2 FREE Events: Fee Free Day at National Parks & Musuem Day Live! Event

You and your family have an opportunity to attend two FREE events on Saturday, September 29, 2012...a great time of family togetherness, learning and fun!

 Details I found have found at the different websites, with links for more information, a comprehensive list and individual participating museums links for you to have contact information, are below.

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FEE FREE DAYS AT NATIONAL PARKS ACROSS THE NATION

 

If you would like to learn more about Fee Free Days you can read an article written by the Secretary of Interior here. Here is an excerpt providing the dates determined for the Fee Free Days:

"The fee free dates for 2012 are January 14 to 16 (Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend), April 21 to 29 (National Park Week), June 9 (Get Outdoors Day), September 29 (National Public Lands Day), and November 10 to 12 (Veterans Day weekend). More information is available at http://www.nps.gov/findapark/feefreeparks.htm."

For a comprehensive list of the National Parks participating in the Fee Free Days, click here, although I would contact them to confirm prior to packing up the family and heading that way. :D

 

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MUSEUM DAY LIVE! hosted by Smithsonian magazine

In conjunction with this Fee Free Day to the National Parks, will be Museum Day Live! On September 29th, free admission is being offered to various museums across the country. Read here for the details about this event here. Locally, on the list, your family could attend: The Florida Ag Museum, The Lightner Museum, Museum of Arts and Sciences, Museum of Science and History, World Golf Hall of Fame, and many others in DeLand, Jacksonville, Sanford, and Orlando.

 

Visit here for a comprehensive list of participating museums and to check to see if a museum near you is offering free admission. {SIDENOTE:  If you have season membership to the MOAS, MOSH or another museum, don't forget that some of these may be on your "reciprocal list" so my suggestion would be to compare your list to the list online and visit a museum that is NOT on the reciprocal list, since any museum on the reciprocal list could be visited for free during your membership year anyway.}

 

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What a great day of family togetherness and learning this could be...we are definitely planning to take advantage of it! Hope you can too! 

 

Blessings,

 

P.S.  You are invited to participate in a GIVEAWAY I am having.  Click here to read my post about this great gift I received and join in the chance to win the same gift...you're going to LOVE it!  What a blessing!

 

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Visit Life as Mom to read other Frugal Friday posts

 

Forty one...

The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.

I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16:5-11

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Another year, marking life.  In light of Scripture, it causes me to reflect and wonder how my days are spent.  My heart's desire is to use each one to give God glory in all that I do.  How short I have fallen...

One year ago today...

Today is a very special day.  I remember the anticipation….I remember the anxiety of waiting {15 additional days once man’s “anticipated date of arrival” had passed!}…I remember the struggle of resting in God’s PERFECT timing and my great desire to hold the precious gift He was giving our family again.

Minutes after delivery ~ a photo collage of a labor of love

Pictorial Tour Summer 2012

This year’s summer has been a blur!  The year for that matter… In order to keep things in order, blogging had to take a rest for a bit.  Life is full and there are so many things to juggle,  that sometimes things can get out of order if we allow it.  Instead of blogging "about" living...we were in the midst "of" LIVING.  I have missed posting and “visiting” with so many of you, so here is what I hope will serve as a glimpse of our summer and my absence from this blogging world.

 As I sit here I reflect on...

We finished school later than usual this year.  That pushed the End-of-the-Year Home School Celebration & Evaluations get-together we have been hosting the past few years, back a few weeks later, too.  {I was too involved and I did not take one picture!}

Freezer Cooking...

There was a time when I did Once-a-Month Cooking…oh, that was about 4 or 5 children ago.  Now, it is much simpler to double or triple recipes and freeze what we don’t need for that night’s meal.  This is also how I do meals for ministering to a friend in need, a new momma, or “just because” it’s nice to give someone a break.  There is no more real effort or time involved to make one or two extra batches of a recipe and since I try to stay with meals that are casserole or one pot types for those occasions, the mess is not any more than if I prepare one meal.

Some short cuts I take to make meals in a crunch include:

Smoked chicken pulled of the bone and cut into bites...use some, freeze the rest for another quick meal night.

• Freezing extra cooked chicken {pulled off the bone and diced} or ground beef…this method makes it a snap to cook a fast meal like Chicken Alfredo, spaghetti or Sloppy Joes, since the meat is already cooked.
• Freezing extra veggies in a freezer container then adding to it over the course of weeks.  This makes for putting together a homemade pot pie or veggie casserole or soup quick and saves on waste, too.
• Freezing bananas that are a bit too ripe for eating and saving for a future banana nut bread baking day 

Tonight’s meal is a Chicken and Squash Pasta Bake.  It’s the first time I am trying this with a few tweaks to suite our family’s taste buds.  SIMPLE, good tasting and feeds a large family {or 2}.  Works for me!

My kitchen helper for dinner today...cutting squash and onion are a great helper's role. 

This is where I altered the recipe a bit.  Instead of stir frying the squash & onion (omitted the zuchinni since I didn't have any) and added them to the boiling pasta.  Drained them altogether and returned to pot.  Finished by adding the cream, butter, cheese and herbs and then baked.  Keeps the kitchen messes LESS.

YUMMY...fresh squash, herbs, smoked chicken and the cream make this a delish dish!

 Blessings ~

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Visit for more freezer meal recipes at their link up here.