Fall is approaching

It's that great time of year everyone loves, yes the leaves are changing, the nights are cooler, it's getting dark earlier the positives of fall are amazing. It reminds us that Winter is knocking on the door and is coming fast. There are also some fun things that happen this time of year, we get to enjoy the apple orchards, Thanksgiving time with awesome feasts and yummy pumpkin pies, Halloween is coming and of course the kids are back to school. What are your favorite things of Fall in your area?

Building stronger communities

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Aviva Community Fund for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I love to see opportunities for communities to build stronger ties and programs, at this time of year it seems so much more appealing to see communities grow together. I have been following a program from Aviva Insurance, the Aviva Community Fund was developed to award programs that promote community strength. The Fund is moving onto the Semi-Final stage which means it is time to get busy reviewing the entries and voting for the one or ones you feel strongest for. Once you are registered all you have to do is sign in and vote for your favorite, you can vote for them once per day and you have 15 votes per cycle so you can spread them around if there are multiple causes you like. If you are a facebook fan you can Like Aviva Community Fund and using your facebook connect app vote directly through their Aviva's facebook page @ facebook.com/AvivaComunityFund. I like to support childrens causes especially for at risk youth as it is so important to ensure kids get as strong as start as possible in their childhood to encourage them to have successful and productive lives. I feel if we can focus on that first it can really remove the drain later on if they can be the best they can be. I know everyone would love to see as much support in the program as possible to encourage groups like Aviva to continue this program and grow our communities better, I would love to see everyone get on their everyday and make your opinions counts. To check out more information on Aviva you can Follow @Aviva to get the latest updates.

Oh no it's really Dec 13th

I had a stark realization this morning, I am in serious trouble with my Christmas Shopping plans, I don't know how the days go by so fast it seems like just the other day it was December 1 and I had over 3 weeks to get ready now it's the 13th and I am at only 11 days and counting so fast my head is spinning. It just doesn't seem Christmasy here yet, we have no snow and most days are above freezing, we need a snow covering to make it right. Please just a little sent this way the first of December next year. Merry last minute shopping to everyone feeling just like me.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Insurance Hunter for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

No I'm not talking about Christmas which is also just around corner but back to school, which is like Christmas for Parents. We have been successfully getting back on track with the kids, it's an all new routine this year as we moved, new school and my wife started a new job as well which makes routines good. One thing I really noticed about the new school was the amount of traffic in the morning with parents dropping kids off. I have seen all kinds of scary things in the mornings, parents putting on makeup, talking on cell phones, kids with no seat belts you name it I think I've seen it over the last few weeks. I've seen a Insurance Hunter’s survey on driver safety in school zones which is directed to this topic exactly. The survey discusses that 66% of parents drive their kids to school and that number is even higher on weather days 82%  & when their kids have large projects to take to school it raises to 90%. If you are interested in reading the results from the Ontario School Zone Safety Survey hit the links above and you can see all the stats that were collected from the Insurance Hunter Survey. If you find yourself in the market for auto insurance be sure you will find the competitive rates and service you are looking for from Insurance Hunter.

Caught up on the walking dead

Well my son has been going on about "the walking dead" show for weeks waiting for the new season to begin. I really haven't watched any of the episodes so I had a vague curiosity on what the show would be like. I pictured a bad campy version of zombies chasing people. Well there was a marathon on this weekend covering the entire series all 2 seasons so we started watching and we all got hooked. We couldn't stop, my wife and I had a hard time leaving to go to work etc. It's a good thing we have dvr so we could record the shows and watch them later. The hard thing is now the marathon is over and we are finding ourselves struggling with only 1 new episode every week. The show really has a great story and is not as "B" rated as you might expect.

Community Inspiration

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Aviva Community Fund for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Every once in a while we see inspiring changes being made by big corporations. Such is the case with a current promotion from the team of Aviva Insurance. They are currently looking to donate 1,000,000 to the  Aviva Community Fund providing support to community causes and are searching for your suggestions for community development projects that would improve your community. This year every finalist that makes it to the judging phase of the competion will be awarded a minimum $5000. To make it more exciting there will also be 2 grand prize winners that will have up to $150,000 each for a Broker supported and at risk youth. I am so excited to see great opportunities for  programs I personally want to see every child have great opportunities to grow into productive happy members of our society. You can check out all the current entrants online now and vote for your favorite, even better take an opportunityLike Aviva Community Fund  to make improvements in your own community and submit your own suggestions. Entering is really easy you can check out all the eligibility rules, it's really you need to have a idea to improve Canadian , have a good budget plan and get underway by 2013, of course your idea has to be action orientated to help communities grow and thrive. It is not very often that you can find opportunities to fund great ideas for your community. If you would like more information on this program or any other information Follow @Aviva for updates and insurance information

Thanksgiving Delight

Thanksgiving is just around the corner here in Canada, wondering what your Thanksgiving day traditions include. We will go to the local apple orchard for some delicious apples which of course follows with some home baked apple pies. We stick to a lot of the traditional fair. Turkey, potatoes, carrot, corn etc is all the great favorites we have. We really focus on finding time to spend together at least on thanksgiving and would love to hear some of your traditions and favorites.

Halloween Fun

Happy Halloween, it's that time of year, spooktacular scary decorations and ghoulish scary costumes. We recently got all our decorations out of storage and set them up for the first time in our new home. It's so exciting to change up our brand new home to spooktacular. The kids are so excited to have our new home and now the transformation is complete.

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Road Trips

This post brought to you by InsuranceHunter. All opinions are 100% mine.

We recently moved back to our home town and I can't be more excited. We lived over 5 hours away for almost 4 years and we constantly had to make road trips home to visit. The worst thing about these trips is that I always did all the driving, and the risks involved in these trips was pretty bad. I can remember the trips my wife would have the van packed to leave after I got off work on a Friday and I would rush home change and hit the road. I had already worked all day and now here we hit the road for over 5 hours. I would drive and most times struggle to stay awake while driving. With small kids if they fell asleep or were quite I would never consider stopping for a rest break or stretch. It's amazing we survived all these trips back and forth. I heard about a survey that was recently completed by Insurance Hunter that talked about this exact phenomen and as I read the Insurance Hunter’s safety survey the information seemed exactly like our family and it was really scary.  The survey discusses the results that 72% of dad's do all or most of the driving and 64% of dad's have continued driving even if physically tired both of these results fits me perfectly. It's always smart to have a good auto insurance policy to ensure you and your family have the protection you need to stay safe and protect everyone in the case of an accident. Take some time to checkout the survey on the link above and get a quote from the team at Insurance Hunter.  This post is brought to you by Insurance Hunter.