Swiss Colony Free Offers

Every year, we love getting the Swiss Colony catalogue and drooling over all the classic and new items they have.  They always include a free gift with purchase, like chocolate truffles, but we’ve found out from years past that they allow you to claim up to two free gifts (you need to place the order over the phone and ask for it), and we normally don’t like the truffles, so I have to research each year to find the best valid offers for our purchase.

So, I decided to post my findings for offers for 2009, for which ones they have available.

AW11874 – 1 pound, Extra Fancy Mixed Nuts ($22.95 value)
AG1316 – 36 Chocolate Truffles ($33.50 value)
AG1362 – 24 Chocolate Truffles ($27.95 value)
AG1344 – 24 Petit Fours ($14.50 value)
AG1310 – 16 Sugar-free Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clusters ($21.95 value)

In 2010, the 24 Chocolate Truffle offer no longer worked, but we got an offer for the following:

AG1410 – Ultimate Chocolate Collection ($19.95 value)

(side note, I once read that “SAVE2” lets you save $2.00 off the order, but I’ve never used that.)

Pumpkin Cake Balls

In theme with the holiday season, Rebecca decided to create a new flavour cake ball. This one was very moist, and theoretically lower in calories than the other kinds (as the cake was so moist, it didn’t need a full batch of frosting mixed in.)  At least, this is what we will claim.

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A moist pumpkin cake, made from real pumpkin, and all the right spices mixed in.  Blended with a buttery cream cheese frosting, then coated with delicate orange coloured, vanilla flavoured chocolate!  And decorated to look just like little pumpkins! 🙂

Battlestar Galactica

Growing up, television was an event.  You didn’t have the ability to record shows, or watch whatever you want, whenever you wanted.  When Star Wars was first broadcast on the movie channels, we literally spent the entire day bouncing between the movie channels, as soon as one ended, to start watching the next broadcast of another one (or coming in half-way through the movie).  I think I blame Nana (my maternal grandmother) for this love.

I remember Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Battlestar Galactica, as the two shows we loved to watch with Nana.  She had audio tape recordings of the shows that we would listen to on occasion, and I remember her listening to them years later.  I remember being at her apartment to watch the show, or even the rare occasion when we’d go out to eat at a pizza place, and they’d be showing episodes of it.

Battlestar Galactica was one of those unforgettable shows.  It was created by an LDS person, and some of the concepts of the show had unique religious aspects to them.  I can still remember how they had visits from guys dressed in white, they had a counsel of twelve people who helped make decisions, they had eternal marriage, and how they were remnants of 12 tribes that were lost in space, looking for that remaining tribe on Earth.  Not all aspects of the show were based strictly on LDS beliefs (there were a lot of ancient Roman/Greek names, a Mayan sport, etc), but in general, it was something else.

Rebecca had decided to start watching our movie collection in alphabetical order, as often the kids like watching the same things all the time, and we know they’d love more if they just had the chance.  So when they reached the B’s and got into the DVD set of Battlestar Galactica, let’s just say, they were HOOKED.  For a week, that’s all they watched, and on Friday, they went through a full day, up until midnight.  I’m glad this series from 30 years ago still has much to offer. 🙂

In case you missed it…

Rebecca and I were working on a long post about our Easter weekend adventure in cake balls, that I finally finished.

http://www.klamation.com/blog/2010/04/900-cake-balls/

Let’s just say that 11 flavours of cake balls, plus an ice cream cake and round wedding cakes made for 15 different pan-fulls of cake, and dozens of eggs and other ingredients being consumed all within a single week.  My wife might have her lazy moments (usually occurs between 3-6am, give or take an hour) but she certainly pulled out all the stops on getting these made.

Of course, I helped.

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As did her family. Since they were in town for the wedding, we had something of an assembly line going for rolling, dipping, decorating, then packaging these items.

I suspect she’ll make a fine business lady, should she ever get into this professionally.