A Few Shout Outs

Today's a good day for some shout outs, and some giveaway sharing.

Those incredibly resourceful ladies who run the Silicon Valley Moms Group have organized a once in a lifetime trip for a Silicon Valley contributors: a road trip to BlogHer! Five bloggers from a variety of the SV Moms sites will drive cross country, picking up bloggers on the way to San Francisco. And in true blog style, they'll be sharing it on the web along the way with wireless Internet in the Chevy Tahoe and cameras and video recording technology. So we'll all be able to follow their adventures along with them.

I love books and am always reading. I post my book reviews at my other blog Chefdruck Writes and at the Dear Reader book review blog. I'm always looking for book blogs with recommendations and contests. I just came across a great blog today who has 2 giveaways currently running - one for a Scholastic Summer Kit and another for Ace of Hearts by Jean Holloway. The blog is A Book Blogger's Diary. Check it out!

And last but not least, I'm giving a shout out to my sister, the one who inspired me to start blogging. She's funny and honest, and she blogs at Rose's Life and on her review blog, the Lemonade Stand, as well as the Silicon Valley Moms blog. Check out her sites, and if you sign up for her Feedburner feeds, you might be the lucky person to share the cash prize she'll win if she gets the most subscribers in a month!

Kung Fu Panda Giveaway

I went to a Kung Fun Panda promotional event on Sunday organized by the Silicon Valley Moms Blog. It was my first family blog event - or as my kids put it - finally our turn for a goody bag!

I'd like to share the spoils of this goody bag with you - my first giveaway. Please post a comment below by Monday, June 9 with your email address and the best kid movie you've recently seen. I'll randomly select a winner to receive an HP Kung Fu Panda activity CD and a gift card for 70 snapfish digital camera prints (50 if you're already a customer).

The event, held at Kidville on the Upper West Side, was really fun. How could it not be fun with a bouncing castle, a trampoline, crafts, video games, face painting, candy, and good pass-arounds? But it was curiously missing promotion of the actual movie. I was expecting to see a clip or receive passes to the movie, but the closest we got to the movie was playing video games and taking pictures with a cardboard panda. Don't get me wrong, we had fun doing that, and we're still just as fired up to see Kung Fu Panda, but it did seem like a little bit of a waste. Isn't the point of getting a bunch of bloggers in one place to show them the actual product, or part of the actual product, so they can talk it up?

Regardless, I had a great time. I got to meet some online friends like Feener of Mommy Vents, and Phat Mommy, as well as catch up with some online friends I've recently met like Andi of Mama Knows Breast and Jessica of the NYC Moms Blog. I even got to have a few minutes of chat time longer than just saying hi as my kids ran around the various rooms. Pretty great for a sunday afternoon.