Family Friday: NYC – A Traveler’s Library – In this post, I shamelessly admit that I am using my children to help me convince my husband to take us all to NYC this year!

Objects that will Drop in the South on New Year’s Eve – Traveling Mom – From moon pies, pickles, and peaches, read about the funny (and some strange) things that are dropped on New Year’s Eve in destinations around the south.

Holiday Fun at the Gaylord Palms – Travel Mamas – We were so honored to represent Travel Mamas at the Gaylord Palms for their Dreamworks Experience.  We played in snow, saw amazing ice sculptures and had breakfast with Shrek.

Miniature Golf in Myrtle Beach – Traveling Mom – I couldn’t believe the number of mini golf courses in Myrtle Beach.  It seemed like there was one on every corner.  Read about our favorite one.

Do you have a favorite post from your blog or elsewhere that you would like to share?  Leave a link in the comments!

To me, there is nothing more amazing than watching a child read a sentence for the first time and realize that they pronounced it correctly.  Or watching a teenager pick apart a passage in a classic that they would never have chosen to read themselves and get it.  Or helping a child pick out a book in the library.  Or trying to get the attention of a tween that has been pulled so far into a story that they can’t even hear you talking to them.

A life without that?  No thank you.

This year, Passports with Purpose is working to raise $80K  to help Room to Read build two libraries in southern and eastern Zambia.  This is a project I can stand behind.  Not only because of the amazing people behind Passports with Purpose and their previous success, but also because we have friends who run an orphanage in the south of Zambia.

I can’t help but wonder if this library will in some way affect them and the mission that they have chosen as their life’s work.  What an amazing thought…

So how can you help?  Travel bloggers all over the world have procured amazing prizes that are up for grabs.  The prizes range from hotel stays to several Kindle Fire eReaders to gift certificates.  Donate $10 at a time and put your name in the hat for the prizes that you are interested in.  Who knows? You just might win something great while helping to build libraries in Zambia!

What are you waiting for?  Open your pocketbooks.  Open your hearts.  Put books into the hands of both children and adults alike.  Donate.

A few weeks ago, my family and I got the chance to drive to Orlando and meet Shrek and his pals.  It isn’t often that you can see snow and ice in Orlando, Florida but you can if you visit the Dreamworks Experience at the Gaylord Palms.  I was honored to represent Travel Mamas, a site that I love and read often.  Hop on over to Travel Mamas and read about our visit to the Gaylord Palms Resort Dreamworks Experience!

The Vacation Gals is one of my favorite travel blogs and is one of the first that I started reading on a regular basis.  I am so honored to have a guest post over at The Vacation Gals about the things that you should to do before you go on vacation without the kids.

I am also at Traveling Mom sharing four reasons why you should choose Hollywood Studios as one of the theme parks to visit on your Disney trip.  We have always avoided it and when we went recently we fell in love with the park.

Over at my Pensacola with Kids site, I wrote an extensive review of our trip to LEGOLAND Florida in Winter Haven and the things that you need to know before you go.

Happy Halloween!

They can hardly contain their excitement!

Pure joy!

Giving boating school a whirl…

Trading a minifigure with one of the friendly employees!

I am not promising anything, but I will try harder to get more in a post tomorrow.  It is time for bed…we are exhausted!

Stop by Adventuroo to see other fun #weekinmylife posts!

Today’s post is going to be short and sweet because we spent much of it in the car driving from Pensacola to Orlando!  We had to leave Daddy J at home because he has to work so since I was the only driver I wasn’t able to snap many pictures! I dropped the kids off at school and raced home to get one last load of laundry finished.  I packed up my suitcase, loaded up the car, picked the kids up early, and we hit the road.

This is what much of our drive is from Pensacola to Lake City…boooooooooooring.

We only had to make one stop in between Pensacola and Lake City but from Gainesville to Orlando (all of 1.5 hours), we had to stop four times.  Ugh.  Four times.  For this.

Speaking of the bathroom, am I the only one who won’t let me 7 year old go into a strange bathroom by himself? He is allowed to go in a very select few bathrooms by himself.  He is probably getting to old to take in the bathroom with me but this semi-paranoid mama doesn’t care.

We snapped a few fun pictures in the rest area parking lot before we hit the road again.  I love this one! Originally I took one of just the kids but when I showed it to them, they wanted to know where I was.  They liked this one much better.

After about seven hours of driving, we finally made it.  Look at who is sharing our room.

We dropped off our luggage and raced down for a 20 minute dip in the pool.  When we were walking back to our hotel room, we found somebody’s chair!

Don’t forget to stop by Adventuroo to see what everyone else did this week!

It was a good thing that Monday and Tuesday were quiet days because I made up for it today.  Today we went through the hectic packing rituals before a trip.  We are headed to the Grand Opening of LEGOLAND Florida and my children can hardly believe it!  Unfortunately, because my husband just got out of town he was unable to take any more time off of work so it will just be me and the kids.  We had some practice road tripping without daddy.  Awhile back, we took a quick trip to New Orleans where we were able to stay with Grandma and then I bravely drove 1000 miles from Florida to North Carolina to South Carolina and then back.

Even though my kids are only four and seven, they have been helping us pack their bags for quite some time.  I tell them what they need to get, the go get it from their rooms and make a pile.  It usually looks like this:

I do a quick check to make sure they grabbed appropriate clothing and then I pack it up in the suitcase.  They also pack their own backpacks (see pink backpack in above picture) with toys, books, and other things that they would like to bring with them.  I don’t really check these.  I have found that if they pack their own bags, they actually play with what they bring.  If I pack their bags, they are usually complaining an hour into the trip about how they have nothing to do.  Some trips, we end up with a backpack full of stuffed animals.  Other trips, nothing but Hot Wheels.

Our kitchen becomes a charging station as we get ready to travel!

I also pack up all of our food.  One of our favorite things about traveling is that we indulge in little snacks that we normally don’t eat at home.  We always buy the over priced tiny boxes of cereal for snack and some sort of chips that can be tossed in the backseat!

And the best part of the day?  Daddy is home so that means I am off of homework duty!

Quote of the day: “Your son totally ratted you out this morning when I took him to the bus stop. He told me you skipped dance, didn’t take him to soccer, and they had chicken nuggets and white noodles (fettuccine alfredo!) the whole time I was gone. Hahahahaha!” Daddy J

In my defense, I was sick when we skipped dance and I already told my husband.  Soccer was cancelled by the coach.  And we totally ate chicken nuggets and white noodles every night for dinner…unless we went out to eat!

Tomorrow, we will be on the road so I will be capturing pictures of our stops, our lunch and our arrival at our destination!

Don’t forget to stop by Adventuroo to see other Week in My Life posts!

This month, I shared our love for aquariums and the one book that we read before every aquarium trip!

I am over at Trekaroo sharing why we enjoyed Callaway Gardens so much and  I am also over at Traveling Mom sharing some of my favorite tips that we have picked up along the way about how to keep the kids entertained at a museum that is not a children’s museum.

Stop by tomorrow to see more pictures from the Navarre Sand Sculpting Festival for my Photo Friday submission!  Have a happy day!

On page 99 of the August/September 2011 issue of Southern Child Magazine, I have a little article about a few family-friendly things to do in Myrtle Beach, SC.  We had so much fun checking out all the different activities and I was glad to share some of our favorites!

If you haven’t found my pal Traci’s blog, Go Big or Go Home, you are missing out!  She packs her family up and travels to some of the BIGGEST places this world has to offer!  I was so excited when I got to guest post for her…luckily I actually got it written and sent to her though my pictures leave much to be desired.  For something that we visit on a regular basis, apparently it has been awhile since we visited as tourists with camera in hand!  See my post about the World’s Largest Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.

Over at Traveling Mom, I am still writing as Southern Traveling Mom!  I wrote about our travel planning style (here is a hint…we don’t have one!).  I also shared a book review of Kids Love Interstate 95, a handy book that guides down I-95 all the way from Pennsylvania to the bottom tip of Florida! 

Speaking of Trekaroo, could you take a moment and vote for Sharlene and Michelle of Team Trekaroo?  They participated in the Race to the Alamo this past week but voting is still going on.  You can vote once a day and you even have a chance to win a trip to San Antonio for yourself!