Miscellaneous

MyFEDBenefits helping you have fun

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So I am in Washington DC at a Conference for the next several days. While I was downstairs in the conference center I met Brandon Nicol and a couple of his co-workers from MyFEDBenefits. They were reeling in people with their dice game for some lucky person to win a $25 visa card and while they were making it a lot of fun… I was sadly losing. I convinced them to let me to have one last throw of the die for the hopes to get a roll higher than 28. But of course the odds were stacked against me, and I lost once more.

But I want to send out a shout to say how wonderful and funny these gentlemen were. And if you need help with benefits these are your guys.

So what is it that they really do? Here is a blurb off their website:

At My Fed Benefits it is our primary goal to help Federal Employees throughout their careers to take advantage of the great aspects of their unique benefits package, help them to identify and avoid wasting money on benefits they don’t need, and assist them in getting to retirement with the standard and lifestyle they have earned and deserve.

With the ever-changing environment in the government employee sector today, it is confusing, complicated, and frustrating job for an employee to squeeze the most from the benefits they are offered.  With the maze of websites, forms, forums, hotlines, etc, and the trend to reduce or eliminate human resources as a viable place to get assistance, obtaining reliable information in a user-friendly format is a thing of the past.  That is where we come in.

Brandon Nicol is a Chartered Federal Employee Benefit Consultant — if you need information please give him a call or email.

PO BOX 1509
Jacksonville OR 97530
Cell: (541) 610-7843

BNicol@MFBHelp.com
MyFedBenefitsHelp.com

1 year anniversary… that went by fast!

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I can’t believe June 17th was my one year anniversary of Small Town Living in Nevada!! They say the first year is the hardest. Hopefully, it will be smooth sailing from her on out!

Thank you to all my followers via WordPress, Facebook and Pinterest. Without you I would just be writing out loud to myself.

OneYear

I am in a Photo Contest and need your VOTE, please!

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Hi everyone —

I really need your help…. My photo is tied for 2nd place at 18 votes, yet trailing by 3 votes from being in 1st place.

Please vote for my Carson Valley Days photo that I submitted to the Record Courier’s Newspaper contest at: http://recordcourier.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?p=V&c=177176&s=78035164&i=1&m=X&sort=SORTORDER

It is photo #7 of my kids and of my friend Autumn’s children on the Wipeout ride during the Special Kid’s night.

You can vote everyday until voting closes on Tuesday June 30th.

Thanks in advance,

Michele

Special Kid's Night during Carson Valley Day's | Small Town Living in Nevada

Washington D.C. here we come….

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My husband has a conference in D.C. and since our anniversary is just days after the conference ends we decided to stay 11 days for an anniversary getaway.

This will be the longest I will be away from the kiddos. Hope I and they survive the separation.

Since we will be in Washington D.C. for the July 4th I am totally looking forward to seeing the fireworks display; should be spectacular!

My parents will be house, animal and kid sitting for us the whole time for us. I hope my parents don’t hate us by the time we get back since 11 days is an awful long time for grandparents to be watching an 8, 6 and 4 years old. We shall see when we get back!

No real point to this post other than to ramble. Now off to wash clothes and start packing Saturday will be here before I know it!

Turkey 5 ways

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Last night I cut up a raw 22 lb turkey so I could get 5 meals out of it plus made broth to stock up on from this turkey this week. Even though the turkey cost $24, it is very economical to cut it up and basically use every bit you can.

Last night I diced up one of the breasts and made Chinese Orange Turkey with Fried Rice.

Chinese Orange TurkeyThen I took the caucus and placed it into a stock pot with a bunch of veggies and made turkey broth. Had it on the stove all night and then my husband turned the pot off this morning before he headed off to work. I canned all the broth, removed all the bones and veggies and had 2.5 lbs of shredded turkey left over to make Turkey Salad for sandwiches. However, for lunch I stuffed an avocado instead and it was YUMMO! Recipes will be coming out later this week!

Turkey Salad stuffed in an avocado

Beach, sand and sun at its finest…

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Seacliff Beach

So yesterday my husband, kids and I trekked many hours across the the sierra mountains to the shining sea. It was around a good 5.5 hours to get to the beach.

My kids and myself love the beach, sand and the wonderful sea air and try to get to the beach once or twice a year if our schedule permits. But in all reality I try very hard to schedule a vacation months in advance.

Nevertheless, we are here having a fabulous time for a few days. However, I am tired and the sea air seems to make it seem more so to where I just want to lay down for a nap soothed by the thunder of the waves.

We arrived in Aptos, California around 2:30pm. The kids were instantly playing down on the beach. They took a break for dinner and then were back on the beach again until night fell.

Seacliff Beach

The moon came out and was a day shy of being a full moon. It was a spectacular site shining over the Cement Boat the SS Palo Alto.

Sea cliff Beach with Moon

The next day was gorgeous. The sun was shining and everyone was having a wonderful day.

Seacliff Beach

We rode bikes to the Cement Boat and took a look inside the Visitor’s Center.

Sea cliff Beach's Cement Boat

I have been coming to this beach since I was a child and love that I can bring my children here. It is one of my favorite places and am very lucky that we are spending our vacation here with my parents and generous Aunt JoAnne.

Last Day of School!

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So today is my kids Last Day of School and tomorrow will be first day of summer vacation! Three months of freedom until school is back in session…

Last Day of School!

This summer will be BUSY! On Monday we leave for a much needed vacation to Santa Cruz, California. Beach, sand and sun for a few days! I am counting the minutes!

The middle of June I am having a Girl Scout campout in my backyard. I am quite excited and can’t wait!

At the end of June, beginning of July my husband and I will be in Washington D.C. for a conference and staying extra days to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. I hear the fireworks display for the fourth of July is spectacular!

Then you have July. It is just packed to the brim… my daughter will be attending Girl Scout Camp. We’ll be working on our roof. Making all the repairs to it from when we had that massive wind storm back in February. We also have our 6-month dentist appoints squeezed in there as well.

Then towards the end of July the kids and I head down to my parent’s house for 12 days. And a week later the kids are back in school!

Anyhow, in about 2.5 hours summer begins at the Armstrong house and we will be taking it on by storm!!

Geocaching.com is celebrating 15 years!

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Into the Blind Geocache

I can say over the last 15 years I have had a blast Geocaching with my husband, but have had more fun over the last several years Geocaching with my kids!

My husband and I are polar opposites with practically everything and butt heads because if it. But one thing that we love to do together is Geocaching. When Geocaching first came out 15 years ago we jumped on the bandwagon and tried it out. I will say we were instantly hooked. The only problem was my husband nor I officially became a member. We geocached, but never logged our finds. So to this day I have no true idea of how many caches we have actually found.

We found many caches in our area over a 5 year period and then took about 5 or so years off due to having our kids and literally forgot about geocaching. I have no idea who suggested trying Geocaching with the kids, but my husband and I were definitely ready to get back in the groove again. And to our surprise our children thoroughly loved it and ask to Geocache all the time.

Geocaching is a great exercise too. You are either hiking or climbing to get to your cache — so it is all around a good past-time for the family.

So you ask what is Geocaching. Well Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices – we orginally used a GPS unit, but now only use our cell-phones with apps. People navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache which is some kind of container hidden at that location.

Anyhow, last weekend we went Geocaching for “Into the Blind” and literally had to climb a rock formation that made me worry if a kid slipped it would be the last I’d see them. However, they were like monkeys and proved me wrong.

Into the Blind Geocache

Into the Blind Geocache

Into the Blind Geocache

Nevertheless, it was a tremendous workout and a lot of fun (after the worry faded).

And you know what? May 2nd marks the 15th anniversary for Geocaching.com!! This weekend be it by yourself, with friends or even with your family JUST get out there and FIND what treasures are hidden in your area!

My travels to Maui, Hawaii

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In preping for my trip I was reading through pages and pages of Maui travel guides searching many hours away looking at where and what to do via other peoples posts on Pinterest. I even went as far as to borrow Maui travel books from my local library because I love being prepared activity-wise when I am on vacation.

What it didn’t say is that if you grew up in California, you will probably feel like you are in San Diego or Santa Cruz while on the West Shore of Maui though. I won’t lie….. I was a little disappointed with the West Shore of Lahaina for that very fact… that was until we actually started getting out and participating in fun activities. And of course all activities that we wanted to partake in were practically all on the North Shore. Which meant a rental car was a must have.

Of all the days/nights we were in Lahaina, I only visited the beach in front of our hotel once. And that was to see the sunset. At that time I called my kids to say I missed and loved them and that I would see them in a week. From there on out I decided I was going to have fun no matter what and make the best of my vacation.

Sunset Sunset2

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Getting ready for Maui

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Right now my husband and I are getting ready for a trip to Maui on Monday.

I literally haven’t been to Hawaii in 22 years (am I dating myself?) and my husband has unfortunately never been. So needless to say this will be a vey nice get away for the both of us. Especially on the heels of our town having had such bad weather over the last several months. And all of us recovering from all our sicknesses.

I have in my anal ways researched the heck out of Maui by emailing as well as Facebook PM-ing different restaurants. I can’t help myself. I need or want information on where I can happily eat gluten free meals instead of blindly searching once we get there. And of course I have my heart desires on Zipling, Snorkeling, Whale Watching and attending a Luau… of course not in that order. But you get the idea. Anyhow, hopefully we’ll have time to do all that and maybe hit the sandy beaches as well.

Nevertheless, I will be posting many reviews of our week long excursion so I hope I don’t go overboard with the photos.

Mahalo

~ Michele