Fact: I have terrible vision. I’m sure it is in my genes because my mom does too. No amount of carrot eating could correct this ridiculous vision. Glasses have just always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

In fact, even now as a contacts wearer, I have to wear prescription eyeglasses too when I am reading or working at a computer. Yeah, I’m a blogger…that is about 90% of my awake time!

Of course, since I have to buy contacts AND order glasses I want to be sure and get a great value with my glasses. I don’t want to skimp on style though because a girl still has to look good!

I visited GlassesUSA.com to check out some frame options for eye glasses. 
They have this awesome feature called the Virtual Optician which helps you find frames based on measurements, personality or frame features!

I answered a quick 10 question quiz to find a list of frames for me based on my personality.

From there, I went on to the Virtual Mirror feature to see how the glasses will look on!

I simply uploaded a picture and tried on various frames. 
{Don’t have a photo handy? No worries, they have virtual people on there too so you can pick someone who looks similar to you}

I even picked a few to compare and forwarded them over to Mathlete to get his opinion using the ‘Share’ feature.

So, do you wear eyeglasses? If so, you should check out GlassesUSA.com to see their amazing selection.

On top of their great selection and features to help you pick out the perfect frames like the Virtual Optician and Virtual Mirror, GlassesUSA.com is offering special discounts for Just Us Four readers.
Take 15% off your entire order + Free shipping for orders over $50 using code: FS15
Or, you can take 10% off any order of prescription glasses using the code: Blog10

Happy shopping!

School {for us} starts this week! I am not sure how it came so quickly. Like a lot of people, we tried to squeeze in one final fun trip before school goes back in session.

Not having a ton of time to travel somewhere far away, we settled on a quick family trip. Even though it wasn’t a very long trip, it was a great way to have some fun before heading back to school.

What was shocking to me as I planned this trip, was how much planning still needed to go into a short trip. When you are traveling with kids, there is a lot more to think about! Pre-kiddos, Mathlete and I could hop in the car and just go with little planning or prep work. That just doesn’t fly now!

So, having completed one family vacation already this year and prepping to embark on another, I thought I would share some tips from my experience traveling with kids!

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1) Make lists! Now, everyone doesn’t live and die by a list like I do but they are so valuable when you are trying to pack for several people and there are many items that are vital to the trip (i.e. diapers or special nighttime buddies)

2) Set your “go” time about an hour earlier than it really needs to be. It always takes longer to get kids into the car and on the road so adding in a cushion is key to maintaining any sort of schedule.

3) Snacks! I can’t say enough how important travel snacks are to a trip with kids. I don’t think we’d ever make it to our destination if I didn’t have snacks galore in the car. There would be constant begging for food or drink as if they had never eaten before.

4) Bring entertainment and lots of it. Movies aren’t enough anymore for most kids so be sure to pack movies, games, coloring and other fun things to keep them occupied. They won’t get bored and you won’t constantly hear “are we there yet?”

5) Anticipate the things you might need. What do I mean by this? Let me give you an example. On our last trip to the beach, we tried to make sure our bathing suits and towels were left outside to dry every afternoon. That worked great for my packing plan UNTIL we went to the beach the morning before we left. I didn’t want to throw all those wet clothes into suitcases. Thankfully, I had thrown a roll of cheap garbage bags into our luggage so I could just throw the wet stuff in there.

6) Try to keep sleep schedules pretty close to what they are at home. I know this isn’t always reasonable but trying to do it at least part of the trip will make everyone much happier! Heck, I’d even recommend a nap for mom and dad when the kids nap too! I know I definitely took a nap on every day of our last trip because I was wiped.

7) Go with the flow. When visiting a different town, things are inevitably going to be different than they are at home. Case in point: a certain beach town that will remain nameless offers no changing tables in men’s bathrooms. At first, I was pretty peeved that this would leave me changing all of the diapers for a week. But, it was something we couldn’t change so we compromised and I changed all diapers in public places while Mathlete took hotel diaper changes.

8) Expect the best, plan for the worst. It is almost inevitable that someone will get sick or hurt on vacation. Mathlete loves to tell the story of his families’ cross country vacation when he got chicken pox on the second day. While you can’t plan for everything, boosting your kids {and your own} immune system before heading out on a vacation is a great idea! For our kids, we use Culturelle Kids!. It was recommended by our pediatrician and is so easy for them to take. I just pour a packet directly into the kids’ juice cups and it dissolves into the liquid instantly. Traveling shakes up everyone’s routine which can easily lead to illnesses. Adding in a probiotic, like Culturelle Kids!, before and during the trip, helps reduce the likelihood that the kids get sick when they are on vacation.

Someone got really worn out on the car ride {as usual}

I was compensated for this post.  However, the views and opinions expressed here are my own.

**This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of MyLife.com. All opinions expressed here are my own.**

I recently checked out a new social media network called MyLife.com. 

I joined when a friend told me about it, and since joining I have found lots of my old friends and classmates from high school and college.

It also has a feature to look for relatives to try and get back in touch with them. I really love the feature that allows me to see who’s been searching for me. Who would have known that so many people would be looking for me on the internet?

The Work & Jobs feature is a great way for employers to screen potential employees for open positions so they can find the best qualified candidate. This feature would also be really great for anyone looking for a new job too!

I really like the Local Services & Deals because it helps me find new businesses in my area. I am always looking to support local area businesses whenever possible and this gives me a resource to do so. MyLife.com has a lot of special features that may not be available with other social media networks.

If you’re looking for more than just a social network, but a business network as well, I would recommend checking out MyLife.com to see if it meets your needs.

Email. 

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It’s a friend and foe. 


I literally get hundreds of emails a day between my day job, this blog and all the other randomness that comes to my inbox. I have a pretty decent management system, including separate emails for different topics {personal, coupons/newsletters/etc, and the blog} for it all which helps keep me from going insane. 


Know what has the potential to drive me over the edge though?

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Poorly formatted emails! I’m not talking about grammar issues or things like that. Sure, those types of things aren’t my favorite thing in the world but we all make mistakes. I even know proofreaders who just miss little things from time to time. 
 It is the supposedly professional newsletters and emails that I get that are just a complete mess. The text doesn’t align properly, images are all jumbled on top of text…I could go on and on. 


Email templates, like Mad Mimi newsletter templates, would totally help to eliminate those problems. If email drafters would use templates, gone would be the days of getting {or sending out in some cases} emails where you are worried about how the columns will line up, the text will read and overall how the email will look. I wouldn’t have to play the scrolling the game just to understand the gist of the email. 


Do you have any email pet peeves? Get a bunch of newsletter where the drafter clearly needs a little help with the formatting? How is your email management system working for you?

This is a sponsored post for Mad Mimi, however, all the points and views are my own.