"Sunday Scoop" The Gang's Weekly Column

SUNDAY SCOOP

Yes, before next week's "Sunday Scoop" you all will have trick-or-treated, or taken your kids like we will. Halloween on a Saturday, WOO HOO!! Lauryn is going to be a "preppy school girl" with a group of her friends from school. Sami is going to be a "baby", with a blanket sleeper and all! Mara and Dave have not decided yet, but usually they get dressed up as something.  Here come the usual disclaimers, but still, they are very important:

1. Go Trick-Or-Treating in a group and with as many people as you can.

2. Mae sure that your parents know where you are going to be and check in with often, especially this is going to be on a Saturday.

3. Make sure you carry a flashlight or glow sticks for when it is dark out.

4. I guess telling you "not to take candy from strangers" would not really be the best advice ON HALLOWEEN, so for just that one day, that rule can be overlooked BUT make sure you or your parents check all of your candy before you eat any!

5. HAVE FUN!!!

 

We are super excited that the contest is going great.  We had a few winners of some books.  Our latest went to "Marc" became our 250th follower! There are going to be many more things given away before the contest is even over. We are going to start thinking of some fun little games to earn entries or prizes. Possibly even before the "Scoop" is over!

JUST A REMINDER: IF & WHEN THE ORIGINAL CONTEST POST HITS 200 COMMENTS, WE WIL JUST MAKE A SECOND CONTEST POST TO CONTINUE WITH YOUR ENTRIES. 

In our last post, the Gang had asked that if anyone out there who follows us has a "button", that they put a link to their site in a comment for us and we will include it in our new scrolling list of friends. Also, we want to take this opportunity to tell you all that randomly we have been following many of you through our different names. Well, a new site look, a new few additions, and now we are starting over with "following" our readers blogs.  We are going to be following under "The Lateiner Gang."  What we'd love for you to do, to make our lives easier, is to email us your blog site's address. You can send your email to tlgbrs@gmail.com If you follow us, isn't it only fair that we follow you? Also, please continue to submit your web addresses to the "buttons" post so we can get your button up there as soon as possible.  IF you have a site you want us to follow AND a button, please just send the email with the address and tell us you also have a button there. No need to write it twice. 

Not much has gone on around the Lateiner Gang's household this past week.  AGAIN, a few of us were sick! Dave had strept throat and 103 degree fever. Lauryn also had a high fever and sore throat, but it went away in a few days. IT MUST BE THE FRESH NJ AIR!!  (cough, cough)  Poor Mara, having to take care of 2 sickies and Sami, who is a handful.  

The good news is that our NY YANKEES are about an inning away from making it to the World Series Again!  In case you didn't catch a subtle hint before, we are HUGE, DIE-HARD Yankee fans!!!  Hopefully by the time this is posted, we will have beaten the Angels and will be on our way to the series!

This past weekend, Dave participated in a 24 read-a-thon.  It was going well until we lost power for a few hours and he had to take care of a few things around the house.  Once the lights came back on, back to hittin the books!  One book he read, and you will get a review for is "Gone" by Michael Grant. He seemed to love it, so we are guessing the review will be a pretty good one.  Mara is finishing up "The Everafter" by Amy Huntley.  Look for a review from Sami on "Diary of a Wimpy Kid 4" and Lauryn is reading "Airhead" by Meg Cabot.  These will probably be up within a day.  We were hoping for today, but had a ton of things to catch up on.

Some good news regarding the contest is that this past week, we got Simon & Schuster and Little Brown and Co. on board with our contest.  Also, a few local Barnes and Noble stores are supposed to contribute some books to the cause.  This has been wonderful.  The participation and cooperation for the contest has been spectacular, both on the part of the publishers as well as you guys.  We have SO many entries already and about 3 1/2 weeks to go!  Thanks to all of you out there for making this special for us. 

There are some contests we are going to be running over the nest week.  Fist off, and most suiting, we want to have a HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST.  Before next Sunday, 8 p.m. EST, email us a picture of you or your children all dressed up.  Obviously we don't expect many costume pics until later in the week for halloween parties or for dress up day at school, but regardless, email them to tlgbrs@gmail.com and in the next "Sunday Scoop" we will announce different winners for different categories!  Don't worry, if we can remember, we will send out a reminder later in the week.

Taking a quick break to check the Yankee Game....Uh oh, top of the 8th and the Yanks lost their 3-1 lead and it's now 3-2.  We better win this!  Ok, sorry about that.  Let's try something new for a week.  Let's have a "refer a friend week" for the Gang's contest.  Now, every time someone becomes a new follower and enters the contest, if you sent them there, you are supposed to go in and add a +1 in the comments section.  From now until next week's "Scoop" every time you "refer a friend" and they put your name down, go into the comments and add +3 instead of +1.  Thats 2 extra entries for each friend that signs up to our site!  A little marketing on your part, and you can earn a bunch of extra entries.

Also, during the week, we will hold a few mini challenges that we are currently thinking up.  The winners will each get a book from our pile of contest books.  We go the idea from Dave's read-a-thon.  Every hour, a few mini challenges were issued and winners were selected.  Dave even won one and got to pick out 2 books from the inventory as well as 6 bookmarks! 

Well, thats about it for this week.  The Yanks are rallying in the 8th inning and as much as we love you all, we want to go watch them celebrate making the series!

JUST A REMINDER, and we posted this in a few places, but to make sure everyone sees this, for linking our contest to your sidebar, you get +1.  If you additionally link our button to your site, you get an additional +2.  So, if you link, blab, or do whatever AND you post our button up there, you are good for +3!  There will be other ways throughout the contest to get extra entries, so stay alert.  The best part is we will randomly throw them in anywhere, anytime.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to read this.  We hope you all have a great, happy, and safe Halloween and we look forward to getting those pics in some neat costumes.

Dave, Mara, Lauryn, and Sami

The Lateiner Gang

WE HAD TO POST A QUICK UPDATE.....YANKS WON! THEY ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!  HERE WE COME PHILLY!  WATCH OUT!