With the holidays right around the corner, I am excited to announce AT&T’s Season of Gifting Sweepstakes! From December 1st through December 20th, AT&T will be featuring a deal of the day every day. For those that enter they will get the chance to win smartphones, tablets and more! Now who can’t use any of that stuff? I personally would love to win a tablet.  I would have bought myself one this year, but Bill had to replace the tires on his car.  You can also ‘nominate a friend’ and share your nomination to have others vote on your story, explaining why you think your friend should win. There will be two lucky winners each day!

As an AT&T customer myself, I am super excited and will be entering every day.  How about you?

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I love, love, love The Chicago Toy & Game Fair.  Here’s a short list of why YOU should be at The Chicago Toy & Game Fair.

1. Star Wars Breakfast. Who wouldn’t want to eat breakfast with the Star Wars 501st Legion: Vader’s Fist?

2. Where else do you get to play with the games before you buy them????

3. Young Inventor Challenge 2011. Where else can you go and see what’s on the minds of the smartest kids out there? These kids are awesome!

4. Where else do you get to meet the inventor of your favorite games?

5. Ginormous Etch-A-Sketch anyone?

I would love to see you and your family at The Chicago Toy & Game Fair, so I’ve arranged for one lucky family to get a weekend pass! Here’s what you need to do:

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Have you been to the Chicago Toy & Game Fair? I got to go last year, and I have to admit it is amazing.  I got to talk to a lot of the inventors of these games, and they are a very cool bunch.  I didn’t bring my kids last year, but there is so much for them to do!  This year, however, they are coming!!

The Chicago Toy & Game Fair is held on November 19 & 20 at Chicago’s Navy Pier.  It is $10/adult; $5/children; Free for ages 3 & under.  It is the largest public toy and game fair in the U.S.!  (I can attest to that).  At the fair, you get to preview, play and purchase the hottest new toys and games on the market.  It is great way to kick-off your holiday shopping.  Best of all, there is lots to do for the whole family – Live stage entertainment, free tournaments and contests, Star Wars Breakfast, giant-sized interactive toys and games, costumed characters roaming the Fair, etc.  There is also the Young Inventor Challenge.  It is free to enter for kids 6-18.  Get your kids inventing in this fun challenge, where they’ll exhibit their original toy or game invention and compete for fantastic prizes.  Registration required and the deadline to register is October 31st.  All participants receive free admission to the Fair for their immediate families.

Now, are you coming to the Chicago Toy & Game Fair?  Will I see you there?

For those of you who haven’t got their tickets yet, I have some great news.  I will be giving away a family weekend pass every week till The Chicago Toy & Game Fair!!!!  Here’s what you need to do:

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I went to the most amazing conference last weekend.  It was called Brands & Bloggers Summit.  Now, you know that I’ve been to many conferences and events.  Instead of rehashing the events of this weekend (because there are a ton of posts already out with what we learned.  You can also see a lot of what happened on Twitter using the hashtag #bbsummit11.)  However, if you are wondering if you should come next year, I’ve got the list:

1.  The people.  Yes, it was mostly women, so we also know how to take care of one another.  One blogger tweeted that they wanted a Diet Coke.  If you can believe it, another blogger brought her one.  :)  Another blogger needed some aspirin and some was given to her.  Now, I can honestly say I’ve never been at a conference where I’ve seen such big hearts.  Oh yes, we also all took turns holding the babies (who have to say were seen and not heard.  And they were cute.)

2.  Affordable.  Since it was one day, a lot of people drove in Saturday.  Some women even drove home Saturday night.  It is much more affordable to get a room for one night.  (For me, it was a 30 minute drive, so I went home late Saturday night).  The conference itself was $100 (I think.  Somebody correct me if I’m wrong on that).  That include breakfast, lunch, and two snacks.  I could have easily spent $100 on food in downtown Chicago myself on a Saturday.  :)  It also helps that we have 2 airports for those flying in.

3. Wifi and power cords.  I can’t tell you how many conferences I’ve been to where the Wifi doesn’t work or there are 3 outlets in the entire room and hundreds of bloggers.  MJ (the awesome lady who put this on) is a blogger herself, so she knew we’d need this stuff!

4.  Breaks for networking.  I’ve never been to a conference where there was actual time scheduled into the day, so we could all network.  That’s what this is all about — making connections and learning new things.  In our networking time, I found out that one of the women at my table (who I’d never met before), actually lives 5 minutes from my house.  Now, how crazy is that?  If that network time wasn’t there, I may have missed ever talking to her. I also found that that another wonderful woman at our table had read my interview in the newspaper (it was a couple of years ago), and she’s read my site ever since.  I can’t tell you how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel.

5.  Organization.  We all had QR codes on our badges.  Also, the back of the badge was our agenda for the day.  (Again, I’ve never seen that done before).  At all times, you knew what was next and how long it would take.  Everything pretty much ran on time.

6.  It was great for brands also.  Our information was put in for a grand prize.  All we had to do was visit each booth and get a sticker.  I thought this was brilliant, so that we visited each booth (which I would have done regardless, but not everybody did).  The brands there also were a great fit with the moms there.  I found products that I would have never even seen before.

7.  Miss Lori.  Not only did we get to hear her perform for us, she also gave an awesome speech (which I’ll be blogging about this week).

8.  No egos.  The speakers hung with us during the conference and even after.  I’ve been to many of a conference where the speakers weren’t good enough to hang with the rest of us lowly bloggers nor would they talk to us either.  (I do have to add that the conferences I’ve been at with John Chow and Chris Brogan that they have never acted like that even with their A list status.)

9.  The after party rocked.  We got to go to the John Hancock Observatory.  I’ve never been there, so it was pretty awesome.  It was also great to network with the other bloggers I didn’t get a chance to during the conference itself.

10.  This was the best conference I’ve ever attended hands down.  I’ve been to BlogHer, and it was even better than that.  Many times, the complaint I have with conferences is that I’m not a beginning blogger.  I’ve been doing this longer than some of the speakers at other conferences.  I’ll be honest — nothing is more annoying that knowing more than speaker (and I’m not trying to be rude about that.  You know what you know.  However, I don’t like paying hundreds of dollars to learn what I already know.)  I learned something from each of the speakers at the Brands & Bloggers Summit!

I highly, highly, highly recommend heading out to the Brands & Bloggers Summit next year.  It is definitely worth and hope to see you there!

Disclosure:  I did receive a complimentary ticket to this years event.  However, all opinions are mine. 

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SSgt. Brent Schneider
From Amarillo, Texas
2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment
January 26, 2005

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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