they are having today through Sunday on their Big Kahuna wine label, if you haven't tried them yet, they are great great wines at prices that you won't believe (here in So Cal, we pay $1.97/bottle!).  With all your favorite varieties like Shiraz, Cabernet, Tempranillo, Chardonnay, Merlot and other blends, you are sure to find a great one and can't go wrong.  I always keep a few bottles on hand as everyday wine and no one believes me when I tell them the price!

So, the exciting part?  At all Fresh&Easy locations the Big Kahuna wines are on sale for ($1/bottle at the Southern California stores)!!!  Yes, stock up time!

And yes, the above picture was indeed taken today, but isn't my trunk (it's my friend's trunk!), but that's not saying I won't be doing the same later this weekend!  The stores are ready and have tons of cases ready for you!

 

Note:  I was invited to participate in a Fresh&Easy online Twitter party highlighting these wines and provided a gift card to purchase them, but to be 100% honest, I already had most of the wines and already love/keep them on hand!

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Channeling My Inner Heidi and Yodeling

I've mentioned it many times before, but seriously, how much can a person love their house?  The last few mornings we have been waking up to this behind our fences... sheep!

The neighboring farm (which is the next phase development for new homes) is still being farmed and they use sheep to eat back the plants in the field that aren't caught up in the hay baler. 

I seriously felt like braiding my hair and romping through the fields channeling Heidi as I listened to the bells of the sheep and watched the sheep dogs gracefully keep their flock in check.  For the record I didn't yodel, but the thought did cross my mind...

What fun!

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What's your internet connection called? It says a lot about you!

We're a little geeky around our house (my husband is in IT, so it's expected).  We like to have fun naming our portal to the internet (aka our WiFi). 

When we first moved in to our neighborhood, the cable guy didn't give us a choice in naming our connection and we always meant to change it but never got around to it.  Recently a new company with a fancy fiber connection moved in to the neighborhood and everyone on the street has been switching like crazy (including us!). 

We knew this was our time to seize the moment and come up with something unique, other than our last name as the name.  My husband chimed in of course and decided he wanted it called Oswald.  Yeah... he's a big Disney fan too.

My neighbor switched to the fancy new service too and asked me for ideas.  Immediately I decided Nemo would be a good name (they are a very tropical crew and even complete with a fish tattoo to match being Disney lovers).  How perfect I explained that they could ask their house guests "If they had found Nemo...".  They have that sense of humor.  And the fate of their WiFi connection name was set.

Come to find out the technician said that people come up with all sorts of crazy names for their connections, one of his favorites being Nacho Connection - this one is just so dang funny on so many levels, say it out loud if you aren't getting at least two reasons!  Another hilarious one was Child Pornography, well, because who would be stupid enough to break in to that and steal connection?

Another hilarious one I've seen floating around the internet is to name it FBI Surveillance Van.  It's enough to scare you're neighbors, right?

A fun one would be to name it Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, because seriously who would ever be able to spell it correctly enough?  (yes, I looked it up)

Go ahead, make my day.  Pedophile.  I'm watching you.  Dark side.  All mention worthy in my book.

Now I asked a poll of my friends and sure enough most are pretty boring, naming them after pets, ahem - you know who you are.  Given a few minutes of creativity, what would you name your connection?  Because well, we can all use a good laugh when we can get it, right?

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School is Back in Session - Let the lunch packing commence!

Kids are back to school and it's time to get back in to the lunch groove! I used to find packing school lunches to be a challenge. I've had to get creative over the years because until recently Kyle (my youngest) hasn't been interested in having sandwiches in his lunch and Brett (my oldest) has never been a fan of sandwiches.

Packing healthy, nutritious lunches has taken a lot of creative thinking on my part, but I finally feel like I've gotten the hang of it. Ok... so the boys coming home frequently saying the other kids were jealous of their yummy lunches was also a big clue I was on the right path!

One of my favorite "tricks" for their lunches is to pack left overs from dinner the night before. For example tonight I made chicken breasts in the slow cooker, with rice and salad on the side. The boys LOVED the dinner, so I have these fantastic split dish containers that I portioned out some of the left over rice. Add a mandarin orange, granola bar and yogurt cup and the kids have a super easy, nutritious and filling lunch that you can be proud of!

To save time I portion out the containers as we are cleaning up from dinner so it saves me tons of time when I'm getting their lunches packed up. The widespread use of re-usable lunch totes has made it easier than ever to send kids with containers that you know won't be thrown away. I make use of those to the fullest! I've sent the kids with taco leftovers, spaghetti left overs, slider hamburgers (made at home so I know what is in them!), bruschetta and more.

Also don't forget one of these super cute kids re-usable ice packs to keep yogurts and other goodies cold! I'll share some of our favorite packed lunches over the next few weeks and would love to hear (and feature!) some of your lunches (email me OCMomActivities at gmail dot com).

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Feeling like the luckiest Mom on the planet!

Last week was my Birthday and one of my sons (age 8) decided he was going to make me breakfast in bed.  It was a school day, so I humored him and was sure it would get lost in the shuffle.

Sure enough the morning of my Birthday, I heard rustling by my bed side every few minutes starting at abut 6 am and the constant turning on of my cell phone to check the time.  I pretended to sleep.  At about 10 minutes before my alarm was to go off, I was gently nudged awake by my son followed with "Happy Birthday Mom!"

Sitting on my nightstand was a cup of peppermint hot chocolate (in a specially picked mug he explained he found at the back of the cupboard), bowl of cereal, bowl of ice cream and a beautiful card.

My heart melted to see how hard he had been working on making my morning special all on his own.

Feeling like the luckiest mom on the planet!

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Tiramisu Birthday Cake!

Someone is celebrating a Birthday this week - me! 

I had to share this picture of the gorgeous Tiramisu cake that my neighbor made for me, I'm so touched she would create such a work of art for me!  Tiramisu is one of my most favorite desserts, so a whole Tiramisu cake is just pure deliciousness to me!

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Cloud watching to get the morning off to a great start! ~ Semi-Wordless Wednesday

Sometimes it's the simple things in life that get the day off to a great start... the other day it was this gorgeous view from my kitchen window.

What gets your day off to a great start?

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Things that go bump in the night

Life has been crazy the last couple of weeks!  With the boys back at school, I've been able to get back in to my intense workout routine.  I'm exhausted by the end of the day!

Tonight as I was getting ready to close everything up for the night and head to bed, my dog started barking like crazy at the screen door.  Worried that we had some rouge wild animal on the prowl in my backyard, I flipped the light on and saw ... nothing.

A couple minutes later, he was barking again, this time looking intently at something on the ground just outside the screen door.  Afraid I'd see a snake or some other wildlife, I took my I'm ready for whatever this might be stance and flipped the light on.  I didn't see anything, but the motion sensor light came on immediately, so I opened the screen door and peeked out.  I didn't see anything until I peeked over to my right and there he was, the little bugger toad that has been digging causeway under passes between my neighbors house and mine!

I really don't mind frogs, they are one animal I'm ok with, but the swiss cheese he has made along the fence line one one side is pushing me to my limits.  Anyone have any ideas for how to get rid of this bugger?  He's about the size of a closed fist!

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Summer Memories and Back to School Traditions

Summer has come to an end and my boys started school yesterday :(

To celebrate a great Summer full of memories we will cherish forever, DayTrippingMom and I met up with all our kids to have some root beers at The Rootbeer Company in Old Town Temecula.

The kids held their drinks up!

What back to school traditions does your family have?

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Hummingbird in my garden ~ Semi-Wordless Wednesday

Love this little hummingbird!  We have a dozen or so that frequent our yard several times a day.  They have a super inquisitive personality and come right up to us to say hello as we are out in the garden.  Red, blue, green, purple, white - we have so many varieties that I never knew existed!

Happy Wednesday!

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