Free iPhone Games

Just in case you were feeling too scroogy for the holidays (like I always do) 😉 there’s a number of free iPhone games floating around you can scoop up. First, head over to the appvent calendar – a free app every day until X-mas.

As mentioned on Mashable (where I found out about the appvent calendar), Ramp Champ is a really good and fun free iPhone app (it’s kind of like that skee-ball game. I still contend that skee-ball app is better, and worth the money, but if you’re not a skee-ball freak like me, then you’ll probably be satisfied with this free version. Not sure how long it will be free though, so hurry…)

I also downloaded the free lite version of Mad Libs, which I have to say is VERY cool (I’ll most likely be upgrading and buying the full version as soon as I get bored with the lite version… which may yet take awhile because the lite version is pretty good as is!!)

Updated: OH! Found another via iPhone Mom: Santa’s Village. This one’s free for a limited time too so hurry…

Little Cook Photo Contest

Awhile back you may recall I reviewed an iPhone application called “Little Cook” – I thought you might like to know that they are holding a photo contest. Here are the details:

Little Cook, a featured iTunes App Store game for kids is announcing a new contest to find the cutest Little Critic! The first prize winner will receive a $50 iTunes gift card and a free copy of the Little Cook iPhone application. Additional winners will also receive iTunes gift cards, along with the Little Cook app. To enter, visit the Little Cook Contest web page to upload your favorite funny photo of your child enjoying their favorite meal!

You can also just pick up a copy of Little Cook (currently priced at $.99) on the app store. (My kids still enjoy playing this game)

Skiing Insanity Test

As you may or may not know, I live in Utah – supposedly home to some of the “best snow on earth.” I say supposedly because I really don’t know what that means. I mean, I live less than an hour away from Olympic-quality skiing, and yet I have never gone skiing in my life.

Well, that’s not entirely true… I did go snowboarding. Once. I actually went down the hill twice. The first time I’m not really sure how I made it down, but I know falling was frequently involved – and this was when we lived in Massachusetts – which is not home to the “best snow on earth” – unless snow is supposed to resemble ice. The second time we tried to go down the hill, the wind had picked up and was so strong, I couldn’t stand long enough to even fall down again. So I just sat on my board and slid down the hill because at that point I just wanted to go home.

With an experience like that, maybe it’s not a surprise that I haven’t exactly raced to the mountain to try my hand (feet?) at skiing. I’m told snowboarding is different and that skiing is easier, but as an outsider the fact that it’s one board vs two just seems like that just gives you more opportunity to break your legs or end up in a split.

Then there’s the whole concept of going down a hill without control and without breaks. I’m told there are ways to stop, but they don’t sound easy enough – at least without involving legs being twisted in ways they were never meant to be.

But since I am going insane, I signed up for skiing lessons. Well, that’s not the only reason I did it. My brother and his family are coming here for a ski vacation early next year and if I’d like to spend any time with them, I’m going to have to strap on some skis. We got a coupon in the mail that had a package deal for locals: a lift ticket, a group lesson, even equipment – all included in one ridiculously low price. There was simply no excuse. I even found a friend of mine who is also going insane and is willing to give it a try with me.

We will be falling down often – and thanks to my friend – laughing just as often too. But I’m not going to guarantee I won’t break a leg or that I will willingly go skiing again. LOL!

Holiday Recovery

My parents headed back home this morning. It was great to see them and my mother cooked her standard fare for Thanksgiving (with some help from Rachel and I) 🙂 We spent Saturday at the Treehouse Museum and Sunday at the Clark Planetarium. Both were fantastic. The Planetarium’s actual exhibits aren’t extensive (although what they do have is pretty cool), but their coolest feature is the dome and IMAX theatre. Free admission to shows in either theater for a year convinced us to buy a membership.

While they were here, my mom and I had a discussion about artwork. She’s been spending a lot of time creating water color paintings and was trying to encourage me to pick painting or drawing back up. I was saying how I think I hit my artistic peak just after college and really kind of dropped it after that. So she and I went out for art supplies. I didn’t want to get into the full expense of painting – I don’t have any of my old art supplies – so as a second choice, we picked up some water color pencils. I made two little “paintings” this weekend, and I really like the medium. It’s perfect for what my life is right now. It’s easy to clean up, it can be a fairly quick project. It’s flexible… I’ll have to update abovethefold.org with my paintings now. 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving

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I know, I already wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving… but I wanted to make another post. I just found a cool image plugin “freebie image” – that will let you search, and download photos for your blogs posts from within WordPress and wanted to make a post to test it out. 😀 Pretty Neat.

Anyway – so that’s (obviously) where the photo comes from.

Ok that’s all. Happy Thanksgiving. For real this time.

Thanksgiving Shopping Insanity Test

Holidays are especially rough when you don’t live near family. You look out the window and see that everyone’s driveway in the neighborhood is full with visitors. Meanwhile, your house is nearly empty. Just a tad bit depressing. My parents know this, so whenever they can, they try to spend some of the holidays with us. So I’m really glad they’ll be coming for Thanksgiving this year. They won’t be able to stay too long, just the long weekend – but I’ll take what I can get!

My mom usually cooks dinner – even if it’s at my house. I don’t mind. I’m not the greatest cook, so my daughter and I act as her “sous chefs” 😉 But because they won’t be here until the night before Thanksgiving, I’ve been tasked with going out and getting all the ingredients. As fate would have it – I just haven’t had a ton of time to get out and do this task and have scheduled to do it tomorrow morning. Wednesday. The day before Thanksgiving.

I know, I know… it’s going to be insanity at the grocery store. I’m just hoping that everyone else in this town is more organized than me (which is probably not too far from the truth). I DO at least already have the turkey! It’s been sitting thawing in the Fridge – so I’m not completely out of my mind. (I already made that mistake one year. If I recall correctly – we had to try to “quick” thaw the turkey with hot water. NOT an easy task with a huge turkey!!) But the rest of the ingredients are staples that I just can’t expect to suddenly disappear from the shelves. Green beans? Sweet Potatoes? I don’t really want all this food sitting around my house until we need it. We don’t have room!

Maybe this will be another year a “lesson” is learned. I’m hoping not. Either way, the available time just isn’t there.

In any case, I’ll be enjoying company the next few days. (Hopefully with all the food we have planned! LOL!) Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

iMoo – iPhone Application for Kids

DPanda Cub Productions.

iMoo: $0.99*

*price at time of this writing.