Wii Biggest Loser – Are you ready for the new year?

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? I have, however I like to call them goals. At age 55 my biggest goal is to take total control of my health which includes my weight and activity level. My grandchildren are getting older and I want to be able to keep up with them as they grow stronger and…faster! I want to loose quite a bit of weight but I also want to be strong and fit as the weight comes off.

One of my favorite television shows is The Biggest Loser. I became a fan when I watched the season 5 finale as Ali Vincent walked on stage after losing 112 pounds. I was more than surprised at how much weight she’d lost and how healthy she looked. I now know the secret to the Biggest Loser contestants weight loss is the exercise routines the trainers put them through along with their diet.

Now we can all work out with Bob and Jillian, the Biggest Loser trainers, in the comfort and privacy of our own homes.

The new Wii Biggest Loser Challenge game is a personalized health and fitness program combining intense circuit training, explosive box-fit, energizing yoga and fun challenges together with diet advice and healthy living information. All this from the expert trainers, previous contestants and the medical team from The Biggest Loser ranch. This video shows what it’s all about! You can work alone and set goals for yourself or work together with friends and family for a little bit of friendly competition!

Are you ready for the New Year?

No compensation was received for this post. The complimentary Wii game was provided for our honest review.

Rich Man Poor Man: The Complete Collection

In 1976 I was expecting my first child and setting up my first home. Money was tight as we went about learning to budget while preparing for our new baby. We didn’t go out on the town much but instead enjoyed quiet evenings watching television. Mini-series were all the rage at the time and my favorite was Rich Man Poor Man. Based on Irwin Shaw’s best-selling novel, Rich Man, Poor Man was the first-ever dramatic mini-series to appear on American television. The multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning mini series set the bar high for the hundreds that followed shortly thereafter.

Rich Man, Poor Man: The Complete Collection is the story of the Jordache family spanning decades and generations from 1945 to the last 1960′s. The epic story begins in a small town in New York during the celebration of V.E. Night. (May 8, 1945) The Jordache family is hard-working and struggling to keep afloat during hard times that have hit America. Edward Asner stars as an immigrant Axel raising his overachieving son Rudy and rebellious son Tom. Dorothy McGuire is the faithful wife trying to help her husband fit into American society while keeping her family together.

Rich Man, Poor Man takes the Jordache family through poverty and riches. I’ve been having the best time sitting snuggled up in front of the fire spending my evenings with the Jordache family.

A complimentary copy was given to me to help facilitate my review. All opinions are 100% my own.

Glass Atlas – Review & Giveaway

Do you have any favorite places? Perhaps the romantic island where you spent your honeymoon or where you went for every year as a child to visit your grandparents. How about your favorite vacation to New York City or the Grand Canyon?

Glass Atlas is a unique company that makes beautiful glass dome paperweights with authentic NASA satellite images. There are over three dozen distinct detailed images to choose from. The clear glass dome magnifies the image and also makes it possible to see it from any angle.

We received the Puget Sound Washington Glass Atlas and have had a lot of fun remembering a holiday we took as a family to the area in 1993. Our children were young and we camped in Olympic National Park and hiked a bit on Mount Rainier. It’s quite interesting to see these images from outer space.

I tend to order a lot of products online and because of this, packaging is very important to me. I have to say, I love the thought and care Glass Atlas puts into their packaging. Each glass atlas arrives securely packed in it’s own small eco-friendly wooden crate and comes with a small fact sheet describing the specific image. The atlas can be engraved with your own message for a personal touch.

Inside the crate, the atlas is wrapped and even has it’s very own soft velvety drawstring bag. If I add a bow to the mini crate l’ll have a lovely gift ready for giving. The wooden crate can also be customized with your own design. It would make an interesting business gift when bought in bulk and branded with your business logo.

The Glass Atlas is a classy addition to my husband’s desk and I like that.

WIN IT!

We have the Puget Sound Washington (Seattle area) Glass Atlas for one lucky winner! To enter:

• Just share a Puget Sound memory with us in the comments before midnight, July 15th.
• A random winner will be selected and notified via email shortly thereafter.
• The winner will then have 2 days to claim their prize.

To earn extra entries, you may do one or all of the following. Each one counts as an extra ticket but you must leave a separate comment for each one.

• Subscribe to An Island Life’s feed.
• Follow Island Life on Twitter.
• Tweet this giveaway.
• Place our button in your sidebar.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog with a link back here and to Glass Atlas.

This giveaway is open to US addresses. Good luck!

This post was written for Glass Atlas who provided the item for review and giveaway. I was not compensated in any way except for the complimentary product. By entering this giveaway, you are acknowledging that you have read, understood, and agree to our disclosure policy.

Archives.com, Footnote.com & NewspapersArchive.com – Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to commentor #67: R Hicks!

How much do you know about your ancestors?

Do you know where they came from?

Did they immigrate from another country or has your family been in the same place for centuries?

Those questioned can all be answered at Archives.com.

I have always had a love for genealogy. Unfortunately, over the years I’ve hit block walls and have had missing links in my family tree. I was a skeptical that Archives.com would actually be able to find these missing links but after searching the website  for less than an hour I was able to find several missing ancestors.

I’m more than pleasantly surprised and very impressed!

Archives.com is not a free service but from my experience it is quite resonably priced at $39.95 a year. One of Archives.com biggest competitor rings up at over $150.00 a year. This makes choosing Archives.com is a simple choice. The video tutorials make searching for ancestors and building a personal family tree very easy. There’s also an entire Search & Learn section that includes gleaning information from photographs.

The information about our ancestors is out there. We just need the correct tools to find it and I believe those tools can be found at Archives.com. I can’t wait to see how big my family tree really is.

Be forewarned though, genealogy is very very addictive!

Footnote.com is another subscription website that features over 64 million searchable original documents. It provides with an unaltered view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. At Footnote.com everyone is invited to come share, discuss, and collaborate on their discoveries with friends, family, and collegues. The information available is amazing. The history that is waiting to be discovered is endless.

NewspapersARCHIVE.com has over 95 million newspaper pages dating back to the 1750′s, and each one is fully searchable by name, keyword, date and location – this makes it easy for to find the stories and photographs you’re looking for.

Wow! So much information and so easy to access. I can honestly say that finding my ancestors is one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had.

Giveaway!

Archives.com, would also like to offer one lucky reader a 1-year memberships to Archive’s partner sites. The total value is over $200.

Win a 1 year membership to Footnote.com and a 1 year membership to NewspaperArchive.com.

To enter:

Just mention in comments before midnight, July  6th why you’d like to win. That’s it!

• A random winner will be selected and notified via email shortly thereafter.
• The winner will then have 2 days to claim their prize.
• To earn extra entries, you may do one or all of the following. Each one counts as an extra ticket but you must leave a separate comment for each one.
• Subscribe to An Island Life’s feed.
• Follow Island Life on Twitter.
• Tweet this giveaway.
• Place our button in your sidebar.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog.

This giveaway is open to US addresses. Good luck!

This post was written for Achives.com who provided the memberships for review and giveaway. I was not compensated in any way except for the complimentary product. By entering this giveaway, you are acknowledging that you have read, understood, and agree to our disclosure policy.

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