If you are ever in Green Bay Wisconsin and you have kids, this is the place you must go.  You can easily spend a morning there and not spend $20 (unless, of course, you head over to the food stand).  We just took our kids there, and they had a blast.  The tickets are a quarter a piece.  For the kiddie rids, you usually only needed one ticket.  Now, if you are in the need of an acne treatment (which would mean the bigger kid rides), then those usually were 2 tickets.  For rides, they have everything from the scrambler to a ferris wheel to a merry go round to bumper cars.  There really is something there for all ages and it is quite affordable.

For the last couple of weeks, we have been trying out a projector from Projector123.  Let’s just say that it has been such a big hit in our house that Bill now wants to buy one.

Can you guess the movie on the left?  It’s Cars.  That picture is on one of my walls in the basement.  We didn’t have any white walls to use, so that picture is on a blue wall.  It made it slightly darker (we shined it on the white door to see the difference).  I’ll be honest — I was impressed.  The picture was so clear and crisp.  It also was huge!  I wouldn’t have needed my contacts to see it!

Now, I didn’t take a picture of this but we set this up with our PlayStation 2.  Madison tried both Star Wars Legos and Indiana Jones Legos on here.  It was awesome. The characters were taller than Will.  He just ran up and down the wall touching the characters.  It was quite humorous to watch (and I should have video taped it but I didn’t think of it at the time!)

After the kids were in bed, Bill and I tested it out with a non-kid friendly movie.  Madison and Will’s movie were made to be crisp and clear.  How would a real movie hold up?

You should be able to guess this movie pretty easily.  I took this picture from the side to show you how movie theater like it was.  We just hooked up two speakers, and it was like being in the theater (we were just missing the popcorn).

Even though we used this for a lot of fun movie nights at my house, there are so many more uses for it.  I have seen these used at weddings, graduation parties, and memorial services that I have been too.  Its a great way to show a montage of pictures easily.  At the rate of $99 for a weekend, you can’t go wrong.  They FedEx it to you and they even give you a return label to FedEx it back!

We allow my four year old daughter on the internet.  Yes, we are right there and monitor what she is doing.  She is only playing games on Noggin or Disney Playhouse.  However, I do worry about when she gets a bit older  Did you know that:

• 41% of unwanted sexual solicitations, 29% of unwanted exposure to sexual materials, and 31% of harassment occurred when children were online with their friends. (I can believe this due to the IMs I get.  I have it listed in my profile that I married, and I still get IMs from men wants who knows what).
• Law enforcement officials estimate that more than 50,000 sexual predators are online at any given moment.
• 1 in 5 youth ages 10 to 17 received a sexual solicitation or were approached online.

These are just a few of the scary statistics out there.  I like to think that I am always going to know what my kids are doing online.  However, I know that isn’t always going to possible.  That is where GuardChild comes in.  It does exactly what you think it does.  Its all about protection, education, and community.  You are able to protect your family by blocking pornography, stopping online predators, and monitoring instant messages, blogs, chat rooms (AOL, MSN, and Yahoo) email, and even what your child is doing on MySpace.   You also are able to join the members community which will give you hundreds of articles, parent resources, educational sites, and family-friendly entertainment sites.  Lastly, there is community. Guard Child has a blog that allows you to share concerns and successes, learn from online safety experts, and contribute articles, advice, and questions.

The saying that it takes a village to raise a child is still true. Things have changed so much since I was little. I can only imagine what it will be like in a few years when Madison will be trying to hide what she is doing online from me. However, I do believe in being proactive and software like this is exactly what you need.

The Discovery Channel is awesome.  I have another show on there you have to watch.  It’s called When We Left Earth, and it is all about the space program.  You get to watch the real footage from when man first went into space, and when he went to the moon.  I know the next show is going to show the Challenger mission.  The reason I find this so interesting is that I wasn’t even born in the time frame of the first two shows.  It is one thing to read the history in a book; it is another to actually see it unfold in front of you.  You can feel the tention in the room while you are waiting to see if they actually make it into space.  They even interview the people involved now to tell you what they thought back then.  The technology they had back then (there was no such thing as dell memory chips) is just mindblowing. It is hard that they made it into space with what they had.  I accidentally caught this one night, and I am glad I did.

Yes, I know, it is hard to believe that I actually watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. What may surprise you (heck, it surprised me) the movie wasn’t half bad. Now, I wouldn’t give it 5 stars or probably watch it again. However, it was entertaining enough to watch the whole thing.

Larry (Kevin James) is a widower with two kids. The only way for him to change his insurance policy changed is to get married. Larry is a firefighter, and is partnered with his best friend Chuck (Adam Sandler). To help Larry out, Chuck and Larry get a domestic partnership and get married in Canada. Should be the end of the story right? Wrong. They then have to prove that their relationship is the real deal. The jokes sometimes are really, really bad and a little to stereotypical. However, there is a great scene where the two men fight and call up each others shortcomings that need to be addressed (like Larry needing to figure out how to lose weight and let go of his late wife and Chuck needing to learn how to commit). All in all, it is a movie you should see.

I happened to catch Ocean’s Thirteen the other night on HBO and ended up staying up half the night.  I am a huge fan of the Ocean Trilogy, and this movie does not disappoint at all.  Basically, the boys shut down the venture of a backstabbing hotelier (Al Pacino) because the guy double-crossed the Reuben (Elliott Gould).  By the boys, I mean George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Don Cheadle, Shabao Qin, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Bernie Mac, and Carl Reiner.  Without giving too much away, I want to say that Ocean’s Thirteen is more like Ocean’s Eleven.  It has the fast pace needed to keep your attention yet you know the guys won’t be looking for jobs in San Francisco. They should be set for a while again.

Now that we are heading into summer, I have been on the lookout for sunscreen for me and kids (more so me though — I have some spf50 for them already).  It is really hard to find a facial product that isn’t greasy and slimy.  I find that the more greasy that a sunscreen feels, the more it makes my face break out.  Trust me, I do not need any more help in my breakouts — I do fine enough on my own on that one.  When I saw that Screen Inc. had some dermatologist approved facial sunscreen, I knew that I had to try it.

The first kind I looked at is chicscreen.  Now, this is spf 16+, and you should be reapplying every two hours to keep the protection strong.  The nice thing is that you can apply this under your makeup.  I had to giggle a bit when I read the warnings on this.  The two things I found humorous was the warning that I was a smart gal so I shouldn’t eat it and that no boys are allowed to use it since this product is was designated for the feminine crowd.  This was not tested on animals.

Secondly, there was the manscreen.  I loved this stuff.  This also is spf 16+ and should be reapplied every 2 hours.  Directions for use:  shower, shave, screen.  No man can screw that up.  Bill liked that it didn’t smell fruity.  For some reason, he doesn’t want to smell like a dozen of roses when he walks out the door.  The warnings on here also made me smile:  apply only to you dapper face, for manly men only — no youngsters, and use your noodle — don’t swallow this stuff.

Next, there is the teenscreen.  Same as above — spf 16+ and make syre you keep applying it for protection.  To quote the directions, just like deodorant, use Teen Screen daily.  The warning I liked the best is “as much as you love avocado and green tea, don’t swallow this product”.

Lastly, there is the tweenyscreen.  This one has a tropical fruit scent (you know, the one Bill didn’t want to smell like when using sunscreen which makes me want to use it all the more!).  It is spf 16+ and needs to be reapplies after 2 hours like the rest.

This sunscreen is already in complience with the upcoming standards on testing and packaging from the FDA.  They also have received the Seal Of Recommendation from the Skin Cancer Foundation.  Personally, I liked the sunscreen so much that I am extremely excited to see that they are going to be coming up with a spf30 lipscreen and a spf 35 extreme sunscreen.  I am also able to extend a special discount to all of you.  If you enter BLOGGER10 with your order, you will save 10%!  This is a sunscreen you should try out this summer and you’ll never go back!