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Brazilian Lemonade
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Posted By: Allie
May 30th, 2011 |
I recently went to Tucanos for the first time and though the food was pretty good, I think the real highlight of the meal was trying their Brazilian Lemonade. It's probably the only reason I would go back there a second time because their prices are so high,... but now I don't even have to think about going back a second time because I can make Brazilian Lemonade at home!
I remember seeing this recipe on a food blog I frequent, but never tried making it before. I made it the day after I went to Tucanos and it tastes exactly the same IMO. I see myself making this a lot in the upcoming summer months.
Brazilian Lemonade
4 juicy limes
1 C sugar
6 C cold water
6 T sweetened condensed milk
Disolve sugar into water and chill until ready to use.
Wash limes thoroughly...using soap. Cut limes into 8ths.
Place half of the limes in the blender with half of the water. Pulse 5 times. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a pitcher and pour the blended mixture through the strainer. Use a spoon to press any remain liquid into the pitcher. Discard the limes. Repeat with remaining limes and sugar water.
Add sweetened condensed milk. Taste, and add more if needed.
Serve immediately over ice.
I'm wondering though, if It would still taste the same if I used prepared frozen limeade and just added the sweetened condensed milk. I wouldn't mind some pulp and it would make things even more simple, i'll have to try it.
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Blogger
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Posted By: Allie
May 24th, 2011 |
I hate Blogger. No offense to anyone who uses it. I know it's free and I enjoy reading my family's blogs, I used to be able to sign in with my google account to comment, but they've made some changes recently that require me to sign up for a blog if I want to comment on other blogger accounts. And that isn't going to happen. So, I'm sorry to all my family that use it, but I can't comment on your cute pictures and stories anymore.
update: yay, it's finally letting me post comments. But still irritating because it's done this before a few times. Frustrating.
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| Jamie Wrote: |
May 27th, 2011 |
| Jared Wrote: |
May 27th, 2011 |
| Heather Wrote: |
May 26th, 2011 |
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Garden Pests
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Posted By: Allie
May 23rd, 2011 |
I decided to plant the rest of my garden yesterday and it looks like some things were still too early. I checked on my plants this morning to discover some of them have been eaten! I can only assum this was done by a bird, I'm really starting to hate them.
They ate all of my pumpkin seedlings, and the blossoms off of my raspberry bushes. I read that birds love to eat newly emerging seedlings, and that's where my pumpkins were. "Once the plant has emerged from the soil and has developed a second set of leaves, the sugar converts back to starch, and the birds are no longer interested."
Lesson learned, don't plant them outside until they have their second set of leaves. As for my raspberry bushes, not sure what can be done there. I hope i don't have a garden pest bigger than a bird.
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| Allie Wrote: |
May 24th, 2011 |
| Heather Wrote: |
May 24th, 2011 |
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Annoying Birds
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Posted By: Allie
May 23rd, 2011 |
I think this rainy weather is having a negative effect on the birds. We have one nice day on saturday and there is a sudden burst of nest building.
On saturday morning I kept hearing what seemed to be a flock of birds outside of Kaden and Kairi's windows. I look outside of Kaden's window and see a bunch of swallows flying around and I see a boy just standing near by staring at our house. So I went back there to see what was going on, and when I turn the corner to that side of the house, 20 swallows fly away. They were all building nests on our house. Seems like our little neighbors told their friends it was ok to move in.
Swallows are supposed to be really good at keeping flying insects away, but as much as I'd like that I just can't have that many nests on our house. They are also a protected species and you can't legally remove their nest until they have migrated for the winter. They weren't very far into it, so I figured I was ok to spray them off with the hose. I just hope they don't keep trying.
Then I also found this little irritation...
These birds move really quick! I had used the grill friday evening, and found this nest sunday morning. I guess they had good reason to move so quickly though, because I also found this...
Which made me feel bad for removing the nest, ...well Jared removed it, but I needed to use the grill. When I first opened the lid, a bird flew out, and it was one of those black birds that stick around during the winter. So I know it wasn't a protected species. And I have now learned I can't keep the cover off the grill, even for one day.
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| Jared Wrote: |
May 24th, 2011 |
| Heather Wrote: |
May 24th, 2011 |
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Shriners Check-up
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Posted By: Allie
May 15th, 2011 |
We took a trip to Portland Shriners on Friday. Getting straight to the point, Kaden is going to have lip revision surgery in August. She (The surgeon) said it was up to me on weather or not to do it. I quickly thought about the pros and cons and just decided to do it.
She said it's just a same day surgery, but since we were flying we'd probably have to stay overnight. And it would basicly just be removing some of the heavy scar tissue.
She then drew out a time line of things we could expect in the future so we can start planning and saving up for it now. This is what it looked like:
He will have to have orthodontics before his bone graft surgery, I didn't know it was a MUST HAVE, I just figured his teeth are going to be bad so we'll have to do it anyway, but she said it has to be done before the surgery...I hope we will have insurance that covers most of it.
Then she mentioned that as his face and skull grow, things will start looking out of place again and he will have to have a nose surgery around 16. And then MORE orthodontics before a jaw surgery at 18.
oh, my poor little Kaden.
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| Jamie Wrote: |
May 18th, 2011 |
| Myndi Wrote: |
May 16th, 2011 |
| Heather Wrote: |
May 16th, 2011 |
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Happy 30th Jared!
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Posted By: Allie
May 12th, 2011 |
I threw Jared a surprise birthday party today with a lot of help from his mom Teresa. She was so nice to get everything prepared and let us use her house. I don't think I could have kept it a surprise if we'd had it at our house, though I think Jared started to catch on yesterday anyway.
 
I got him a pair of cool bowling shoes, which you can kind of see in the photo. And he got a gift certificate to Jack and Jill's bowling lanes from his sister Jamie, so he can put his new shoes to use soon.
Happy Birthday Jared!
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| Jared Wrote: |
May 12th, 2011 |
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Little Neighbors
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Posted By: Allie
May 6th, 2011 |
I was wondering when our little barn swallows would return, I was so excited when I saw one out the window working on the nest. I don't know why, but i've grown attached to them. 
I was just looking for general info on these birds and came across this touching and sad story about swallows. It made me want to cry.
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| Myndi Wrote: |
May 7th, 2011 |
| Jamie Wrote: |
May 6th, 2011 |
| Jared Wrote: |
May 6th, 2011 |
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Refresher on staying internet safe!
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Posted By: Jared
May 5th, 2011 |
I know its a lot to read, but please read it!
 With more and more family using the internet now, we need to remember to use common sense about emails we get and websites we visit. I have made sure to install Firefox and noscript to your computers which block javascript unless you allow it. Javascript is a major cause of viruses and sending them to your computer. When you browse the internet and need to allow the site, make sure that it is a trustable website and don't go approving every site you visit.
When you get emails, even if it looks to be coming from someone you know, be cautious on clicking the link to view the site because it could be coming from someone else and not the person you think. When you hover over an address, it should show the actual address in the bottom of your browser that it will be going to, the link in the email could be displayed as anything, but the actual link somewhere completely different. Also be careful of email attachments because those can contain bad programs that could even install a key logger onto your computer and log all the keys you press to be sent off to someone else. Doing this can easily send passwords, websites, bank account information or anything else you type on your keyboard. Don't open attachments if you are not 100% sure what it is and who sent it. If you get an email out of the blue from someone and it shows up as "Jared" with an attachment, then its probably best not to open it if I had not talked to you about it first and told you I was sending something "Especially if its an .exe file", those are the most dangerous.
Again, be cautious of the websites you go to and make absolutely sure that the website is what it appears to be. If you go to a page that looks exactly like ebay, look in the URL of your browser and be sure it says http://ebay.com and not a variation such as http://eb.ay.com or http://ebay.something.com. ebay.something.com is not from ebay but ebay is a subdomain of something.com which would be a completely different website and would be a scam to get your login information. Whenever you go somewhere to login or give information, double check the URL to make sure the address is on the correct site.
Be Careful of emails, phone calls or even postal mail that say you have a bank issue and asks for you to email, go to a website or call to fix the issue because these are common types of scams. They will point you to a site that looks like your bank but has a different URL, a phone number of someone else which they could go as far as use a fake office, reps, etc to convince you they are your bank or email to someone else. When someone sends you information asking for your personal info NO MATTER THE REASON, go directly to the source and not what they tell you no matter how convincing. If they send you a letter, discard it then get your bank information from your credit card and call them directly about it and see if there is an issue. Same goes for if they send you an email, simply discard it and call the bank directly through your own number on your card. If you are on the phone with someone claiming there is an issue with your bank account then simply state that you are busy at the moment and will call back in 30 min or so. You can then hang up the phone and call the number on your card. If they are persistant about getting your information, simply hang up. This goes for anything and not just for banks.
As a final note, I hope you find this imformation useful and its always good for a refresher because we tend to forget how easy someone can get your personal information. Another thing that I wont go in too much detail about is passwords. Someone can easily find information about you such as phone numbers, birthdays etc so when you create a password, be sure not to use anything common about you and rather come up with something more difficult and that is not in the dictionary. An example of something you could do is if you have a tradition of going on a picknick every friday then your password could be P1ckn1ckFr1d@y or something like that with a variation of capitol letters, lowercase and symbols. This will make for a strong password and does not use anything common about you, but rather something vague that people aren't likely to guess.
This year, there have been a record number of hacks going on I believe and its the perfect time to make sure you are safe and your passwords are secure.
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| Jared Wrote: |
May 7th, 2011 |
| Myndi Wrote: |
May 7th, 2011 |
| Jamie Wrote: |
May 6th, 2011 |
| Heather Wrote: |
May 6th, 2011 |
| Shawn Wrote: |
May 6th, 2011 |
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