Just because the park is a free admission park doesn’t mean it has boring rides. On the contrary, some of the best amusement park rides in the country can be found at Knoebel’s. The Phoenix is a wooden roller coaster that has been featured in television shows on the best roller coasters in the country. The Haunted Mansion (or Haunted House) has been named as one of the best dark rides in the country for years. The Bumper Cars were recognized as the best in the country several years back in Parade magazine. And the food at the park is award winning.

You have two options for paying to ride the rides. You can purchase a hand stamp (available most weekdays) where you can ride the rides as many times as you want or you can purchase tickets and pay for each ride as you go. Each ride has a value – the children’s rides are cheaper than the roller coasters, for example. No matter what option you pick, if you want to go on the skyride, use the pool or go into the Haunted Mansion you must pay for those attractions with tickets.

You can bring food to picnic at the park because there are many different picnic pavilions where you can eat. You don’t have to sneak your food into the park here – many families bring their coolers with them in wagons to save money.

Knoebel’s is located in Elysburg, PA. It is about 2.75 hours away from Philadelphia, 3 hours from New York City and 4.25 hours from Pittsburgh.

Black Bottom Banana Bars Recipe

½ c butter (1 stick), softened
1 c granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ c mashed ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium bananas)
1 ½ c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¼ c baking cocoa

Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Blend in the mashed bananas. Add the dry ingredients (except the cocoa) and stir until just mixed. Divide the batter in half and add the baking cocoa to half the batter. Spread the chocolate batter into the bottom of your baking pan. Spoon the remaining batter on top and swirl with a spatula or knife. Bake for 25 minutes or until the bars test done.

This is an easy and delicious recipe for black bottom banana bars that my family loves.

When you are asked by a close friend, sister or family member to plan a bachelorette party you might be at a loss. Well a great idea to try is to plan a poker themed bachelorette party. You can keep it small or have a larger party. The number of guests you invite will play a role in how many card games you will have going.

You don’t have to limit yourself to poker. Any card game is fine. A fun idea is to have a few different kind of card games going on at several tables in the room. If you have a daughter or young girl who is in the wedding party, why not invite her to a tame bachelorette party and include a table where the card game of choice is Go Fish or Old Maid?

There are no rules to planning a bachelorette party – all you need to do is plan for some fun!

Here’s a basic recipe of how to make homemade lemonade:

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (you will need 6 to 8 lemons to get this)
5 cups water, divided
1 cup sugar

Combine one cup of water and the sugar together and cook on the stove to make a simple syrup. All you need to do to make simple syrup is to mix the water and sugar together in a small saucepan and cook until the sugar is completely dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved remove the pot from the heat.

Juice the lemons to make one cup of lemon juice. I like to use a strainer to make sure I catch all the seeds and pulp from the juice. Combine that in a pitcher with the simple syrup and four cups of water.

That’s it. Now you have some delicious homemade lemonade!

It isn’t hard to do. Use a hard or metal measuring tool (like a metal tape measure or yardstick if your windows are small) so you get an accurate measurement. Measure the length of the window from where you hung your curtain rod to where you would like your curtains to fall. Measure the width of the window from the outside of the window casement. Don’t just measure the glass – otherwise you’ll be short in width. If you like the look of full curtains multiply this measurement by two.

There you have it. That’s all you need to do to measure your windows for curtains. Now if it was just as easy to find the curtains you love.

First, not all stores will take online grocery coupons. You should check with the store for their policy on using them. One of the stores where I shop will honor the coupons, but only if they can be scanned. While they might manually enter in a newspaper coupon they won’t do that with an online grocery coupon.

Second, you’ll have to install programs on your computer that allow you to print the bar code on the grocery coupons. These programs are safe to use. As long as you are running a good anti virus/anti spyware program that is up to date you’ll be fine.

Next, you will want to get a junk email account for your coupon surfing. Some of the websites require you to sign up with an email address to get access to the coupons. You don’t want to use your regular email address because, trust me, you will be overloaded with emails. You can check your coupon email address once or twice a week. There are lots of places online to get free email addresses like Yahoo!, Gmail, AOL and Hotmail.

Finally, you are ready to begin searching for online grocery coupons. Here are some of the sites I found that have some good coupons to use:

www.Redplum.com
www.Coupons.com
www.Coolsavings.com
www.Couponsurfer.com

Don’t forget to go to the official websites for the products you use. You can often find some good coupons there too!

Bath towels should be washed before you use them to get rid of any dirt or grime accumulated in the store. Fabric softener should not be used – it affects the absorption power of the towels. Each person should have his or her own bath towels (ugh – can you imagine sharing them, even with family?) and they can be used more than once. That’s a personal preference – some people use them one or two times, while others use them for a week. Whatever you decide bath towels should be washed at least once a week on hot water to kill germs and bacteria. They can be put in the dryer on medium heat. I don’t recommend putting them on a clothesline to dry because they can accumulate lint that way. Since bath towels are heavy and take a long time to dry they should be washed in a group by themselves, sorted by color since hot water will cause the colors to run sometimes.

Caring for your bath towels is not complicated, and done properly you can have towels that will last you five or more years.

One place that often asks for your number but doesn’t need it if you have health insurance is the doctor’s office. My children go to several different doctors and the one hospital is always asking for it. One time I asked the woman on the phone why they needed it and they said for insurance. I said that isn’t true, because they are covered under my husband’s insurance. It got a bit dicey so I told her I didn’t have the number, that the card was in the safe deposit box and she said just provide it next time. So anymore that’s the excuse I use – I don’t know his Social Security number off the top of my head, I’ll bring the card next time.

For many years a Social Security number was the way a person was uniquely identified in a database. Since no two numbers are the same it was an easy way to give that ID to a person. But there was never any law or legal basis for organizations asking for it, with the exception of a few. Where is it required to give out your Social Security number if asked? In a nutshell, if you are applying for credit, federal benefits, to the DMV, and or completing military paperwork then you need to provide it. You have the option to say no to providing it to places such as doctors, dentists, and schools.

I highly recommend reading the entire article on Yahoo.com. You can click here for a link to it.

I’m not the best eater when it comes to fruits and veggies (the best ways to get fiber into your diet) so I spent a lot of time in the grocery store looking for high fiber foods that I would eat. One of the problem with foods high in fiber is that they are often high in calories. I was thrilled when I discovered Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt made by Yoplait.

Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt comes in several flavors – vanilla, strawberry, peach, and my favorite key lime pie. That’s the flavor I’m going to review today. It is only 50 calories per serving and has five grams of fiber. For anyone who is counting that’s 20% of your daily recommended intake of fiber. It is fat free – big bonus! There is less than 5 mg of cholesterol so that pleases me too – another one of my issues is a slightly raised bad cholesterol level. . It is sweetened with the artificial sweetener Aspartame.

This yogurt tastes so good. It has a nice lime flavor to it, and if you close your eyes and imagine a piece of pie you can almost taste a graham cracker crust in it. The texture is good – even if it’s been in the refrigerator for a few days it doesn’t get watery on top as some other yogurts do. My kids love the flavor of it, often taking a cup of Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt out of the fridge instead of one of their “kid friendly” yogurts I often buy for them.
My only complaint with Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt is the size of the cups. It used to come in a six pack with a larger portion size. Now it comes in a four pack with a four ounce serving size. I wouldn’t mind having some more yogurt per cup, even if it means more calories, so I don’t down two cups for a snack instead of one!

Price wise it isn’t too expensive. I’ve found the best price on Fiber One Nonfat Yogurt at Wal-Mart. However, you can often find coupons online for the product and if you combine that with a sale at your local grocery store you can do pretty well in terms of price.

I also like the vanilla flavor. I’ve never had the peach or strawberry – I don’t care for peach flavor and even though the yogurt appears to be fruit free I’m so afraid of eating a seed that I won’t get the strawberry ones.

I highly recommend this product to anyone who is looking for a healthy snack that is delicious as well as low fat and low calorie. I will be buying Fiber One yogurt as long as it is on the market!