I had heard about Pedalheads before from parents in the neighborhood. A couple of boys we knew had to do the camp twice in order to learn how to ride their bike. Another young girl learned how to ride her bike in a week camp without training wheels, but still had tons of fear of riding her bike and quickly unlearned how to ride a bike.

I figured that I was only hoping for our daughter to become more comfortable on her bike. We brought her trike and her bike with training wheels to camp for all five days. She basically would only ride her trike which we were okay with. However, we were not okay with the lack of encouragement from her Pedalheads instructor. I think the instructor asked her a total of 5 times if she wanted to try her other bike and there was no encouragement or interaction you would expect with a 3 year old.

I guess it is obvious from my tone already that we were not pleased with the Pedalheads experience. I will summarize everything quickly starting with the Pros....

PROS

*Our 3 year old was able to steer her tricycle better after going to the Pedalheads week long camp.

CONS

*The instructor we had was horrible. She put five pylons up every class and for an hour expected the 3 year olds to be entertained enough with circling around them. All the time the other kids in the other classes were playing games, riding through a sprinkler and other fund activities.
*One day the instructor did not even acknowledge our daughter when she arrived.
*The Supervisor yelled across the lot so all classes could hear, you jerk to another instructor which is not appropriate.
*The Supervisor was more interested in disturbing the instructors while they were teaching their classes with chasing them to pour water over their heads.
*My daughter was never taught what a stop signs was or what a red, yellow or green light means. She only knows what they mean because we taught her their meanings.
*We had to follow our daughter as she pedaled around the 5 cones and try to encourage her to go in and out of them. The Instructor was often distracted or seemed like she just could not bother.
*The only time the kids started to play a catch up to each other game was when we encouraged them too.

I did complain to the company and was offered another week of camp for free. I asked my 3 year old if she wanted to go again and she said no, that it was not fun. She finally agreed to try the camp again if she had a different instructor. So another week of Pedalheads camp was arranged with a different instructor.

I had to drag my daughter to the first class of the free week asking her to just try it and see if it is more fun. Honestly, the new instructor seemed amazing. She taught our daughter more in one hour than what she had done in the entire previous week of camp. However, the damage was done from the first experience and my daughter just would not go back for any of the other days for the free week of camp. The main problem this time was that they put our daughter in a camp with just her and the instructor. No other kids, no other friends to play and ride with. What fun is that for a 3 year old?

Will I ever try Pedalheads again? No, I think it was a waste of money.

My suggestions to the company would be as follows:

*focus on getting high quality instructors
*get better more mature supervisors
*have a curriculum that is developed and instructors are to follow
*have instructors for the younger kids that have experience working and communicating with three year olds

I did receive good customer service from the company once they knew I was not impressed with the camp experience. It was nice of them to offer another week for free. However, it is ridiculous that they put our daughter in a camp with no other kids.

That is my personal take on Pedalheads. Research them yourself if you are thinking of putting your child into a camp. If you have had an experience with the Pedalheads program please leave your comments for other parents. Have you had a better experience then we did?

If your little one is crazy about Toopy & Binoo then you will want to know that they are coming for Live appearances in various malls across Canada. Curious about the dates and location nearest to you? Then you have to check out their tour date schedule.

Oh and did I mention that the live appearances that Treehouse puts on are usually from my experience, FREE!

We find that the instructors at Club Aviva have been very good. We have not had a chance to have a class with every instructor, but so far our little one and us love Zenia and Olivia. Thanks to them for their amazing talents with children, tons of patience and always making lesson fun and challenging.

The club itself has recently been recognized when it won the Ed Brougham Award on June 19th, 2010. By winning the Ed Brougham award, Club Aviva was recognized as the best gym in Canada. Congratulations to Club Aviva, all the instructors and the owner Vivien Symington.

Vivien Symington opened the gym in 1986. It is located in the Tri-Cities are of the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, BC. They offer lessons, birthday parties, sleepover parties, summer and March Break camps. Club Aviva covers recreational, competitive and therapeutic lessons and instruction. Anything that you could want or expect from a gymnastics club is found at Club Aviva.

Vivien Symington's dedication goes beyond Club Aviva. Check out her website Empowering Steps.

The first one is through Toys R US. If your little one brings in their report card between July 2nd and 4th, Toys R Us will give them a $5.00 gift card. Pretty good deal.

From the What To Expect series, you can get a FREE copy of What to Expect Guide To A Healthy Home. Awesome deal!

How about a FREE two year subscription to Lego Magazine for the Lego Fans in your household? Comes in English or French. Canadian Offer.

Have a Toy Story fan in your house? Been looking at the price tag of the Toy Story toys? Well, here are $40 in Toy Story 3 coupons to help you save a few dollars.

I wish they had this next deal when I was going to University. Okay everyone who has a youngster in High School, you wanna check this deal over. How about FREE TUITION to Lakehead University. What is the catch? Have to have a 95% average. Pays to study guys and gals.

Okay those are the hot deals for today. Hope you enjoy them.

There are over $10,000 in prizes to be won. The grand prize is a kid's room makeover (values at almost $8000) and 2 years of maid service. Oh how I would love the maid service for two years!

Suggestions on ways to make your story stand out is to include photos, video and to send it to friends, family, twitter and Facebook so people read and rate it.

For more details take a look at the following pages:

Contest Page

Prizes

No matter what your family structure looks like, we hope that you find a way to celebrate tomorrow. Celebrate your parents. Celebrate your family.

Happy parent's day, father's day and Happy Family Day to everyone for tomorrow. For those who might not have a father, don't focus on what you do not have, Celebrate the family and support that you do have.

Here is a video that is done by a youngster and is pretty popular. It illustrates my point. There are kids out there who do not have a father around for whatever reason. Maybe they passed away, maybe they were just never known. Remember to celebrate what you have.

I still have my dad, so tomorrow I will be calling him to let him know just how important he is to me. My little one does not have a dad, so tomorrow we will be celebrating having parents. Make tomorrow a day to treasure what you have.

There are also monthly contests that you can enter under various categories. I will post a few of the categories here but you can browse them all on the website.

MONTHLY CONTEST

TWINS AND MULTIPLES CONTEST

Twins and Multiples Promotion

NOSE PICKERS

CuteKid nose pickers

SUPER CUTE KID

Super CuteKid

Good luck.

Mandi Schwartz, a 22-year old member of the Yale women’s ice hockey team, has recently been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia for the second time. She is currently back home in Saskatchewan, Canada undergoing chemotherapy, and within the next 30-45 days she will have to have a stem cell transplant to survive. We have not yet located a donor who is a perfect match.

Under the leadership of Dr. Tedd Collins, a New Haven-based clinical immunologist, we are undertaking a world-wide search for cord blood and bone marrow donors. In addition to helping Mandi, these donors could also save the lives of many others with life-threatening illnesses. Dr. Collins has launched the “Become Mandi’s Hero” campaign to coordinate our efforts to find donors. The process of donating a newborn baby's cord blood is free & harmless for all involved, and it could save a life. In many cases the umbilical cords that could save someone like Mandi’s life wind up getting thrown away.

Dr. Collins will send cord blood collection kits to people who request them free of charge & will even pay for return postage (a cost that is usually in the $1000s). Expectant mothers can visit www.BecomeMandisHero.org to learn more about the cord blood donation process. Attached is a brochure that explains how to get a kit from Dr. Collins if you are an expectant mother.

There is also a $1,000 reward to the mother with a successful match. Those of German, Russian, and Ukranian ancestry are strongly encouraged to donate, however, a cord blood donation of any ancestry can obviously still impact someone's life.

By helping Mandi you will be giving birth to two lives at once.

Thank you!

The promotion is running from May 10th, 2010 to August 10th, 2010. What it is all about is these awesome free Adidas sport shirts that are free when you purchase a specially marked box of certain Kellogg"s cereals. These specially marked boxes have a code inside and the code is used to obtain your FREE shirt. And yes, I do me free because for this promotion even shipping and handling is FREE. From my experience, most promotions you have to pay for shipping and handling, but not with this Kellogg's Promotion.

So here is what you have to do to get your free Adidas shirt.

1. Buy a specially marked box of Kellogg's cereal.

2. Look inside the box, on the box itself for your special code.

3. Go to the Kellogg's / Adidas promotion website and enter your code. Then pick the shirt of your choice, size and give them your address.

4. Wait for 6 - 10 weeks and your shirt should be in the mail.

Here are the products that are specially marked for this promotion:

* Corn Pops* cereal: 515 g
* Froot Loops* cereal: 580 g
* Kellogg's Frosted Flakes* cereal: 680g
* Mini-Wheats* Brown Sugar Flavour cereal: 850 g
* Rice Krispies* cereal: 700 g
* Mini-Wheats* Original cereal: 850 g

Here are the shirts that are available:

Sizes are available in small, medium, and large.
Four designs to choose from:

- 'Soccer' Toucan Sam* print.
- 'Soccer' Snap!*, Crackle!* and Pop!* print.
- 'Soccer' Tony the Tiger* print.
- Adidas branded Soccer shirt.

There are some Legal Disclaimers of course that deal with the fact that there are limited quantities. So remember that the offer is only good while supplies last. There are apparently a of 175,000 Adidas Soccer Tees available. And the offer is for Canadian shipping addresses only.

Remember not to save up the codes and wait to enter them. You could find that there are no more shirts available. You also have to enter your codes by August 10th, 2010 in or they are not valid anymore.

I ordered three shirts tonight. My little one is going to be so happy.

USA Link:

Canada Link:

The book was located in out local bookstore under the must have section. I grabbed it and quickly read it. By the time I was finished reading the book, I had tears in my eyes and knew that this was a special book. I knew that this book, I wanted to purchase, write a note in and have it for when my little one was much older. I thought "Someday" she will pick the book up and read it, then read the note I wrote and think of us and our time together. What a moment!

The local bookstore was right, "Someday" is a must have book. No home library is complete without it. Well, that is at least our opinion here in our home.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Thank you Alison McGhee for writing such an amazing book.

Answer a few questions and let us know what you think of the book.