Calling all procrastinators!!!

Tomorrow is the last day for sign ups! So if you have been waiting jump on board! Meg and Mag

Sign-Ups Are Open!

Okay everybody, sign-ups are open for the Fall 2009 Back-to-School Swap. Here are the guidelines:

1) Introduce yourself via e-mail to your partner once the pairs have been assigned and exchange a quick questionnaire to help you get acquainted. Parnters will be assigned beginning of August.

2) Put together a back-to-school themed package for your partner. If you sign your children up individually, you should spend around $10 plus shipping. If you sign-up as a family, you should spend about $20 plus shipping.

3) Mail your package by August 15th or a date agreed upon with your partner.

4) Send some kind of thank-you to your partner: it could be mailed, e-mailed or posted on the swap blog.

5) It would also be nice to see participants post to the swap blog (we will send out invitations that will allow you to do so). You can feel free to introduce yourself and your family, post ideas that you would like to share for the swap, give hints to your partner, and also post a thank-you. We have loved seeing pictures of what everyone swapped in the past. Posting is not a requirement, but it does let all the participants interact a little more and adds to the fun!

What To Do to Sign-up:

1) Send an e-mail to megandmag@gmail.com no later than July 31st, 2009.

2) Tell us:

• your name
• e-mail address
• names and ages of children participating
• individual or family?--if you sign-up individually, each child will send and receive their own package; likewise if you sign-up as a family, your whole family will send and receive one package
• names of people you have swapped with in the past
• your blog address, if you have one
• the state you live in (we try to pair people with someone outside their state)
• if you are/are not willing to ship internationally (in the past we have had participants from Canada & Australia in addition to people from all over the US)

We will send you an e-mail to confirm that you have been signed-up within a day or so, and then send out your partner's info the beginning of August.

Feel free to share this info with anyone you think would be interested, we would like to have our biggest group ever this time around! Also, if you have a blog, we would appreciate it so much if you did a short post about the swap and link back to the swap blog.

Drumroll please...

Mag and I have been talking about the swap, a theme or no theme? Family or individual. As we have bantered back and forth we have shared ideas and then this morning she sent me this quote: "Do you remember the movie 'You've Got Mail' where Tom Hanks tells Meg Ryan he would like to send her a bouquet of sharpened pencils and she buys a bunch of school supplies and sniffs scotch tape? That was one of my all time favorite movies." I remember that part Mag and I too love school supplies and all the hope that goes along with a new year of school. Here at my house, this is Meg speaking, we home school and will start our first year of homeschooling. But, that doesn't mean we don't know the excitement that goes along with Fall and the fresh start of a new academic year. So no matter what your school situation: Jr. High, Elementary, homeschool, unschool, boarding school, pre-school or no school we would love to have you join in the fun. We would like this to be the biggest swap ever. So pass the word. We have decided from all the feedback that the swap is going to be individual based on pairing children. Since this has been requested in the past. But, we do not want to leave anyone out so if you would like to have a family swap then include that when you sign up. We will open sign ups soon and have more information on the specifics. Right now the guidelines are Individual swap of $10 and lots of creativity and Family swap of $20 and lots of creativity. Also we will be allowing kids from 2-15 participate and will do our best to pair up ages. So you folks with older kids may just end up with a pen pal out all this!!!

And the theme is:

Back to school, rules!!!

OK, now go recruit everyone you know!!!! Let's get ready to play!!! "Hey, you, no throwing sand, or you will have to repeat Kindergarden!!"

Hello, is anybody there?

Heeellllllloooooooo! (Echo)

We are shaking off our hibernation, we slept in this year, and waking up. In Ohio our winter was very cold and in Washington it was very snowy! I don't know about Mag but we did not have a spring.

So, anyone up for the 2009 swap?

I have some questions to ask, feel free to reply in the comments section. We will take all your ideas into account as we create the swap!

Do you want your children posted by individual ages? Or do you like the family pairings?

Do you have any themes or guidelines you would like to see used?

We are open for suggestion. Currently we are thinking of doing a back to school swap or an open ended swap. I am going to send out an email to all you previous swappers to gauge interest! HAppy Summering.