Today, for Monday Dreaming, I am dreaming of a fabulous giveaway. I have had some luck with blog giveaways…I have won a stay in a new hotel in Washington DC, a book, and a sheet set! But this giveaway, unfortunately I cannot win because I am a relative of Pensacola with Kids! At my other blog, where we share our adventures while exploring Pensacola with our kids, I am doing a fabulous giveaway. My dear friends have started a socially responsible organization called The Gracious Basket, and they have donated a fantastic Valentine’s basket.
Stop by Pensacola with Kids and enter for a chance to win a great candy basket just in time for Valentine’s Day from The Gracious Basket!
After that, be sure to stop by Mother of All Trips to see what others are dreaming of today!
Thanks to all who participated in the My Busy Kit giveaway. This was my first giveaway and I appreciate the participation! The winner, selected randomly via random number generator, was Suzanne S. (comment #3) who said:
“I would love a girls my busy kit! We just moved to the area and will be traveling back to Ga for the holidays! this would help my 2 girls stay entertained in the car without ust sitting and watchi movie after movie!!!”
Well, Suzanne, you are in luck! It will definitely keep your kids entertained in the car. We took our busy kits with us to Washington DC this past weekend and my little ones, who love the TV, made it the entire four hour plane ride without cracking open the portable DVD players!
Suzanne-Email me asap and I will forward your contact information to Lorraine over at My Busy Kit so she can get your kit out to you!
Thanks again to Lorraine at My Busy Kit. Be sure to check out My Busy Kit before you take your next trip!
We are celebrating the one year anniversary of Two Kids and a Map today and what better way to do it than to give something away to the readers!!! I have partnered up with Lorraine from My Busy Kit® to give away one busy kit of the winner’s choice! The kits are fantastic. They are designed with the child in mind and are full of great activities to take on the go with you. Usually when I prepare for a trip, I let my kids pack a little backpack full of their favorite toys. The backpacks include their favorite toys, but it also includes some new stuff I slip in. Sometimes they include nothing but hot wheels for my son and ponies for my daughter. On a three week tour around Europe, this can get old very quickly! Imagine my kids delight when I pulled the My Busy Kit® out of my bag! It captures their attention for a long time. Not only was it all new stuff to them, but I didn’t have to put any of it together myself. When we are at home, the My Busy Kits go into the closet so they are exciting and new on the next trip! We received two My Busy Kits® awhile back as a thank you. My daughter has the My Busy Kit for girls:
and my son has the My Busy Kit for Boys:
Little S loves the pony, scissors and sticky tape. Big S loves the knights and the measuring tape. Since we have taken the My Busy Kits on several trips, I have started to add my own little extras to the bags. We have almost exhausted the bags themselves and it is almost time to order new ones!
There are several My Busy Kit® options to meet the needs of any of your children: My Busy Kit for Girls, My Busy Kit for Boys, My Airport Busy Kit, My Busy Kit for Toddlers, and they even have an iPhone App, My Little Suitcase! My Busy Kits range from 15-25 dollars.
Soooooooooo…do you like what you see? Would you like a My Busy Kit of your very own?
How to Enter
We will be giving away ONE My Busy Kit to ONE lucky winner! If you would like a chance to win, leave a comment in this post before 9:59pm CST on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 and tell me which My Busy Kit you would like to win and why! Stop by the website if you need to! Don’t worry about being creative in your comment, the winner will be chosen by a random number generator. Please make sure that you fill out the required fields by putting your first name in the name field and your email address in the email address field. I do not share email addresses and you will not receive emails from Two Kids and a Map unless you win.
For one additional entry to increase your odds of winning, 
subscribe to Two Kids and a Map in a reader or receive the website updates via email by clicking this link and subscribing. Subscriptions are free and you will receive website updates via your email or you can read the posts in your reader (I prefer Google Reader!). If you subscribe to the website, be sure to come back here and leave an additional comment in this post stating that you are a subscriber.
Winners
We will choose ONE winner randomly and announce the results here on Two Kids and a Map on Wednesday, October 28, 2009. Thank you so much to the Lorraine at My Busy Kit for your generous donation! Be sure to stop by Lorraine’s blog, Keeps Me Smiling!
Rules
One comment per person per giveaway post. You may post one additional comment stating that you are a subscriber if you have subscribed to the site. Duplicate comments and anonymous comments will be discarded. Please make sure that the email address in your comment form is valid so that we can contact you (email addresses are never made public). Winners must claim their prize within three business days after the date of notification of such prize. We will disqualify any entries that we believe are generated by scripts and other automated technology. No substitutions including for cash are permitted, except that Two Kids and a Map reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value for any prize. Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state and local taxes on the value of their prize. Relatives of Two Kids and a Map are not eligible to win.
Because this is a family site and we get a lot of spam comments, all comments on this site are moderated. If your comment doesn’t show up right away, don’t worry!
Today marks the one year “blog-iversary” for Two Kids and a Map. We are celebrating big time by giving away a My Busy Kit to ONE lucky winner! Be sure to check back later today to find out how to enter!
When I started this blog I had never intended for it to become what it has! I was writing to keep family updated with our three week Christmas holiday Europe adventure. I enjoyed writing the blog and decided to keep it up. This is my travel journal. I used to scrapbook our family travels in a fancy book with pen and paper. Now, I write about them and post pictures here. Over the past year I have learned a lot about blogging and have met some amazing people, both online and in person. I still have a long way to go, but I am enjoying the journey!
A few fun facts about Two Kids and a Map:
- Posts Written: 171
- Comments from you: 593
- Funniest Keyword Searched: canned squeezy cheese in FL
- I often wonder what I will do if my husband and I choose to have another child – Three Kids and a Map? Change the domain name? Keep it and just change the header? I don’t know why I worry about these things!
Things on this site that I am proud of:
- Finally figuring out how to link my feed to feedburner and actually getting subscribers.
- Travel Blogger Tuesday and staying fairly consistent with posting
- Joining Twitter and finding a happy medium between my tweets and living life!
- Launching Pensacola with Kids - After Pensacola posts kept popping up on Two Kids and a Map, I created Pensacola with Kids (a site to help you explore Pensacola with your family)
My goals for the future:
- To continue to explore new places and write about them here
- To be better at commenting back to you when you comment to me – I love reading comments back to me so I know you all probably do too!
- Get the blog makeover that I have been waiting for (I had hoped it would be done in time for the one year anniversary but unfortunately I am still in some queue out in cyberspace!)
- Finally create a blog roll of all the amazing sites I love now that I am on WordPress
Travels on the Agenda for the Next 12 Months (most trips are planned, some are just wishes and dreams we hope to come true!):
- Jacksonville, Florida (to visit friends)
- Panama City Beach, Florida (to visit family)
- Atlanta, Georgia (to get away for a weekend)
- Orlando, Florida (to visit Mickey!)
- Washington DC (to visit family)
- Norfolk, Virginia (to visit family)
- Asheville, North Carolina (for a wedding)
- Oahu (for our 10 year anniversary)
- New York City (for blogging conference and to visit the one spot I have always wanted to go but have yet to make it to!)
- Europe (Germany and Italy are on the agenda for this summertime trip)
Keep an eye out because later today we will post how to enter to win a My Busy Kit!!!
As I said in a post last week, I decided to make the move to the domain name even though the site wasn’t ready. I did this because I had a million and one reasons why I didn’t have time to work on my site. I decided that if I just moved the site, then I would be forced to get it up and running smoothly. I have a laundry list of things that need to be done and it will take some time. One of those items was to get my RSS Feeds going. You can now Subscribe to Two Kids and a Map in a reader or if you look at the top corner of the sidebar, you can subscribe via email.
I really appreciate all of you sticking around while we make this transition.
Mara, at Mother of All Trips, does a great article series where she writes about her travel dreams. Sometimes she is dreaming of a place that she has never been and other times she is dreaming of places that she remembers and wishes to return! Since she moved to her new site, she has opened up her dreaming posts for everyone else. You write a post about what you are dreaming about and then you link to it from her post. Today, I must admit that the only thing I am dreaming of is a nap for my children (they haven’t taken one in 9 days…count em…9 days) and a working website template for me.
This is my new website…minus the green and brown background. I have been paying for this domain name and webhosting for about 4 months now but I haven’t been able to get it together for one reason or another. I decided that if I just move to the new site, it will force me to bite the bullet and get what I want done! Nothing like knowing people are checking out the site to get you to finally fix the “About” page! I have someone working on a template for my blog but I am not sure when it will be finished so for now I am attempting to find a free template that will be a placeholder until the official Two Kids and a Map template is finished. I chose this template for now because it is what I use on my other site, Pensacola with Kids. Please pardon our dust as we continue to remodel. I will be reworking the category section and page section as well.
In the meantime, if you have bookmarked my site or have subscribed, I would appreciate it if you updated your info with this new site…www.twokidsandamap.com.
I will continue to work!
