Scrutiny by the Masses

Cheerios and My Favorite Vacay

Sponsored By

Cheerios® is giving you the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, your ultimate family vacation. As part of a paid promotion for their “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, Cheerios® is sponsoring my post today about what my ultimate family vacation would be. Read mine, Enter the Sweepstakes for a chance to actually win your own fantasy family trip or one of a bunch of other great prizes.

Oh, sigh. My favorite family vacation would be so, so nice. Have you ever heard of a small place called Atlantis?

Yeah, it's like that.

If I had the money, I'd take my hubby, my six kids, AND my mom - that's the very important part - for a week at Atlantis. I'd sign my kids in to the kids' camps, give my older kids some free roaming guidelines, set my mom up and then sleeeeeep by the side of the pool. I'd wake to reapply sunscreen and drink a frozen drink with an umbrella.

We'd leave only to eat a fancy, PREPARED by someone else gourmet lunch, and then swim in the crystal clear ocean. I would spend time with my hubby while my kids were enjoying great activities that are chaperoned and geared just for them. We'd all meet up for a fancy dinner and then my mom could take my kids back to the suite (hey, it's MY fantasy, right!) and I'd go to the shows with my husband.

Back to bed to sleeeeeep some more, not waking until well after 9 - when room service showed up with a gourmet breakfast that we'd eat together as a family on the oceanfront balcony. Lather, rinse, repeat for a week. Throw in some tours, deep sea fishing for the guys (so I could get a massage and a facial), free drinks brought to me by scantily clad well toned young men - what more to a dream vacation is there?

Don't forget to enter the “Do What You Love” Sweepstakes, for a chance to win your own ultimate family vacation. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Energizer SmartChargHER - No One Deserves It More!

This is my entry into the Energizer SmartChargHER contest, in which two lucky people will win $2000 to spend at Blogher from 2 different sites - so, by my (admittedly poor) math skills, that makes four.

Your fluffy pink bunny, while cute with his go-go antics and endless drum-thumping energy, has got nothing on me. I'm a mom, so I'm naturally one of the busiest creatures on earth. However, I'm a mom to not one, not two, but SIX children. That means short of having a third arm installed, the highest-powered Energizer battery you've got installed in my back is tops on my wish list. There's piles of laundry, cooking, soccer practice, 3 kids to muay thai practice, a broken down van, always a birthday party to plan and a blog to be written. Let's not forget that each of the half-dozen little darlings needs the TLC that only a mother can give. I'm behind before I even get out of bed.

That's just my Tuesday.

My non-branded batteries get recharged at the gym, when I focus on my me-time by my own training, Muay Thai style. Since we haven't reached Jeston-status and I'm not likely to run off an Energizer battery anytime soon, this is where I go to unplug, recharge, and make sure I'm running on all volts to be a healthier, stronger, happier mom to the kids who have have helped me acquire the title "Mom to the Screaming Masses." We've got Energizers in DS players, in the flashlights that they use to play flashlight tag, and rolling around in the junk drawer. The one thing that REALLY needs an Energizer battery is me - and, believe me, if I could slip an Energizer or two in my back - it'd be sweet.

Pick me! Pick me! I badly need to recharge and regroup at Blogher '10 - cuz it's the only vacation I'm going to get alone for a long, long time.

Nothing to See Here - Unless You Want to go to Blogher

This is my entry to try to win a trip to Blogher '09, thanks to the great giveaway by JVC!

With six kids involved in cross country, soccer and muay thai classes, as well as the everyday drama that comes with life in a big family, there is constantly something to record, something to remember.  Having an Everio HD camcorder would help me be able to capture the shots on goal, the breaking of the tape, and the high kicks on the bag that describe our family.  I'd love to be able to show my blog readers the songs that my autistic daughter sings when she thinks no one is looking, and the ability to do a video post on my exercise blog, showing how to correctly execute a pull up, would be an amazing bonus that I've dreamed about since I started my blog six years ago.

As small and light as an Everio HD camcorder is, it'd be a delight to pop it into my pocketbook and take it with me everywhere I go to record the humor in my life - that is, if I can find the humor in getting pulled over by the police while my six year old sits in the back seat, telling the police officer, "Good job!  I told my mommy she was going too fast!"

Pick me, Pick me, PICK ME!!!