Aloha Friday Archives - Page 17 of 34

Aloha Friday: Smoothie Time

June 10, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Cooking, Food, Photos

Lately, NHL has been begging me to make him smoothies. While grocery shopping, he’ll spot the orange juice and beg me to buy some to add to smoothies. JSL loves drinking them. They also happen to be very nutritious, so who am I to object?

For dessert after one of my grilling adventures, I had purchased a small watermelon. As it happened, I decided against slicing it. It sat on the counter for awhile until I sliced it up. At that point, I figured that it wouldn’t a long (refrigerator) shelf life so I searched for some watermelon smoothie recipes. I found this Watermelon Blueberry Smoothie recipe.

Today, after dinner, I decided to whip up some smoothies.

Doubling the recipe, assisted by JSL and so excited that I forgot to take photos of the process (yes, really!), I put in the watermelon, honey, lemon juice and frozen blueberries into the blender. After pureeing, I fought off JSL who couldn’t wait for smoothies.

We split the entire double-recipe batch among the four of us and drank up. The verdict was unanimous: Delicious! NHL and JSL both asked for seconds (thirds in NHL’s case) and drank until nothing was left. This is definitely something we’ll be making again.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you make smoothies? If so, what’s your favorite smoothie to make?

Don’t forget to enter my Kung Fu Panda/General Mills gift pack giveaway or B’s Dove Men + Care giveaway.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #91

Aloha Friday: From Mobile With Photos

June 3, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Mobile Photos, TechyDad.com, Twitter, Web Development

On Tuesday, I wrote about how I’ve switched off of using TwitPic and similar cell phone photo sharing services. Instead, I set up my blog to receive and post the photos itself. Already, I’ve had hidden Mickey photos from my grill, of items in my office and of special packages. More photos will definitely flow in as I take them. I’m loving that I don’t have to rely on the photo sharing services and can direct people right to my own blog instead of a third party’s website.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Which (if any) Twitter/Mobile Phone photo sharing service do you use? Would you be interested in setting your blog to accept the photos instead?

(As far as the latter question is concerned, my offer from Tuesday is still good. I can set up anyone’s blog to accept mobile photos provided you are on self-hosted WordPress.)

Don’t forget to enter my giveaways. You could wind Dinosaur Train Dino Poop and Hatchers or a Kung Fu Panda/General Mills gift pack.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #90

Aloha Friday: Grill Fail to Grill Win

May 27, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Cooking, Food

A couple of days ago, I posted about my Grill Fail. Well, yesterday we tried again. This time I had some new tools and was all set. I put the coals in and lit them. For awhile, things weren’t looking so hot. Literally. The coals seemed to refuse to stay lit.

Just as we were deciding to give up, I gave it one more try and success!

Before long, we had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. We only had hot dog buns, so we split the burgers in half and put them on the hot dog rolls.

NHL, B and I each ate two hot dogs and one hamburger. JSL ate one… hot dog bun. (He’s extremely picky and barely tasted the hot dogs or burgers.)

With this initial success under my belt, I want to do two things. First of all, I want to buy a chimney starter. This should make starting the coals a lot easier. Secondly, I want to try some other things on the grill. Turkey burgers and chicken breasts are a sure thing.

Another possibility is salami. My father used to slice salami, grill it and then serve it atop rye bread. Delicious!

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you have/use a grill? What do you grill on it?

Don’t forget to enter my Dinosaur Train giveaway. You could win Dino Poop and Hatchers.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #89

Aloha Friday: Expanding Culinary Horizons

May 20, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Food, NHL

NHL used to be such a good eater. He would order pizza with broccoli and mushrooms. Not because we promised him dessert, mind you, but because he liked broccoli and mushrooms. Then he would proceed to eat every veggie and fungal item on his plate. He also once wanted a taste of some spicy vegetarian chili I had ordered. I wavered, afraid to give him spicy foods, but he liked it. He wanted another bit and another and another.

Sometime around three or four, though, his culinary horizons collapsed inward. Suddenly, vegetables were avoided and spicy was shunned. About the only healthy thing he would eat was fruit. We would implore him to eat veggies to no avail. We tried sneaking them in, but he kept finding us out. He, sadly, inherited stubbornness from somewhere. (*whistles innocently*)

Recently, though, he appears to be rediscovering the joy of trying new foods. He fell in love with broccoli awhile ago, but, on one of our rare trips to McDonald’s, he decided to try BBQ sauce on his chicken nuggets. He loved it. That led him to try the sweet and sour sauce that came with his “Chinese chicken nuggets” (our code name for “Sweet and Sour Chicken”). He loved that too. This from the kid that once refused anything that contained any kind of “sauce.” (The lone exception being pizza.)

The most surprising, though, came a few days ago. We were trying Green Giant’s Simply Steam Brussels Sprouts with Butter Sauce. NHL looked at the green orbs on our plate and asked to try it. I’ll admit, I was conflicted. On one hand, how could I say no to a kid asking to try brussels sprouts? On the other hand, it’s brussels sprouts! What’s the likelihood that he would like it?

He didn’t just like it, he loved it! He ate about a third of the package by himself. Now, if he sees us take out a package, he asked for some. He’s even identified them fresh in the supermarket and has asked for me to make them. (I know that poorly made brussels sprouts can taste bad, so I’m not sure how brave I am making them just yet.)

Now, if only he could help us convince JSL to eat veggies instead of asking for Mac and Cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Does you and/or your child eat vegetables? If so, what kinds of veggies are your and/or your child’s favorites?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #88

Aloha Friday: Bullying, Reactions and Friendship

May 13, 2011 TechyDad Aloha Friday, Bullies, Friendship, NHL, School

I’ve been itching to write about this for awhile, but wanted to wait while we assessed our options. (Besides, B already wrote about this last week, so I figured it was high time I address it.) On Thursday, April 28th, NHL was punched in the stomach by another student in his 2nd grade class. NHL was sent to the nurse with bruises on his stomach/ribs.

One interesting wrinkle to this story was NHL’s reaction. While in the nurse’s office, he was crying, sad that he had upset the child and had hurt his feelings. NHL blamed himself for the bullying incident even though he had done nothing that warranted a punch in the ribs. He even, over that weekend, listed the child as his friend. Yes, the kid that punched him in the ribs was still a friend to NHL.

As you may recall, I was bullied a lot when I was growing up. One incident in particular happened in middle school At the risk of retelling a story I’ve blogged about before, I only had one person that I considered my friend at the time. That was RH.

The only problem with RH being my friend was that he would stab me in the back. Literally. With a pen. He would bully me for awhile and then would play the victim, claiming that he had heard from a third person that I had said something bad about him. Then we would be friends again until he decided to bully me again.

Why did I keep taking him back as a friend when he kept bullying me? Simple. I felt like I had no other friends. If I admitted to myself that RH wasn’t my friend, I was left friendless. At the time, a horrible friend seemed better than no friend at all. It scared me to see this scenario playing out again in NHL’s school.

Then, in a display of good timing, I saw a tweet from @sociallysmart (aka Corinne Gregory) about the covering up of bullying incidents. To summarize the article (which is a must read for all parents), school administrators across the country are turning a blind eye to bullying because it makes them look bad if they admit there is a problem. Of course, this is a case of short term gain-long term loss. What the school administrators gain in the short term (saving face and avoiding bad PR), the kids lose in the long term (higher incidence of bullying with little to no consequences).

The only solution is for parents to know their (and their children’s) rights and stand up for them. It might be tough to do at times, but it is essential for our children’s well being.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you or your child ever been bullied by someone you/they considered a friend? How did you/they react?

Also, don’t forget to enter my Aerobie Sprint Flying Ring giveaway. It’s ending in four days and has a very low amount of entries (as I write this).

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #87

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