The Gurrola Family

Category Archives: Family

Avocado Lime Shrimp Salad

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🥑🍤Avocado Lime Shrimp Salad🥗🍅
The perfect lite, refreshing summer dish!
Ingredients:

  • 14 ounces jumbo cooked shrimp, peeled and de-veined, chopped.
  • 1 1/2 cup (9.51 oz) tomato, diced
  • 4 1/2 ounces avocado, diced
  • 1/4 cup (.80 oz) jalapeno, seeds removed, diced fine
  • 1/4 cup (.88 oz) chopped green onion
  • 2 tablespoons lime juice
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tbsp + 2 tsp chopped red onion
  • ¼ teaspoon fresh pepper to taste

Directions: In a small bowl combine green onion, lime juice, olive oil, pinch of salt and pepper. Let them marinate at least 5 minutes to mellow the flavor of the onion.

In a large bowl combine chopped shrimp, avocado, tomato, jalapeno. Combine all the ingredients together, add cilantro and gently toss. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 2 servings

Sweet As Honey

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A few surprising facts about the honey bee’s original all-natural sweetener.

1. HONEY NEVER SPOILS.

When sealed in an airtight container, honey is one of the few foods known to have an eternal shelf life. There are even reports of edible honey being found in several-thousand-year-old Egyptian tombs. Honey’s longevity can be explained by its chemical makeup: The substance is naturally acidic and low in moisture, making it an inhospitable environment for bacteria. 

A lot of hard work from bees goes into imbuing honey with these magical properties. While transforming nectar (honey’s main ingredient) into honey, bees flap their wings so hard that they draw excess moisture out of the initially water-filled substance. Bees also have a special enzyme in their stomachs that helps to break the nectar down into gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide, the latter of which acts to further prevent the growth of bacteria and other organisms in the honey. 

2. BEES MAKE A LOT OF HONEY.

A typical beehive can produce anywhere from 30 to 100 pounds of honey a year. To produce a single pound of honey, a colony of bees must collect nectar from approximately 2 million flowers and fly over 55,000 miles. This amounts to a lifetime’s worth of work for around 800 bees.  

3. HONEY WAS A HOT COMMODITY IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE.

In 11th century Germany, honey was so highly valued for its beer-sweetening abilities that German feudal lords required their peasants to make them payments of honey and beeswax.

4. BEES SURVIVE ON HONEY IN THE WINTER.

Bees work hard all summer to ensure they’ll have enough honey to sustain the hive through the winter. During the colder months, bees occupy their time by clustering themselves around the queen and shivering their bodies to fill the hive with warmth. All that shivering burns a lot of calories, so honey makes for the perfect high-energy diet.

5. HONEY IS MEDICINAL.

Evidence of honey being prescribed as a medical treatment dates back as far as ancient Mesopotamia. Because the substance is so inhospitable to bacteria, it was often used as a natural bandage to protect cuts and burns from infection. Today, honey is still used as a natural treatment for dandruff, stomach ulcers, and even seasonal allergies. 

6. FOR BEES, A LITTLE HONEY GOES A LONG WAY.

On average, a honey bee produces 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey over the course of its life. To put that into perspective, two tablespoons of honey would be enough to fuel a bee’s entire flight around the world.  

7. THERE ARE DIFFERENT FLAVORS AND COLORS OF HONEY.

Honey’s depth of flavor is determined by the source of the nectar it was made from. Linden honey is delicate and woodsy, buckwheat honey is strong and spicy, and eucalyptus honey has a subtle menthol flavor. The darkness or lightness of certain honey varies as well. Bees in the southeastern U.S. have even been known to produce honey that’s deep purple in color, though scientists can’t agree why.

Enjoy this weeks FREE-BEES

Un-BEE-lievably Cute Book Marks
A Fun Poster of Great Reminders for Your Hive
An Encouraging Sticker

If you love finding out cool facts on animals, insects and more then you’ll love this sweet deal!

You can find everything you need for homeschooling the family all in one spot!

You’ll bee filled to the brim with piles of extras included in this membership — a brand-new 2021-22 SmartMama™ Planner to keep you on track, an annual print subscription to The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, a live activity calendar, and access to exclusive member-only live events.
Use code: BUMBLEBEE during the Bumblebee sale, 6/3/21-6/30/21, to pay only $30 (reg. $49.97) for an Ultimate Quarterly Membership. New members only.
Click the image to get all the sweet details!

The Basics of Bees

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If you enjoy unit studies or interest based studies then you’ll love these fun resources!

For the month of June you’ll BEE seeing a lot of Bee themed lessons and crafts in our social media feed.
Insta – @GurrolaFam
So join in the fun! If you do any of our activities bee-low bee-sure to tag us in your posts!

Some Fun Facts about Honey Bees

  1. Honey bees are one of the few bees with hairy compound eyes.
  2. The honey bee’s wings stroke over 200 times a second! This motion is what creates the distinctive honey bee buzz.
  3. During honey production periods, spring and summer, a worker bee’s life span is about 6 weeks.
  4. The average honey bee will actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime… About the size of your pinky fingernail.
  5. Bees die after they sting! The stinger has a barb that is attached to the abdomen; so, when they sting they lose part of their abdomen and die.
  6. Honey bees can perceive movements that are separated by 1/300th of a second. Humans can only sense movements separated by 1/50th of a second. Were a bee to enter a cinema, it would be able to differentiate each individual movie frame being projected.
  7. Queens will lay almost 2000 eggs a day at a rate of 5 or 6 a minute. 75,000-200,000 eggs are laid each year.

There are some un-Bee-lievable fun ways to learn about bees here are a few FREE-BEES for you to enjoy!

https://youtu.be/g7U8D0LYdNo

Grab this fun letter challenge!

Keep the fun rolling throughout the summer with SchoolhouseTeachers! There is no need to slow down your children’s education. Simply switch gears, giving them something to be excited about! Educate and entertain your kids at the same time by selecting their favorite electives during the summer months.

Starting JUNE 3RD, 2021 Use code: BUMBLEBEE during the SchoolhouseTeachers Bumblebee sale to pay only $30 (reg. $49.97) for an Ultimate Quarterly Membership, and the entire family will immediately receive access to all that SchoolhouseTeachers has to offer.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT SCHOOLHOUSE TEACHERS

Remember Red Poppies

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Memorial Day poppies usually appear every year and raise funds for a great cause, but over the last couple years I see less and less of them. Then what really breaks my heart is that most people don’t even understand their significance for Memorial Day. It’s a rich part of not only American history but world history.

So here is the history behind these beautiful red flowers…
The red poppy, or Remembrance Poppy, has been a symbol of lives lost to war since World War I (1914–1918), and it plays a big part in the history of Memorial Day. The poppy is worn in many of the countries that were Allied during World War I, including Great Britain, France, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. In most of those other countries, the poppy is worn on and leading up to Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day) on November 11, which is Veterans Day in the United States, or on ANZAC Day (April 25) in New Zealand and Australia, which commemorates the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps troops who served in the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign. But in the United States, the poppy is worn on Memorial Day.

The poppy as a symbol of war casualties started with a poem. In the spring of 1915, a Canadian artillery unit brigade surgeon named Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae saw bright red poppies blooming on the war-torn fields where so many soldiers had lost their lives, and he was moved to write “In Flanders Fields.”

The poem begins, “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row,” and ends, “If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields.” The poem was published in a London magazine and later syndicated to publications in other Allied countries, where it was seen by two separate (but important) women.

Two women in different countries saw the poem and were inspired in different ways. American University of Georgia professor Moïna Michael wrote a poem in response to McCrae’s, titled “We Shall Keep Faith,” in 1918. She also started wearing a red poppy in honor of the troops and came up with the idea of making and selling red poppies to raise money for veterans.

Meanwhile, in France, Anna Guérin organized large poppy drives, making and selling poppies to raise money for widows, orphans, and veterans, and to fund France’s post-war restoration efforts. She championed her idea for an “Inter-Allied Poppy Day” and started Poppy Days worldwide, during which fundraising poppies were sold in many Allied countries. Poppy factories were set up, often employing disabled servicemen to make the silk and paper blooms.

To this day many Americans will pin a bright red poppy to their shirts as a sign of respect. In the United States, the poppy is traditionally worn on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day, to commemorate the lives of those who died fighting for our country. The Friday before Memorial Day is National Poppy Day. You can find poppies that are handmade by veterans as part of their therapeutic rehabilitation and distributed across the country by the American Legion Auxiliary in exchange for donations that assist disabled and hospitalized veterans. Be sure to also check with your local Veterans programs to see if they are offering poppy pins to support your local veterans.

Help Keep The Red Poppy Tradition Alive

Here are some fun resources to teach your kids about the importance of the Red Poppy

Books: YouTube Read Alouds

A Poppy is to Remember

The Poppy Lady

The Poppy Story 

Short video on the history and how Australia uses the poppy

Red Poppy Craft

Poppy Flower Art Projects for Remembrance Day

We used the second activity from the poppy flower project and used big black pom poms for my stigma, instead of drawing them on. We double plated our poppies to make them fuller. Make sure to soften and work the paper petals and bend them the way you want them. Then we made big green leaves from card stock and added details using watercolor pens.

Green Irish Dip

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On St. Patrick’s Day, complete your table with a delectable green spinach dip, served with “gold coin” crackers. This dish will be a hit at your St. Patrick’s Day party—or at on any occasion!

What You Need:
10 ounce package of frozen, chopped spinach
8 ounces sliced water chestnuts, drained and chopped
1 package dried leek soup mix
1 cup mayonnaise; use 3/4 cup if you are not using a bread bowl
16 ounces light sour cream; use a little less if you are not using a bread bowl
4 green onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Round crackers
Assorted vegetables such as carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, blanched broccoli
Round loaf of sourdough bread (optional)
What You Do:

  1. Read the thawing directions on the spinach package; follow accordingly.
  2. While the spinach is thawing, prepare the rest of the dip. In a large bowl, combine the water chestnuts, leek soup mix, mayonnaise, sour cream, green onions, garlic, and lemon juice.
  3. Give the spinach a few really good squeezes, by the handful, to drain as much of the liquid as possible. Stir it in with the rest of the ingredients in the bowl.
  4. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least six hours, or overnight, to allow the flavors to combine.
  5. When you are ready to serve the dip, either pour it into a regular bowl or hollow out a round loaf of bread and use that as your bowl.
  6. Present it with assorted round crackers—your “gold coins”—and your favorite veggies for dipping.

Learn About St. Patrick’s Day

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St Patricks Day Homeschool Freebies

As a homeschooling family we love to celebrate lots of holidays. It’s an excellent way to learn and have fun too!

We’ve put together a little freebie learning packet for St. Patrick’s Day! Find out the truth about St. Patrick’s Day…

Download St. Patrick’s Day Lesson

Be sure to check out our recipe of the month too – hint – it’s Irish related.

Looking for more St. Patrick’s Day Fun then hit your local library and search out these fun reads.
Here are a few books about St. Patrick or St. Patrick’s Day:
Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie dePaola
Tim O’Toole and the Wee Folk by Gerald McDermott
St. Patrick’s Day by Gail Gibbons

Homeschool Resources

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Homeschool resources

First of all let me start by saying there is NO wrong way to homeschool. Don’t be afraid to just keep on trying new things till you find what works best for YOU and your kids. (PS I’m always adding to this list so check back)

Here’s a list of my favorite homeschoolin` tools:

  1. Schoolhouse Teachers
    This is our number one “go to” site. They offer Christian, Self-paced, Online Homeschooling Courses with Customizable Curriculum. Our favorite thing about this place is that they’ve created “School Boxes” which are FULL Curriculum Sets by Grade. There’s video lessons, print-outs, interactive digital books and so much more for each core subject PLUS extras like Foreign Languages, Art, and Bible. Perfect for homes like mine that have 4 grade levels to cover.
    This is a paid service, but really affordable. You get access to A LOT of other subscription services through them included in your membership, like RightNowMedia, WorldBooks, NatureGlo Science & more. If you’d like to check it out I’ve got a great deal for you! Just click the image below.

    Whether you started teaching from home on day one or you recently pulled your child out of public school, we are all in this together, heading toward the same goal! We want to help you finish well by giving you the chance to homeschool your family for only $15 a month!  Purchase a SchoolhouseTeachers.com Quarterly Membership so you can finish this quarter in style. New members can use code: FINISHWELL to pay only $45 (now $59.97) quarterly. Lock in this low price to not only complete this school year in confidence but in the years to come!

2. Simply Charoltte Mason PodCast
Great tips for any homeschooling family. You certainly don’t need to be doing a CM style homeschool to gain great wisdom from this! It has been a wonderful encouragement to me this year.

3. Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool
And yes, it’s all free. You’ll need paper, pencil, etc. and some minor supplies if you choose to do the experiments and art projects, but all of the reading materials, etc. are all free and online. They offer offline courses for math, reading, and language arts, which you can find in our store. You can also find workbooks of Printables, the worksheets used in the online courses so that you don’t have to print. A complete, free online Christian homeschool curriculum for your family. While this is a great tool that’s FREE I found it hard to navigate, but still a solid resource.

Gluten Free Shrimp/Chicken and Rice Casserole

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If you are looking for an easy recipe that can feed 6-9 people here it is!

We found this great ready to mix then bake pre-bagged meals from The Gourmet Cupboard. (By the way it’s a direct sales company so be sure to find a friends link and support them, if you don’t know anyone then use this link here and support this nice gal Emily – Click Here)

Superb with shrimp, great with chicken, or fabulous with both; this recipe is a winner!
We used 1 bag of Shrimp/Chicken and Rice Casserole Mix (from The Gourmet Cupboard), 1 can of gluten-free broccoli cheddar soup, 1 can of chicken or vegetable broth, 1 cup grated cheddar cheese, and 2 whole cooked and diced chicken breasts and a 1/2 lb of cooked shrimp.

Yields: 9×13 pan. Prep Time: 20 minutes Bake time: 40 minutes.

This meal served all 9 members of our family and loved by all ages from 5-88! We will definitely be making this again! We served our with fresh steamed asparagus.

Simple enough that the kids can even help out.

Tasty Meal in a bag…

Will A Home Based Business Work For You?

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Create curiosity on if running a home business is for you

The answer is YES! Absolutely!

Working at home became a reality for millions of people around the world this year due to the 2020 Pandemic. Being able to work from home probably turned out a lot different that anyone imagined. Who you were working for or what job you were doing also played a big role in how your work-from-home experience went. High stress work doesn’t just disappear based on your location, throw in a few screaming kids, and the stress is sure to double. Working from home doesn’t have to be stressful you may just need a new employer… like YOURSELF.

Before the pandemic one study, in fact, concluded that nearly half of all American employees work at home. And the trend isn’t limited to the United States; 79 percent of knowledge workers globally now do at least some work outside the office.

That same study also revealed that more than 50 million Americans work independently as freelancers. With considerable overlap in the Venn diagram of home-based workers and entrepreneurs, the numbers show that starting a home-based business isn’t a just trend. It’s part of the new reality of the American workforce.

The dreams of working at home and being your own boss are still very much alive and go hand-in-hand in the modern workforce. It is now possible to start almost any kind of business from home immediately, albeit with varying degrees of investment and experience.

Starting a Home-based Business May Be Easier Than You Think

Many home-based businesses you can start with very little money and very little experience. How do we know? Because we’ve been there and we’ve done it.

As we proved time and time again you can make excellent profits even with a very small home-based business. And if you want you can grow it into a much larger legacy.

So even if you don’t have much experience or savings, you too can start your own home-based business and become highly successful with it.

So Now it’s Time to Make a Decision

Everything in life starts with a decision. It allows us to make a commitment to ourselves that we want to achieve something.

Let your WHY guide you. You’ve probably heard that a lot in the network marketing and entrepreneurial space – what is your WHY? Why are you doing this business? What are you working FOR? How will this person, place or thing be better as a result of your goals? Being super clear on these WHY’s are key. It is often what will propel you on the days you simply don’t feel like it. Your why is something that will push you when you feel like you have nothing left to give. Write it down, tell your friend, mentor, — somebody.

Once you’ve gotten your WHY’s figured out it will be easier to decide what business is right for you to dive into. If it aligns with all your WHY’s a passion for what you are starting will ignite.

Your next step is Taking Action

Now, we know you have goals and ambitions so we want you to ask yourself this; what is my plan to achieve them?

We use SMART goals a lot in defining our goals but definitely use what works best for you. That BIG and maybe even scary goal could come with 100 steps to get there and that’s OK. In fact, it’s important. Breaking down those goals into tiny steps satisfies are couple things;

  1. Makes the goal(s) manageable
  2. Helps you celebrate the smaller wins along the way
  3. Maintains your focus without overwhelm

Tips for Getting Started

Avoid going into Working from Home Blind

There are so many people who see home based business as a novelty. We hear things a lot like ‘oh it must be nice‘ — sound familiar? And so, in other words know what you’re getting yourself into. Yes, working from home is amazing and something we love but, it takes work. Often, people assume that clients and customers will just start rolling in, sorry to tell you but marketing, lead generation, strategy, etc. need to all part of the plan.

Create a Consistent and Realistic Day

When you are scheduling your days, ensure that they are sustainable for you — consistently. We totally get wanting to jam pack that schedule and say yes to every call request or zoom meeting, but avoid falling into the ‘always on’ trap.

The more consistent you can be, the more predictable you are for others as we mentioned above. It’s OK to want to do all the things, but leave some breathing room for yourself too. After all, you can’t pour from an empty cup!

Value Family Time

It’s important that you create your own boundaries on non-work hours. Family time is precious time — avoid taking calls, responding to messages or checking your email. When it’s family time turn everything else off. This, will help others respect your work time boundaries when you are respecting their family time ones.

We hope this post helps you in your journey to becoming your own boss. If you’d like to see what has worked for us with proven track records then check this out: What We Do

We are a HUGE fan of all small business, no matter what field you choose. We believe there is space for us all and we are NOT in a competition. We want everyone to succeed. So let’s cheer each other on, go check out this list from our Support Small Business post.

Support Small Business

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Did you know you can support small business without spending a dime?

We all have friends and family who have that entrepreneurial spirit and started their own business. As much as we’d like to help them out and purchase from them, there is just no way we could buy from ALL of them without going broke! BUT there are enough people out in world to support ALL of them.

YOU have the power to connect those friends and family to the world. Someone, somewhere is out there looking for what they offer. All you have to do is follow these simple steps.

More than likely your friend or family member has a website, facebook page, or instagram account.

Look for those little thumbs up or heart icons and Tap or Click ’em!

  1. Comment something positive, even if it’s just a “WoW”
  2. Share a post you connect with from one of their accounts
  3. Tag a friend who might enjoy the post
  4. Shout them out in a post of your own, something simple
  5. Comment a fun emoji

The more often you do these things the more it helps their posts and pages get seen.

Some DO NOT’s to go by

  1. Don’t post anything negative
  2. Don’t ask for free stuff

Here’s a list of a few of my favorite small businesses:

Feel free to “Like” them too…
Share this post and help out all these small businesses….

Educational:

Usborne – One of the world’s leading independent children’s book publishers and proud to be a family business. Creating brilliant books for all children – and looking after people and the planet while we do so.
Ashley – https://j9386.myubam.com

Make Up & Beauty:

Farmasi – An international beauty and personal care manufacturer, retailer and direct selling company in Beauty Care.
Christina – https://www.farmasius.com/ChristinaMain
FB: https://www.facebook.com/ConfidencewithChristina

Beauty Counter – Our Mission: To get safer products into the hands of everyone. Since our first product launch in 2013, we’ve been creating the gold standard for safety in the personal-care industry. How? First, we omit 1,800+ questionable ingredients in our formulations that are currently used in the industry—we call this The Never List™.
Amanda – https://www.beautycounter.com/amandabarbee/

SeneGence – Steadfast in its commitment to offer products that really work, including LipSense® Long-Lasting Lip Color and a complete line of anti-aging skin care and long-lasting cosmetics.
Chrissy – https://senesite.senegence.com/SimplyBeautifulByChrissy/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SimplyBeautifulByChrissy

Rodan + Fields – No matter your age, gender, skin tone or ethnicity, Rodan + Fields products can help you to achieve healthier, younger-looking skin.
Sherae – https://sgurrola.myrandf.com

BeCAUSE Cosmetics – Working to make the world a more beautiful place. That’s why 3% of all commissionable sales are dedicated to a corporate-advised fund. Working with BeCause and the Community Foundation of Utah, Brand Ambassadors nominate and select organizations that will receive these grants.
Leah – https://www.becausecosmetics.com/2199/

Health:

Modere – For 30 years, Modere has been committed to earning your trust with products that consistently deliver. We’ve made a conscious choice to eliminate unnecessary and potentially harmful ingredients commonly found in conventional formulations, because what we leave out is as important as what we include.
Daniel – https://www.Modere.com/4CHEER
FB: https://www.facebook.com/LiveCleanLifestyles

YoungLiving – Essential oils are aromatic, concentrated plant extracts that are carefully obtained through steam distillation, cold pressing, or resin tapping. We offer essential oils, blends, and oil-infused products with the optimal levels of specific, naturally occurring essential oil constituents to maximize their potency.
Holly – FB: The Wellthy Oilers Hangout

Jewelry:

JBloom – I want our jewelry to tell your story. Many items can be personalized to reflect what’s meaningful to you. Now, more than ever, we need these simple reminders of how words, phrases or a scripture can give us hope.
Le Keisha – https://www.myjbloom.com/lsoliz
FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1153509054739448

Paparazzi – Paparazzi Accessories are always fabulous, always fashionable, and always $5.
Shelly – https://paparazziaccessories.com/317097/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/931528420516337

Hair-care:

Head Kandy – Kayla McNeill is the founder and creator of Head Kandy, an up and coming beauty brand. Located in Salida, Colorado, Head Kandy is revolutionizing the way women style hair. Specializing in time saving, quality, affordable beauty products and hair appliances for the every day consumer.
Leah – https://www.headkandypro.com/?aff=609p

Home:

Thirty-One Gifts – Customizable items for your home like pillows, organizing totes, purses, travel bags and more.
Melinda: https://www.mythirtyone.com/melindaogbin
FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GetOrganizedwithMelinda

Scentsy – An international leader in home and personal fragrance, offering stylish, innovative and customizable products designed to Warm the Heart, Enliven the Senses and Inspire the Soul. Scentsy products are sold by a network of Scentsy Consultants in 11 countries.
Jessica – https://jessicajoosten.scentsy.us
FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1098257190551702