A little while back I happened to be on the Tampa Bay Parenting website, looking for things to do in our area, when I happened across an Enter To Win section!  Curious I clicked on the link and came across a contest called Family Most In Need Of An Adventure!   I thought to myself, we could really use some time away, decided to enter and began to pen our story.  I also learned that if we won our story would be published in the April edition of the magazine, which would give us an oportunity to talk about epilepsy and spread a little awareness to our community! Finally I shared our entry with friends on Facebook and Twitter asking them to vote for our story and boy did they come through!

On March 13th I received this email:

Thanks for sharing Meghan’s story in our Family Most in Need of An Adventure.

It’s my pleasure to inform you that you are the Grand Prize winners of the contest. We are going to feature your story in the April issue of Tampa Bay Parenting Magazine that will include a photo of your family. We have scheduled a photo to be taken of your family at Busch Gardens on Monday, March 19 at 10am. I will give you a call first thing tomorrow morning to confirm that you have all of this information.

Also, someone from our editorial staff will be contacting you tomorrow as well to arrange a phone interview.

I look forward to speaking with you!

At first I was over the moon and quickly headed to Facebook and twitter to thank everyone who voted for our story and then…

My mind began to picture every family ever photographed on a roller coaster and I started to panic a little!

I looked at my husband

 “Oh My God what if they want us to take a picture on a rollercoaster?”

My husband laughed and told me to relax they weren’t gonna put us on a rollercoaster and went on to mumble something about me over thinking things.  He was right the next day the editor called me and informed me we’d be having our pictures taken at the Busch Gardens Animal Care Center on March 19th, which just so happened to also be my hubby’s birthday.

On the day of the photo shoot we arrived at Busch Gardens and were taken to the Animal Care Center where we met David Estevez (TB Parenting Magazine’s Editor), the photographer and Jose Dominguez from Busch Gardens.  We were given Busch Gardens Aprons and the photo shoot was underway! Jose  introduced us to Burko, the Australian Cuscus and cut up fruit for Meg to arrange on a platter!  We had so much fun!

After we were finished with the photo shoot we were told Busch Gardens would be sending us our prizes in the mail and we said our goodbyes!  We had arranged for Meg’s cousins to meet us at the park because we thought we were getting our passes that day and Meg started to get a little upset because she didn’t think we were going to be able to stay at the park.  I wish I could remember the girl’s name at Busch Gardens, but I went back and explained our situation to her and she was amazing! Within a few minutes she got the okay and gave us instructions on where we could pick up our complimentary day passes!

We had an awesome day at the park and we’d like to send out a big Thank You to Tampa Bay Parenting magazine and Busch Gardens for the opportunity to get away as a family and just enjoy ourselves!

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I feel like in the last month there have been a lot of great things happening for us, so this week I picked an old song that kinda summed things up for me!

Enjoy!