Okay, folks. I’ve been talking about this for weeks, and the day has finally come–your chance to win one of Kaye’s beautiful tiles! Personalized however in the whole wide world you want it! You can even get Steven Curtis Chapman’s family’s names on it! (but if I were you, I’d get your own)

Let me back up to I had admired these “Engraved Euniques” tiles for months as many of my favorite bloggers were raving about them. Then in early March-ish, I got an e-mail from a sweet gal named Kaye who had been commenting on my blog. She lived in TX and offered to let us stay at her house during our zoo trip. She also mentioned that she had a business and wanted to advertise on my blog.

Long story short, we chatted for quite awhile before I ever realized she was THE TILE LADY. I about peed my pants when I figured it out.

That was just the beginning of the surprises with Miss Kaye. First there was the post I wrote through tears about the helicopter and the doves and everything. Then we were back at Jack and Kaye’s. Then some fab pics of our families together.

I was so, so thankful God worked it out for us to make an unexpected return trip to Jack and Kaye’s on the way home. We got to chat more, Jack showed us Kaye’s fabulous shop where she lovingly churns out these tiles for everyone, we rode our first Segway, we got to see Mary Katherine again. It was such a special time.

I won’t embarrass Kaye by sharing every detail of how much they blessed us, but one blessing sticks out in my mind and heart. Kaye called me after we left their house the first time and said that Jack had been talking to Ava, and she told him how excited she was to go to Sea World and how she had $7 of her very own to spend there. Well, Mr. Jack didn’t think that $7 was nearly enough for a sweet little girl to take to Sea World. So he made Kaye call me and tell me to give each of the girls $20 for which I would be reimbursed. Totally melted my heart.

Anyway. THE TILES. They’re stunning. Amazing. Way better in person than in the pictures. So great that Lifeway Christian stores sells them now. How cool?! And you can get them personalized for any occasion you can imagine–new babies, teacher gifts, wedding presents, your kitchen, your bathroom–anything!

Kaye is generously giving away one personalized tile to one lucky winner! You may choose from her 6″x6″ tiles, her 8″x8″ tiles, or her 6″x”12″ tiles. They’re all fab! (and Gabe’s going to design her a new website soon to showcase her beautiful stuff even better!)

To be eligible to win, you must 1.) go to Kaye’s site and browse around and 2.) leave a comment telling me what you’d like on your tile if you win and 3.) you’ve got to have a U.S. mailing address.

Everybody got it? Sweet! Off you go! May the randomest person win! (I’ll draw the winner on Friday.) Happy Tuesday, all!

Well, that could be misleading. No, I’m not giving away plane tickets. I am, however, giving away one of these:

Oh my word. Aren’t they CUTE? And the cool thing? You don’t have to get one that says Grace or Ben. You could get…

Or…

Or the name of someone you actually know or even gave birth to! You can pick any name in all the world! My friend Jenny, of Initial Designs, is offering one of these SWEET personalized quilted backpacks to one lucky winner.

A little background on Jenny. She’s the younger of two beautiful sisters. Her older sister, Jodie, and I met at Cedarville College and became dear friends. Jodie was one of four bridesmaids in my wedding back in the day. Jodie and Jenny are both married to great guys and each have 2 little blond cuties–a boy and a girl. Jenny lives not-too-far from me, and last summer, I snuck over to her house and surprised Jodie who I hadn’t seen in ages. Too fun!

Jenny’s wonderful and talented, and you’d be CRAZY not to enter this give-away.

Now, here’s the catch:

As you might know, my family is on a Quest of Gargantuan Proportions. We thought it might be fun to try to visit 52 Zoos in 52 Weeks. We thought it’d be even more fun if we took a ginormous leap of faith and did it all with very little money, no book advance, and without going into a cent of debt.

If you’ve been following our story, you know that God has taken us downtothewire a bazillion times, and each time He provides in a HUGE way.

Now. My human mind is telling me that there’s no way He can pull off the rest of this thing. We have about 20 zoos to go. In just over 2 months. No money earmarked for Zoo Trips. Just lots of hope, trust and prayer. On paper, it will be IMPOSSIBLE to complete our challenge.

But my God specializes in the impossible.

We’ve spent so little money on these trips that it’s really just mind-boggling. But one leg of our trip will involve flying out to the West Coast. Five plane tickets. Eek.

So, here’s our plan. We’re selling ad space on our Zoo Site: www.52zoos.com. For $4/week, you can advertise your business for 52 weeks. (We sell 6 spots, and we’ll just about have enough to fly ourselves to Cali and back.) More people are checking out the site every day, and by the time the books (yes, bookS) come out, there’ll be oodles of people seeing your ad.

So, to enter the contest for the SWEET personalized-with-any-name-you-can-think-of quilted backpack, here’s what you need to do (2 things):

1. Check out Jenny’s site and tell me which backpack is your favorite. (you can check out all her stuff here)

AND

2. Go to our 52 Zoos site and tell me something you like about it OR something you’d like to see added to it.

AND if you want to enter a 2nd comment (Do this separately. As in, actually enter another comment entirely.):

3. Spread the word about the ad space available at http://www.52zoos.com by posting about it on Twitter or Facebook (or e-mail some friends) and tell me you did it.

And that’s it. I know this is going to confuse some of you sweet people. I’m ready for you. On Friday, I’ll draw a lucky winner!

And if you’re looking to advertise for just a month or two, I have 2 ad spaces available to the right for $20/month.

Happy Wednesday! And Good Luck!

We have a winner!

Here are your random numbers:

67

Timestamp: 2009-05-06 01:00:33 UTC

The lucky winner is Ellen R.! She said I love the Chocolate and Turquoise Blue Ovals tags — so elegant! I hate having to write my name out every.single.time on those wimpy airline-issued tags. I fly a lot for work and find myself filling those things out ever time!

Ellen, I’ll e-mail you and get you in touch with Kori and Tara. Thanks so much, girls, for offering your beautiful handiwork as prizes! The rest of you–please help these sweet gals out by placing an order soon! Just click those handy little buttons on the sidebar!

And the winner of funniest caption (and there were some great ones!)… Jenny L. who thought that the turtles in this pic…

…might be hearing something like this on their car radios: And now for our latest traffic report…….there’s a 3 Turtle Pile-up on Log 23…..expect delays…..alternative routes are Log 24, Rock 47, and Log 25………..

Love it! I’ll e-mail you to get your mailing address, Jenny.

Thanks for playing, everybody!

Taking a little zoo break today to offer you a chance to win THREE great prizes! For reals! Kori from SunnyDayTags has a set of 3 super-cute luggage tags and a set of fabulous Mommy calling cards (or Enclosure cards, if you’d rather) to give away. And Tara from Tara Lou’s is giving away a beautiful 8×10 hand-painted canvas (choose one in stock or have her customize one for you!).

So, that means ONE LUCKY WINNER is going to get an awesome prize package:

1. 3 luggage tags

2. a set of calling cards

3. an 8×10 canvas

Here are a couple pics of the luggage tags Kori made for our family as we Zoo It. Notice the animal themes. And Gabe’s manly Virginia Tech design.

You can look at the calling cards here. And the hand-painted canvasses here.

And you know what–even if you’re a guy and these aren’t your cup of tea, what an awesome gift for your wife, sister, daughter or mom!

Here’s how to enter the give-away (U.S. mailing addresses only): Make a quick click over to Kori’s and Tara’s. Come back and tell me what you’d like if you win. And because I like second chances (and apparently can’t write a post without something Zoo in it), here’s how you can enter a second comment: Look at these animal pics, write a funny or profound caption for one or more of them, and you get another entry. Plus, I’ll choose my favorite caption and send you a little prize of my own. (And keep it clean, folks. I realize the temptation might be a bit much, but you can do it!)

#1. giraffes

#2. butterfly

#3. orangutan

#4. turtles

#5. ostrich

#6. alligator

EDIT: Just to clarify, you can leave TWO separate comments. One with your prize choice and one with your animal pic caption.

Contest ends Tuesday-ish. Good luck! And have a great weekend!

I’m almost as tired of writing about pain as I am of having it. So, I’ll give it a rest and do an update tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s give away a free book! The title: God.ol.o.gy (subtitle: because knowing God changes everything) by Christian George. I gave away a copy of Christian’s book Sex, Sushi, and Salvation last year, and here’s a bit of what I wrote:

Gabe and I met Christian at the CBA Advance conference I went to in Indy last January. We were both signing books, and I got in line for his book Sacred Travels. Great, great book. Quickly became one of my favorites. All about pilgrimage and journeys and church history, but exciting! (and soooo makes me want to travel the world!) And Christian is a great writer.

Anyway, he and Gabe and his wife and I keep in touch on facebook and stuff. He asked me to endorse his new book, and I read the manuscript and wrote an endorsement. And WONDER OF WONDERS, Moody put part of my endorsement on the BACK COVER. With J.I. Packer and Chuck Colson, no less. Let me just say how warm and fuzzy this makes me feel.

Seriously, I love, love, love Sacred Travels. I’ve read it twice, written all over it and have plans to read it again here in a bit. So inspiring. S, S, and S is great too. (and I’m not just saying that because my name’s on the back cover) Christian has this edgy-poetic way with words that I can only drool over. He’s funny, entertaining, brutally honest and delightfully sarcastic–but 100% grounded (and deeply) in the Word of God. He’s the real deal.

And now he’s written God.ol.o.gy. The first line of the foreword (by J.I. Packer) says this: “In a bright, brave, boisterous rush, Christian George here deftly clothes eternal truths about God and godliness in twenty-first century street-cred attire.” His primary audience is the 20-something crowd, but at a young 33, I totally get (and appreciate) his writing. He gets you going, makes you think, spurs you to action. Good stuff.

The book’s 11 chapters cover God’s: unity, power, creativity, vulnerability, holiness, love, jealousy, wisdom, patience, mystery and eternality.

I had a little trouble choosing just one excerpt from the book to share with you, but I’m a little partial to God-as-author, so how about this? (p. 161) God’s narrative never ends, yet He has invested Himself in our short stories… God could have created us as caricatures, but instead He spared no expense in our sophisticated sagas. Each sinew is complex. Each synapse, delicate. Humans are God’s antonyms–born in opposition to the Author. But our plots can thicken. Our characters can develop. God writes us, rewrites us, and then copyrights us in Christ. And that’s why we can live each chapter as though it might be our last. God has fused his story to ours and has given us an awesome ending–a happily ever after ending.

To be entered to win a copy of the book, just leave a comment with 1 question you would ask God if you could. Doesn’t have to be deep. Doesn’t have to be the number 1 question you’d ask. Just a question. Something you’d really like to know.

That’s it! Have a delightful Monday, friends!