Staycations Around the Country

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I hope everyone saw my post on 10 Staycation Outings for here in Fresno. But I do realize that not all of you are not in Fresno (as much as I wish you were;). That is why I participated in a huge round up of staycation adventures from all around the country!!!

Mid Atlantic

NW (or all), Connecticut :: Parenting Miracles
Boston (or all), Massachusetts :: Maven of Savin
Central, New Jersey :: Our Good LIfe
Adirondak Mountains and Central, New York :: For This Season
Buffalo/Niagara Falls, New York :: Ann’s Entitled Life
Syracuse, New York :: I am THAT lady
Erie, Pennsylvania :: Growing Kids Ministry
Greater Harrisburg, Pennsylvania :: Family Balance Sheet
Hershey, Pennsylvania :: Good Deal Mama
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania :: Beyond the Cover
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania :: The Coupon “High”
Poconos, Pennsylvania :: Bucktown Bargains
Scranton, Pennsylvania :: Bucktown Bargains

Midwest

Des Moines, Iowa :: Make the best of everything
Aurora, Illinois :: A Savings WOW!
Central, Illinois :: The Homeschool Scientist
Chicago, Illinois :: Chicagoland Homeschool Network
Naperville, Illinois :: The Sensible Mom
Schaumburg, Illinois :: Ravings By Rae
Fort Wayne, Indiana :: Simplified Saving
Indianapolis, Indiana (Metro Area) :: In Good Cents
Muncie, Indiana (Central IN) :: the daisyhead
Northern Indiana :: So Dough Savvy
Kansas City Area :: Kansas City Mamas
Metro Detroit, Michigan :: Saving Dollars and Sense
Grand Rapids, Michigan :: Give Me Neither
Oakland County, Michigan :: Bargain Shopper Mom
Minneapolis, Minnesota :: Creative Couponing
Rural Minnesota (either Southern our Lake Country) :: Mommysavers.com
St. Cloud, Minnesota :: Frugal Finders
Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas :: Kosher on a Budget
Springfield, Missouri :: Getting Freedom
Cincinnati, Ohio :: Family Friendly Cincinnati
Columbus, Ohio :: Cleverly Simple
Dayton, Ohio :: Savings Lifestyle: Dayton
Mansfield, Ohio :: The Traveling Praters
NE Ohio :: Raising Lifelong Learners
Northeast Ohio (Canton, Akron, Cleveland) :: Sisters Shopping on a Shoestring
Black Hills, South Dakota :: Little House Living
South Dakota :: Moms Mustard Seeds
Oshkosh, Wisconsin :: Adventures of a Stay at Home Mom

Mountain

Phoenix, Arizona :: Mom Endeavors
Scottsdale, Arizona :: Saving For Someday
Tucson, Arizona :: Desert Chica Ramblings
Colorado Springs, Colorado :: The Greenbacks Gal
Denver, Colorado :: Bargain Blessings
Helena, Montana :: The WiC Project
Omaha, Nebraska :: Mom Endeavors
Reno, Nevada – Lake Tahoe (Northern Nevada) :: Saving in Nevada

Pacific

Fresno, California (Central Valley) :: NerdFamily Blog
Los Angeles, California :: Savings.com
San Diego, California :: Good Cheap Eats
San Diego, California :: Life as MOM
Portland, Oregon :: Frugal Living NW
Seattle, Washington :: Thrifty NW Mom

South Atlantic

Arkansas :: Discovering Arkansas
Washington, DC :: Kidventurous
Clearwater Beach, Florida :: Bargain Briana
Jacksonville, Florida :: Saving The Family Money
Southwest Florida (Ft. Myers area) :: Chaos Is Bliss
St. Augustine, Florida :: Simply St. Augustine
Tallahassee, Florida :: SwagGrabber
Atlanta, Georgia (metro area) :: Hodgepodge
Atlanta, Georgia (metro area) :: The Couponing Couple
Annapolis, Maryland :: The Happy Housewife
Hagerstown, Maryland :: Cheryl Pitt
Asheville, North Carolina :: Paradise Praises
Charlotte, North Carolina :: from our front porch lookin’ in…
Raleigh/Southeastern, North Carolina :: Upside Down Homeschooling
Upstate South Carolina :: The Tween & Me
Charlottesville, Virginia :: How to Have it All
Richmond, Virginia :: Teachers of Good Things
Smithfield, Virginia :: Walking in High Cotton
Virginia Beach, Virginia :: The Coupon Challenge

South Central

Coastal Alabama :: Meet Penny
Huntsville, Alabama :: The Traveling Praters
Northern Kentucky :: Simply Sherryl
Chattanooga, Tennessee :: Living Chic on the Cheap
East Tennessee (Smoky Mountains, Knoxville) :: Finding Joy on the Journey
Nashville, Tennessee :: Montessori Tidbits
Arlington, Texas :: Grocery Shop For FREE
Austin, Texas (Hill Country) :: Ponder the Path
College Station, Texas :: How to Homeschool My Child
Dallas, Texas :: Surviving The Stores
East Dallas, Texas :: Funky Faith Girl
Fort Worth, Texas :: Coupons & Freebies Mom
Houston, Texas :: MomsToolbox
Houston, Texas :: MyLitter
Katy, Texas :: Moms Confession
McAllen, Texas (Rio Grande Valley) :: iLoveMy5Kids
San Antonio, Texas :: Melissa’s Bargains

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Free Comic Book Day is Coming!!!

10thcomicbkdayhaul

Previous year’s haul!

Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday!!!! Yup, you heard me. The words free and comic books together!!! Free Comic Book Day is an event that happens every where on the first Saturday of May. The comic book industry provides a variety of comic titles to giveaway in order to not only encourage comic book reading but reading over all.

10comicbkdaycharacterSo how does it work? Just look online for a local comic book shop that is participating (we usually go to Heroes here in Fresno) and show up on Saturday. You may have to wait in a bit of a line, depending on your location, but it always goes much faster than you would think. Heroes (in Fresno) often has great costumed characters that interact with the kids.

Then when you get into the store you get to pick out at least 1 comic book (sometimes more). And that is it. You can of course look around and shop. Many comic book stores run some great sales on Free Comic Book Day but you are under no obligation to buy.

I do have one recommendation if you have youngish kids. Check out what is being offered ahead of time (they list them all) and have in mind what you would like. But don’t tell the kids until you get there because, depending on the crowds, they may not have your first choices.

I also recommend you wear something geeky but that is just for fun;). I mean, how often do you get to wear a super hero cape shopping;)?

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Ubisoft Spring Sale

Ubisoftspringsale

RAYO_PCDL_BXSHTUbisoft is having a big spring sale on downloadable games right now! They have some great family friendly games Like Rayman and Sims. But the sale only goes through March 31, 2013!

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New Plumb Album Giveaway!!!

NEED YOU NOW on iTunes SamiCone.com SavingsLifestyle.com KansasCityMamas.com MeghanTucker.com iGoBoGo.com NerdFamilyThings.com AngieSmithOnline.com MoneySavingQueen.com/

Once of my favorite artists, Plumb, has a new album that has just come out this week! I have loved Plumb and her music since the beginning! She was the first Christian artist I heard who actually put voice to the fact there are emotional struggles and I had struggles.

Her new album is called Need You Now has that same emotional vulnerability along with beautiful music. I had fallen in love with Drifting when it was released last year so of course that is one of my favorites on this album. The song Unlovable really spoke to me, not only due to my own life but also those I see who the church body attempts to ignore.  But not every song is deeply moving or emotional. I love Chocolate and Ice Cream too;). It is sweet and just adorable.

I could go on for a while. But before I get to the giveaway, let me urge you to go pick up a copy of Need You Now!!

So onto the giveaway. The blog tour is giving away 2 iPad Mini’s!!! You enter that giveaway with the Rafflecopter widget. Also 2 of my readers will win a cd copy of Need You Now!!! Those winners will be chosen from the comments on this blog post when the iPad Mini giveaway closes on 3/4/2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So get to entering and enjoying!!!

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Free Amazon MP3 Credit

You gotta love it! Just tell Amazon and Unilever what you think is the perfect component of a care package to get $2 Amazon MP3 Credit! Get individual songs or great albums your choice. Gotta love free music!

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Gamesville Reel Cash Critters

Ok, I admit it. My name is Jacqueline and I have a internet game problem. The problem is that I love them and if I am not careful I only play them instead of doing everything else;). So as to further my addiction I was introduced to Gamesville ;) .

Gamesville has a ton of fun games that don’t inherently take a ton of time. Your desire to sit there and play all day is a while separate issue;). But there is a free membership and a gold membership option. The Gold membership means no more ads!!! And you get/buy GV tokens to play with and win. (If you sign up through the links on this post you will get 10,000 to start with!)

One of the games I looked at was Reel Cash Critters. It a fun slots game with some twists. To start with you can actually win real, cash money in addition to GV’s! Like a normal slots game you choose your bet and of course the higher the bet the higher the payout. But you also choose how many rows to play. You can choose diagonals, v-shape, etc. And that definitely adds another dimension. Something else I like is that you can choose awesome and normal modes. The awesome mode just has brighter colors and it is nice to be able to turn that off if you are on a laptop battery instead of wall power.

There are a ton of other games on Gamesville too! I am a huge Big Money fan! There are all kinds of poker games, solitaire and so much more. There are also a bunch of cool puzzle games that I wasn’t familiar with too!

I will be spending many, many hours in the future on Gamesville ;) .

This review was made possible by Mom Spark Media. Thoughts are my own. I received a Gamesville Gold Membership and compensation for my time investment and work on this campaign.

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The Avengers Are Out on DVD!!!!

Did you realize that Marvel’s The Avengers came out on dvd this week? Well I did! And I bought it! I think this seals it, I am an awesome mom;). Ok, this wasn’t really about the kids but they are benefiting from NerdDad’s and my geekness.

Now my kids had already been introduced to the awesomeness that is The Avengers when we all went to see it in the theater. We all immediately agreed that this would be a movie we would have to own. As the commercials started up the talk continued.

Then I heard that Walmart had this awesome app that had augmented reality in it so of course that meant we had to go to Walmart;). Since we knew our Walmart wasn’t going to be one of the ones with special Avengers Character appearances on Saturday Sept 29th. So we went after a long day of choir and science. The kids were so stoked! We went in with the plan to find the 6 character cardboard cut outs with the codes on it. You scan it with your phone and then you get 3 questions on each one that help you find out which Avenger you are.

The first thing we did was go to find our dvd set! The kids wanted to grab the first set that they saw. But I took them around to the other side of the display. The kids didn’t realize that there would be the option of a comic book. They were excited to say the least. But in full disclosure… they still haven’t gotten their mitts on it yet. NerdDad isn’t done with it yet;).

We went off in search of the character displays and quickly found out that our Walmart didn’t have the displays. The kids and I were disappointed because we wanted to see the cool stuff but we found other fun;). We decided to wander around and check out the toys. I think the Hulk hands were the big hit. I still am wondering if they would fit me;). I mean, I can be angry for Halloween.

Tuesday is my long day. So getting pizza for the kids was just as much a treat for me as it was for them. They were excited to get to pizza to begin with. They were even more excited to get to pick out one with an Avenger hero on the box! Ironman won 2 to 1 and 1;). One kid wanted the Thor all meat and one wanted the Captain America pepperoni.

The kids didn’t know that the augmented reality app worked with the pizza box! You scan it with you phone or tablet and you can see a scene from the movie. You can move and see it from all angles as long as you keep it in focus. The characters don’t move a lot but it is the bomb! the kids are chuckled in delight and I obviously found it worth documenting;).

We settled in to eat dinner and watch the movie! Have I mentioned that I love Black Widow in The Avengers? Joss Whedon did a phenomenal job with her as he does with all his female characters;).

We even had a special Avengers themed dessert. True I bought a flat pack of premade Jello that I used in them but did I mention that Tuesday is my long and crazy day;). I paid $2.58 for 12 cups of Jello so I had some left over. It was a great night!

I bought a movie that I love for me and my kids think that I am a rock star. What could be better;)?

Are you interested in Marvel or The Avengers? Then you can check out the Marvel site, follow them on Twitter or like the Marvel Facebook page! You can also check out the exclusive DVD/Blu-Ray/Graphic Novel pack at Walmart.

You can also see my full shopping experience over on Google+!

 

(I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Marvel. #MarvelAvengersWMT #CBias #SocialFabric They may have picked the subject but all the thoughts are mine!)

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3D Monsters, Inc. is Coming

The original Monsters, Inc. is coming back to theaters but in 3D! My are going to be stoked!

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Bargain Summer Tunes

Amazon is running a 25 cent Summer Songs deal right now!!! I am off to check them out cause I am heading to NYC for BlogHer and need some tunes!!!

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Oz the Great and Powerful

Comic Con is great, even for those of us who can’t go, because of all the great stuff companies now do for it! Disney released this new trailer this week for Comic Con. While I am not a huge Franco fan I this looks awesome. I am wondering if it will be to scary for the kids?

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