Guest Post

So you’re planning your family vacation? You probably have a dream where the vacation goes perfectly. In these fantasies your family creates beautiful, stress free memories that will be remembered fondly. Unfortunately life does not always turn out the way we want. A child wanders off or a family member becomes injured or arrested. At that point instead of enjoying your vacation, you are spending hours franticly trying to locate the family member. By planning ahead your family will be able to deal with any major problems that can turn your vacation into a nightmare.

Know the Laws

We’ve all heard this story—repeatedly. Upstanding American citizen travels to an exotic location; he or she unknowingly or knowingly breaks a law, and suddenly the individual is facing jail time or major fines. The nightmarish result? Family separation, major fines that can sap the money needed to survive the rest of your vacation, and potentially harsh prison sentences. This is especially a concern when traveling outside the country to regions that are not as forgiving as the American courts.

What can you do to prevent an unfortunate arrest? When traveling to different locations in and out of the United States it is the traveler’s responsibility to research the laws of the region. The supreme court of the United States has ruled that ignorance of common laws is not an accepted defense in criminal trials. You cannot expect countries and states to bend laws for travelers when your own country or state would hold you accountable if you unknowingly broke a common law.

Name Card

Before leaving the country fit every family member with a name card or tag. They can store it in their wallet, purse, or in their backpack. The older members of your family may scoff at this idea, but an accident may occur that leaves the individual unable to communicate with authorities. A name card with all the vital information will give authorities all the information needed to contact family members.

Name cards can also be used by family members that lack the communication skills or maturity to find their way back to family when lost. The cards should be written in both your own language and the language predominately spoken in the region you are visiting. There is no point of having a name tag if no one in the region can decipher it. The name tag is a very simple and cheap way of assuring that family will be able to be located.

Phones

Phones can go a long way in ensuring that your vacation does not become a nightmare. If you lose sight of one of your children, a phoneless child will have to locate a phone before he can call for help. Each family member having cell phones will allow family and parents to call the child as soon as they realize he has wandered off. It’s as simple as pulling out a phone and punching a few buttons.

If your children do not already have cell phones, temporary track phones can be purchased for around $10-$20 dollars. You can pre-purchase minutes for the family to use. Purchasing 60 minutes of call time will cost around $20. Forty dollars is a low price to pay to ensure family safety.

Smartphone GPS Tracking Apps

Phones and name cards while important still leave your family vulnerable. Children may be too young to properly provide visual cues to their location or they may not be able to locate a responsible, trustworthy adult to help them locate you. Installing GPS trackers like LifeCam 360 Family Locator and Traceper onto your smartphone will allow you to locate the exact location of family members. Many GPS tracker Apps are free to use. It is as simple as downloading the software and setting up the software to keep track of all the phones in your family. Smartphones can even be set to track non-smart phones for a small fee.

When planning a vacation, you can do a lot to ensure family safety by spending some time researching the laws of the region. The safety and wellbeing of family can also be increased with the proper technology. Name cards, phones, and smart phone tracking technology will make it a breeze to figure out where missing family members before stress and fear turn your dream vacation into a nightmare.

Naomi Broderick is a professional writer who’s secure in her abilities and even more confident in her parenting. When she’s not juggling her three children in the front yard she writes for ProtectYourHome.com, a leader in security alarms.

I’ve been inspired by my photography lately to play with features and meanings shared through quotes! I took this photo of this bouquet at Pike Place Market in Seattle.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

William Wordsworth

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.
Helen Keller

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
Rabindranath Tagore

Tillamook yogurt is made in the most natural way possible with NO artificial sweeteners, NO artificial flavors, NO artificial colors, NO high fructose corn syrup and NO artificial growth hormones.

To continue to spread the yogurt love, Tillamook wants to send kids some of their yogurts to try and review. They know kids have their own opinions on taste, favorite flavors, etc. and they want to hear what your little ones have to say in whatever way they want to say it – video, pictures, letters, or simply just smiles.

My Challenge:

‘The Kid Reviews’

· Tillamook will send your family Light and Lowfat Yogurt flavors to sample and review, as well as fun Tillamook goodies.

· Dig in and share your child’s review on your blog and social media.

· Tillamook will share the review on their blog and social media, reaching over 340,000 fans, including a brand new Kid Reviews Pinterest Board to celebrate the content.

So since my kids didn’t wait for photos we had to go get more yogurt. Here’s the after with my son….

Be sure to check Tillamook’s Pinterest page for more kids reviews.

Ford and the MyEnergi Lifestyle^® initiative have kicked off the MyEnergi Lifestyle retrofit contest with Katie Couric on her syndicated talk show “Katie.” Homeowners can enter this national contest for a chance to win a package that includes a Ford C-MAX Energi –America’s most affordable plug-in hybrid vehicle, new Whirlpool brand appliances, a SunPower solar power system and other home products designed to bring energy-efficient living to a typical American family.

The contest is now open and runs through June 9, with the grand prize winner to be announced this summer.

Through the MyEnergi Lifestyle initiative, Ford is bringing together leaders in the home appliance, renewable energy and power management industries – including Eaton, SunPower and Whirlpool. Additional featured companies are semiconductor provider Infineon and Nest Labs.

WHY YOU SHOULD CHANGE YOUR APPLIANCES:

As Americans’ thirst for energy grows, recent advancements in technology make this the ideal time to demonstrate the benefits of optimizing a family’s energy footprint. Along with 729 gallons of gasoline and 122,000 cubic feet of natural gas, the average home in America uses more than 11,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year; in 1930, the figure was 500 kilowatt-hours. That’s an increase of 2,100 percent.

Home appliances have made huge gains in reducing energy usage. Today, the typical smart appliance, like a refrigerator, uses 70 percent less energy than one built in 1980.

Valerie Kinney, the Auntie Anne’s Director of Communications, took us on the grand tour of the historic building (It is on the Historic Register – It used to be the Post Office!), shared the history of the company and introduced us to everyone.  While we were there, we learned so much!  Things like:

Anne and Jonas Beiler purchased a Pennsylvania farmer’s market stand in 1988 to provide free counseling services to families and couples in their community. After some experimentation and a few mishaps when trying to find a way to bring in income to the stand, Anne and Jonas created a pretzel that customers quickly dubbed “better than the best you’ve ever tasted.” This is the same pretzel perfection we all know and love today.

I was tickled to death when they taught us everything we needed to know about making pretzels from mixing them up to rolling them out.

We even had a special guest…Auntie Anne herself!  Meeting her was an amazing gift.  She is inspiring, uplifting and a gracious human being.  I was blessed to have this opportunity.

Auntie Anne’s is the World’s largest hand-rolled soft chain with more than 1,330 stores in more than 25 countries and 46 states, all headquartered right … in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Auntie Anne’s are found in malls, travel plazas, universities and Wal-Marts as far as Malaysia, Kuwait, Trinidad and Venezuela, to name a few. In fact, in March 2013, Auntie Anne’s opened the first of 30 new stores in Vietnam.

Because of my love for my Chinese daughter and her birth country, I was so excited to see that they even have 5 franchises in China!

We all even graduated from Pretzel University, certificate included.   All in all it was an amazing trip!

Now back in March, we here on MomStart, shared with you about how this is their 25th anniversary and that Auntie Anne’s released a new Honey Whole Grain pretzel.  (Did you know that they rolled more than 1.7 billion pretzels for loyal guests in the last 25 years?)  As part of this, they have created a year-long Auntie Anne’s Ambassador Program, where I get to be the voice of their guests of more than 1,300 stores worldwide!  That is a lot of responsibility!  So here is the plan:  Throughout the year, I am going to share all sorts of exciting and tasty events they have planned along with nutritional information, trivia, and lots of fun and games.  And if you have questions or concerns, let me know.  I will get the information to the right department and they will do their best to answer them for us.

I am so excited about all of this and look forward to an amazing year with Auntie Anne’s!  Sending you pretzel love,

About Alyson

Alyson is a Stay-at-Home Mom blogger and a work-in-progress author. She is blessed to stay home to raise her three crazy, amazing girls and be married to her hero. She loves all things Disney, scrapbooking, reading, travel, cowboys and horses. You can read about her ups, down and craziness on Facebook or Pinterest.

I’m an Auntie Anne’s Ambassador and received the entire trip free of charge. This doesn’t affect my opinion of the brand at all because I have adored their pretzels for years!

Monsters University: Being in Class with Producer Kori Rae
You know? I’m like a kid in a candy store whenever I visit Pixar and this last time I visited they made me go to school. Not just any school, I attended Monster’s University and had a class with the Producer Kori Rae. She taught a class on following your dream and learning to take what you get in life and you’ll be surprised where your dream takes you and it’s amazing how Monsters University follows this theme!

Because sometimes you think you’re meant to do something, and then you discover that, well, that wasn’t really the thing. You find another route. That part of the story is really meaningful to me, and I love that. And I’m super happy that, that we’re telling that story. That we’re telling a different version of the story that if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. Sometimes that is true, and sometimes you hit that brick wall, and you have to figure out where to go from there.

 

After learning more about the movie Monsters University, we interviewed the professor/Producer of Monsters University. And it was interesting to learn that she was also a teacher at one time (really, in real life). Check out the interview with Monsters University Kori Rae to learn more about her and Monsters University.

Q: Now were you approached to be the producer for this or did you want to be a part of it?
KORI RAE: Yeah. The latter. As soon as I knew that it, they were thinking about it. I said I really want to work on that movie if I can. So, luckily that worked out.

Q: What made you change directions?
KORI RAE: You know, I wanted to go explore a little bit. I had been an athlete all my life. I’d been involved in, in sports and everything, and I wanted to go. I wanted to travel a little bit, and then I just wanted to, to explore other things. I did editing for a while, and, journalism and stuff like that.There was a period where I just did a whole bunch of things, and it was fantastic, ‘cause I just, I, [STAMMERS] everything. I just wanted to, to discover more. I wanted to see what else was out there. So. And then ended up here, so that worked out…

Questions Tell us about casting:
KORI RAE: So we cast the film even when it’s just in story reel form. That’s when we start thinking about casting the characters, and as soon as we cast them and record them, we cut it in, and, and we start working, and that’s usually in the [STAMMERS] Sometimes it’s still in the storyboard phase, and sometimes it’s in the layout stage, which is where we’re just laying out the camera. Then we have to get it all in, and locked before it goes to animation. So all of the voices are in and final, and edited in before animation. They use that to animate to. They have to have those voices in there to animate to.

Q: So they can add facial features?
KORI RAE: Yeah, and kind of just get the emotion, and get the character through the animation. The intonations that they use. It’s amazing how much you can see coming through, not even just in the facial expressions, but even in their body and their movements are all comes through the voice. Kind of what the emotion of the character is for a certain scene.

Q: What do you like working with more?
KORI RAE: Not necessarily more? The good thing is that, because our process is fairly linear, you get to spend a good amount of time in each department, and so it’s totally satisfying in that way. For this film, we were in story a lot, and I think because the, the challenges of doing a prequel were so intense. I really loved being in story on this film, and we had an incredible team dealing with the really challenging problems.

It was also a little bit new for me. As a first time producer it was the first time that I had really been in the story room every single day all day. So I really loved that part of the film. But I always love animation.My first gig on A Bug’s Life was managing the animation department. And, uh, so I, my heart is always with the animators. I love that department, and it’s where the film really comes to life, so it’s always great to go to dailies and see what people are doing when they animate a scene, and how much they, they plus it, and, make it its own thing. So that’s always great.

Q: When asked what she would attribute to Pixar producing consistently high quality movies Kori had this to say…  ”You have to be willing to let go. You have to be willing to throw stuff away, and not get too attached to it. And you have to do that over and over again in order to get to the right, right place.”

Q: Anymore sequels coming?

KORI RAE: We’re so focused on getting this one done. Not a whole lot of thought has been given to anything else.

Q: Did you work on the original Monsters, Inc.?
KORI RAE: I did. I was the associate producer on that.

When asked about the crew size on Monsters University:
KORI RAE: At our peak, the crew size ramps that start small, then it ramps up, and then it ramps back down. At our peak, we’re about 260, 270. Working on the movie, just on the movie here.

So departments kind of come in and out. It’s kind of a linear process. So you have story and editorial and art up front when you’re designing and, and creating the film, and then all of the other departments come online. So, at a point probably about five months ago, we were at our peak at about 270 or so. And then it kind of ramps down.

Q: So how close are you to having the movie ready?
KORI RAE: Very, very close. We’re working on the mix right now. We have a little bit of score left to do. We have a couple of score days the end of this month. The picture will be done this week, and then all of the assembly of those bits and pieces happen, and it will have a finished product by mid mid-May.

The truth is, we back into our release date, so we’re actually right on schedule. We were scheduled to finish picture this week. Everything’s on, on schedule.

update….. I think the movie is about 99% done.

Questions about Kori’s background in education:
KORI RAE: Yeah. I majored in secondary education, in English, and I taught and coached right out of school, for a little bit. Then decided to change directions and do other things, and that led mehere to Pixar eventually after a few years. Producing is definitely a lot like teaching and coaching, I think.

Q: What did you teach?
KORI RAE: It was eighth grade English.Then I coached volleyball, softball, and basketball. All three.

To follow all the action check out the #MonstersUEvent hashtag Want to keep up with all Monsters University updates? Check out the Monsters University website then Make sure your following Disney Pixar on Twitter and you “Like” the Pixar Monsters University Fan Page. Monsters University comes out in theaters June 21st.

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I have a few bananas here that are about to go bad which is why I made the smoothie a few days ago. The kids haven’t show much interest in eating them lately so I think it’s time to throw them into some banana bread. That or maybe I could make some cream cheese banana goodness. I think I’ll start with banana bread and then try some cream cheese mixture. I found this Reduced-Sugar Banana Bread recipe at Truvia.com. It’s a moist and delicious classic for the entire family! This reduced-sugar banana bread contains 20% fewer calories and 60% less sugar than the full-sugar version.

Reduced-Sugar Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 11⁄4 cup flour
• 31⁄2 Tbsp Truvía^® natural sweetener spoonable*
• 4 Tbsp sugar
• 1⁄2 tsp baking powder
• 1⁄2 tsp baking soda
• 1⁄2 tsp salt
• 3⁄4 cup (about 2 medium) very ripe bananas; mashed
• 1⁄3 cup buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 1⁄3 cup butter; melted and cooled
• 1⁄2 tsp vanilla extract
• non-stick cooking spray
• *or 12 packets Truvía^® natural sweetener

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350^° F. Spray 9x5x3 inch loaf pan with non-stick spray.
2. Whisk together the flour, Truvía^® natural sweetener, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
3. Mix the mashed bananas, buttermilk, egg, butter and vanilla in a medium bowl.
4. Lightly fold the banana mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined. The batter will be thick and chunky. Do not over-mix or your loaf will be small and tough.
5. Scrape the batter into the loaf pan. Bake about 55 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; transfer to wire rack.

You can find more great recipes using Truvia at Truvia.com.

Do you ever look to see what’s under your feet?

The Ginger-Mint Margarita with Truvia Natural Sweetner is a delectable idea for a summer day. Conceived by Anthony Caporale, producer and host of Art of the Drink^®. Ginger and mint give it a Southern swirl but with 63% fewer calories and 0 grams of sugar** per serving.

Ginger-Mint Margarita with Truvía® Natural Sweetener Recipe

Ingredients

• Ginger Simple Syrup with Truvía^® natural sweetener
• 1 Tbsp + 2 tsp Truvía^® natural sweetener*
• 4 oz. water
• 10 slices fresh ginger, peeled
• *or 6 packets Truvía^® natural sweetener
• Ginger-Mint Margarita
• 11⁄2 oz. Ginger Simple Syrup with Truvía^® natural sweetener*
• 11⁄2 oz. tequila
• 6 large mint leaves
• Juice of 1 lime (drop in rind)
• 11⁄2 tsp orange zest (1 orange)
• *or 5 packets Truvía^® natural sweetener

Directions

Ginger Simple Syrup with Truvía^® natural sweetener

1. In a small pot, add: 1 Tbsp + 2 tsp Truvía^® natural sweetener, 4 oz. water,10 slices fresh ginger, peeled.
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Strain out ginger and allow to cool, keep refrigerated up to 1 day.

Ginger-Mint Margarita

1. In a mixing glass, muddle: Ginger Simple Syrup with Truvía^® natural sweetener, tequila, and mint leaves.
2. Half-fill with ice, then add: juice of 1 lime (drop in rind) and orange zest.
3. Shake until the tin is frosted, strain into a highball glass filled with fresh ice.

Garnish: Lime wedge

**This cocktail has 60 calories and 0 grams of sugar per serving compared to 160 calories and 26 grams of sugar per serving in the full-sugar version.

I love my grandmother. I mean, I love both of my grandmothers I spent a lot of time with each of them after my parents got a divorce. Being a single parent is very difficult job but I have very fond memories of my time with my grandmother and one of them was her bedtime routine. She used Olay every night before bedtime to keep her skin looking young and I think she still looks good.

I’ve been thinking about taking care of my face, and after receiving the Olay Regenerist Micro-sculpting cream it brought back memories of watching my grandmother use it. I used to love the smell of Olay, and I really love the smell of Olay Regenerist Micro-sculpting cream is wonderful. I’ve used facial creams that stink, this not only smells pleasant it smells great. Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream is my new bed time friend. I can actually feel how it’s working on my face without any burning sensation. I think part of the reason I’ve never stuck with a routine before is because in the end something usually burns or irritates my face. There is no irritation with this micro-sculpting cream. And here’s a little research on the cream:

First-of-its-kind Cellular BioEnergetics research has shown age-related decreases in skin’s energy levels make aging skin fatigued – aged in appearance and less responsive to anti-aging ingredients. This research also indicates hydrating skin may help to boost natural bioenergy production in aged skin. Inspired by this explosive field of research, Olay has reformulated its best-selling Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream with Skin Energizing to help fight the look of Skin Fatigue and accelerate the appearance of anti-aging results.

Which is why new Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream is designed to accelerate the appearance of anti-aging results with Skin Energizing Technology which contains a complex of ingredients that energizes surface skin turnover and includes two new anti-aging ingredients – Olivem and Lys’lastine.

Research conducted on nearly 2,500 women around the world shows new Olay Regenerist with Skin Energizing Technology hydrates to improve skin’s responsiveness and fight the look of Skin Fatigue by accelerating surface layer cell turnover, increasing brightness and decreasing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.

§ Regenerates skin’s surface layers up to 2x faster after 5 days

§ Hydrates better than leading luxury creams

§ Reverses 10 years of wrinkle appearance after just 4 weeks

New Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream is available where Olay Products are sold.  Suggested Retail Price:  $24.99

I hope that with continued use I’ll look this good when I’m 75 holding my great granddaughter.

I’m a P&G Blogger Brigade member and as such receive product samples to post about. I’m also compensated for my time.