Key Lime Cove

Key Lime Cove – My kids have now declared it as the best water park. We went during the week and had a wonderful time. The park and rooms are super clean. The tropical theme is carried on throughout the entire facility. There is a lazy river, wave pool, hot tub, 3 inner tub slides, and 2 body slides. My 9 year old could and did go on all of the slides. My 6 year old was not tall enough to go on just one, the Vortex. I went on the 3 raft slides and enjoyed them. The water and air temp was great, nice and warm. They have wristbands that you use as a room key, and credit card. It is nice not to have to worry about keys and money when the whole family is in the water. They have activities for kids unrelated to the water park. In the afternoon the kids decorated cupcakes. In the evening they went on a scavenger hunt. There were also crafts and Wii contests but we did not participate in them. All in all we had a great time.

Introducing KIDWINKS-BLOG by Dream Weaver

**NEW** KIDWINKS-BLOG
Who can forget the birth of their first child? Even though it was almost 9 years ago for me, I still remember the overwhelming feeling of cluelessness. It wasn't that I was ill-prepared - I had read every baby book recommended to me prior to her birth, and I could easily summarize the main idea of Sears, Ferber, Weissbluth, and the What to Expect series. What I found missing the first few months was practical information, like how to get around the city of Chicago with a stroller or what neighborhood restaurants are family friendly. I remember the first time I tried to take my baby daughter in her stroller to a Wiggleworms class. I walked to the Addison el station, took the elevator up, boarded the train, switched trains, and then exited at Armitage only to discover that not all el stations were wheelchair (or stroller!) accessible. I thought I was so public transportation and city saavy, but I suddenly realized that this new baby would change my routine in even more ways than I anticipated. It didn't even occur to me that my navigation skills would have to be rethought with a stroller. And unfortunately, I have learned that many destinations, even those billed as "family friendly" are not easy to explore with a stroller. All the fun activities I had planned with my daughter suddenly became tedious because of unforeseen obstacles. Our outings were hit or miss as to whether I enjoyed the experience or ended up incredibly frustrated. Like many first time moms, I sought out a group of likewise new moms and we began to share our experiences, such as which of our favorite restaurants are baby-tolerant, which have changing tables, and which ones have more than one high chair for patronswith babies. The older our babies got, the more our needs changed, and the more quickly our e-mail network grew to warn friends of bad experiences and share greatones. The problem was that our frustrations outweighed our joys, and we lamented the fact that there was no central resource for practical information PRIOR to an outing. Surely other moms with older children had already figured out how to navigate the townwith a baby or two in tow. Why did every new parent, every new moms group, need to recreate the wheel, so to speak? I know the internet is full of websites that advertise fun activities for kids. But before I pack up the diaper bag and head out for the day to an activity that sounds amazing, I want to know the reality behind the advertising. DoI know anyone who's been there? What is their opinion? How would they rate theactivity, location, price, changing tables, etc.? Can I get some feedback on the best way to get there(drive or public transportation), what I should bring (is the food child friendly, healthy, is it cold/hot inside, etc.) and any tips to make the first trip a success. How many times have I left somewhere thinking, "next time, I will...." Why should the first visit somewhere be a learning experience? It was this group of questions that led to the kidwinks.com information sharing website. Before I set out on a great adventure, I check to see if someone has been there and done that, and shared the information with this group. I plan to share a lot of my experiences and opinions. I welcome your feedback, too. Dream Weaver, mother of 3.

Kidwinks.com Press Release

For More Information

Please Contact:

Kimberly Eberl

773.771.6807

kimberly@motionpr.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KIDWINKS LAUNCHES; ALLOWS FOR FAMILY-FRIENDLY REVIEWS

Park Ridge, IL (October 22, 2008) – Park Ridge, IL moms Nina Taluc and Jean Lemke today officially launched Kidwinks.com, Inc., which combines local search and user reviews geared towards kids. Kidwinks.com takes the guess work out of planning family outingsby collecting and organizing facts and recommendations in one convenient place.

Taluc and Lemke created the unique site to serve as a central repository for finding kid-friendly events, activities, restaurants, shops and services in one's backyard. Kidwinks not only helps visitors find all of these things, but also encourages user-generated reviews of them for an unbiased take on all the kid-related venues in the Chicagoland area.

To date, Kidwinks lists over 2,600 events, restaurants, shops, services and activities just in the Chicagoland area alone and early buzz has already brought a growing number of visitors.

"We created it to help parents like ourselves who want a one-stop-shop on what to do and where to go with their kids any day of the week," said Taluc. "Kidwinks is a great solution for anyone who has a young child in their life but not enough time to plan and find places to go with them."

Kindwinks.com is a first-of-its-kind website with exceptional features to make visitors' online experience easy and engaging. Useful features include:

• Extensive Listings – From restaurants and festivals to concerts, museums and story times, Kidwinks boasts an exhausting database of everything happening in its visitors' own backyards.
• Searching – Kidwinks' database is easily searchable and can even be drilled down based on a child's age and gender, minimizing unnecessary results. Of course, the site provides for searching by type of venue as well (i.e. activity, event, shopping, etc.) and even for sorting those results by distance.
• Dining Deals Calendar – This very popular feature allows parents to click on any day of a calendar to get a list of restaurants offering kids.. dining deals for that day.
• Reviews - Visitors can get the inside, unbiased scoop on kid-friendly locations or services by reading the ratings and reviews written by other parents who have visited these businesses.
• Email reminders – Taluc and Lemke understand firsthand how hectic parents lives are, so they included email reminders to make sure parents won't forget about that fun upcoming special event they saw listed on kidwinks.com.
• Member Profiles – Kidwinks members can create a unique profile that protects their privacy while giving them an opportunity to showcase themselves and their children.
• Kidwinks' Picks – Kidwinks' Picks are the kid-friendly favorites picked by the founders ofKidwinks.
• Ideas - This section holds some ideas for fun, usually seasonal, things to do with children.
• Contests, Coupons – Visitors can take advantage of coupons to some local hot spots along with monthly contests to win family-friendly prizes.

"We wanted Kidwinks to be not only a definitive guide for kid-friendly establishments and activities but also a friendly, entertaining and interactive place for parents and adults to share their experiences," said Lemke.

The Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce is hosting a ribbon cutting commemorating the launch at 10 AM on October 22 at 32 Main Street, Suite F, Park Ridge, IL with Mayor Howard Frimark scheduled to attend.

For more information, please visit www.kidwinks.com.

Ribbon Cutting – Take 2

We have sent out invitations to our ribbon cutting to all of the elected officials in Park Ridge. Although we have asked them to RSVP we have not heard from many of them. Mayor Frimark, the mayor of Park Ridge will be there to cut the ribbon. I did invite Senator Obama but have not heard whether he will be able to make if or not. I think that showing up at our ribbon cutting would be a nice way to show his support for mom entrepreneurs. I know that he is a busy guy, especially right now but the ribbon cutting will only take 30 minutes. I guess I will have to wait and see if he shows up or RSVPs. I’ll keep you posted. There’s still a chance, right? Not much left to do for our ribbon cutting other than alerting the media and getting a haircut. I am not sure which prove to be more difficult. Now that I work for me I am a dedicated employee. The problem is that I don’t know when to stop. Showering, grocery shopping, laundry, paying bills all become things that I put on the back burner so that I can spend all of my time working on kidwinks.com. I know all of us moms feel that there is not enough time in the day to get everything done but I don’t WANT to do any of that other stuff I just want to make kidwinks a household name.

The World of SEO - Just a Baby

How do we get our site seen? We have awesome content. If any mom or dad is looking for Chicago fun we have it! If parents are looking for kids meal deals we got them! We have a ton of events and activities for kids and families. Looking for anything to do with Chicago for kids, that’s us! The problem is that we aren’t coming up in searches. Why!? I think one of the main reasons is that we are new. We are so very new in the eyes of the World Wide Web. We have only been live for 6 months even though we have been actively in web development for 3 years. Looking back I think that we should have had something as a placeholder to get www.kidwinks.com some sort of traffic. I don’t know if it would have helped or not. But maybe if we had had something going on on our site we wouldn’t be considered so new. This is the first time since I have been over 21 that I wanted to age quickly!

Ribbon Cutting

Kidwinks.com is going to be having a ribbon cutting. When I say that to people I get one of two reactions. One reaction is “Oh, that’s great! When?” It is usually accompanied by a big smile. The other reaction is a look of confusion accompanied by “Where?” Yes, we are an internet site and no we don’t have an actual location, yet. We are going to have our ribbon cutting at the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce. We are going to invite our Aldermen and State Representatives, the media, other chamber members, business associates, Kidwinks.com members, friends, and family. The Chamber of Commerce has recently hired Gale Haller a woman who was born for the job of Executive Director of the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce.

Now we need to get ready. The plan was easy, now comes the hard part, pulling it together. We need to write a press release, invite all of the media and officials. We already know that the mayor of Park Ridge is going to be there to do the actual ribbon cutting. We need to get a banner made, food ordered, and all of the supplies purchased. We need to get an outfit fitting of such an occasion! Hope I don’t get a zit the day before. We have already gotten a door prize for a raffle. The Wine Styles store in Park Ridge is going to provide a wine tasting session valued at $100. All On The Road Catering is going to be providing mini breakfast treats, coffee and juice. I will keep you updated on our ribbon cutting progress. This is such an exiting time but also a bit stressful. We have so many things going on at once.

For those of you who don’t know what the site is, here is a little info:

Kidwinks.com is a resource for parents looking for kid-friendly events, activities, restaurants, shops and services throughout the Chicago land area. Find everything from story times at area libraries and neighborhood festivals to all sorts of Chicago fun -- all in one place! Get the lowdown from the experts by reading reviews posted by other parents. Sign up for our newsletter and get a list of upcoming kid-friendly events emailed to you twice a week! If you find yourself searching for family fun using the search terms, Chicago kids, or Chicago for kids, kidwinks.com is the site to know.

Networking

I have been doing a lot of networking the last 2 weeks. Talking to people I don’t know, about business, has never been something that I seek out. In fact, I never really talk business at all. I prefer to talk about places I can go with my kids, good restaurants, and traveling. And I prefer to talk about those things over a bottle of wine or two. Now that I have Kidwinks.com I have to go out and talk it up. I am finding that I enjoy talking about the site especially to people who get it. They get the idea and why there is such a need for it. Of course, I don’t particularly enjoy talking to those who either don’t get it or are uninterested. As a business owner socializing and getting the word out is something that I have to do. Luckily, it turns out I may actually like it. The problem is that the time I spend talking to people is less time that I spend working on the site. There are just not enough hours in the day. Because I work from home I need to stop working all the time. I need to set some limits on the time that I spend thinking and working on the site. It is hard! I want to shout from the rooftop what a great site Jean and I have created and that every parent should know about it. The goal – make Kidwinks.com a household name. For those of you who don’t know what the site is, here is a little info: Kidwinks.com is a resource for parents looking for kid-friendly events, activities, restaurants, shops and services throughout the Chicago land area. Find everything from story times at area libraries and neighborhood festivals to all sorts of Chicago fun -- all in one place! Get the lowdown from the experts by reading reviews posted by other parents. Sign up for our newsletter and get a list of upcoming kid-friendly events emailed to you twice a week! If you find yourself searching for family fun using the search terms, chicago kids, or chicago for kids, kidwinks.com is the site to know.

Children's Charities

Another week has gone by. I am trying to come up with any and every way to let Chicago parents know about kidwinks.com, still. We are now working with some of the area libraries. We are going to give away tickets to Kiddieland and Donley’s Wild West Town during their story-time events. I will post when and where we are going to be when we set our schedule. We are also going to start doing some fund raising for children’s charities. We are going to be asking our members for which charities they think we should be working with. I think that we will get a lot of great ideas. The plan is to create some banner ads and make announcement in our newsletter encouraging members and non-members to donate to the children’s charity. I think this is going to be a great way to help kids. We are helping parents with our site now it will be nice to help kids who maybe can’t enjoy all of the fun activities kidwinks.com has to offer. If you have not heard, www.kidwinks.com is a searchable website for parents looking for places to go and things to do with their children. We are a great site for families who find themselves searching for: Chicago fun, Chicago for kids, kids Chicago, Chicago kids, kids eat free, family fun, kids activities, kids fun.

Call out to Chicago Area moms

This is what we posted on another site as a call out to all members who live in the Chicago area.

"We are two moms from Park Ridge who just launched a very cool website, http://www.kidwinks.com/.

Kidwinks is a site that helps moms with young kids find kid-friendly activities, events, restaurants (including a kids-eat-free calendar!), shops and services. It is free for all to use, and you can read more about it by clicking on the About Us link at the bottom of our home page. Twice a week we send out an e-newsletter with links to area kid-friendly events. We include library and park district offerings, festivals, museum free days, kids-eat-free specials at restaurants, etc. This e-newsletter has been VERY positively received by moms who love having us do the research on "What am I going to do with my kid(s) today?" for them. The e-newsletter is also free, and is sent only to those who request it.

If you live in Chicago or the Suburbs of Chicago, please check us out. http://www.kidwinks.com/.

If you are looking for things to do with your Chicago kids, check us out.

Well, we made it into the Park Ridge Spokesman, the city's, newsletter. Here it is "Parents' lives made easier - The place to go with kids in tow...Park Ridge moms, Nina Taluc and Jean Lemke, have created a new business to make a parent's life easier. At http://www.kidwinks.com/, kid friendly activities, services, shops, restaurants, and resources are featured. A twice-weekly newsletter by email is also produced to bring parent up-to-date information." I hope this will encourage parents to go to http://www.kidwinks.com/ when they are looking for child friendly activities, kids eat free restaurants, family fun in Chicago and the surounding area, and Chicago kid events and Chicago for kids activities. So if you are looking for kids activities in Chicagoland take a look at kidwinks.com

We are finally live!!! If you or anyone you know is looking for family fun in the Chicago area then this is the site for you. If you wonder, what is in Chicago for kids? Or, if a friend says, "I have Chicago kids but we just can't find anything to do" tell them about www.kidwinks.com.

Something has changed!

I have been busy working on kidwinks.com. Our web developers sent us the most recent beta site last week. As usual, there were over 100 problems with the site. Links that go nowhere, run time errors, missing functionality and a huge number of other problems. This has been the way it has gone for 9 months. The only difference this time, is that they seem like they really want to fix the problems and do the work, quickly. We found out that the programmer who was creating our site didn't know what he was doing and has since been fired. Our project manager seems to be treating us as a client again as opposed to an open wound that won't go away. We may have a live site in the next month or two. I hate to be too optimistic. We have been told since May that we should be live next month, next month, next month...... We have another meeting tomorrow, we will see how that goes.

Birthing Gerbils

Our gerbil had babies last week. January 13, 2008 the same birthday as our cat (we had a party for the cat). Why is so easy for the gerbils to give birth to something and so hard for kidwinks.com. The gerbils, Sunny and Rocket weren't supposed to have babies. When we bought them they were supposed to be sisters. They were pretty young when we got them. They shared the same cage so they could hangout and play with each other. One day I noticed that Sunny was much larger than her sister Rocket. A couple of days later my sons came running upstairs yelling that Sunny had a baby. We instantly separated Rocket from mom and baby. Now I have two cages to clean. The baby didn't make it. Sunny was too young still when she had him. So you ask, if they are in two cages how could she get pregnant again? I wish they could fix rodents. When we take them out of the cage to play we let them run around together. We had to pull Rocket off of Sunny a lot but I thought we were on top of it. Seems we were a little too slow. So a couple of weeks ago I noticed that she was looking big again. She also started chewing everything and anything. Non stop chewing. She was getting ready to have her babies. That is what we are doing too. I think that the website is in labor. I am quickly trying to get everything ready for the delivery but I feel a bit overwhelmed. And like when I was going to have my children the hardest part was not knowing exactly when it was going to happen. One would think that giving birth to website would be more like having a cesarean. But it's not! This time it is the web developer who is in charge not the baby. Which is worse?

We still haven't seen the babies but we have heard them. Mom is keeping them undercover. I can't wait to see them.

SCORE Meeting

Yesterday we meet with the Des Plaines Chapter of SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business". They are retired business executives who provide advice to start ups and small businesses. We talked to two men, Gene and Don. We presented our business idea and let them know where we are in the process. They liked our idea a LOT which is great they also gave us a couple of great ideas. One, to have a brochure and poster created by a professional. I have always thought that we needed to hire someone to help us create our marketing material. However, it was good for Jean to hear someone else say the same thing. Two, contact libraries and park districts first. Once we have the big guys on board with the website the smaller business will be more willing to follow.

Web Designer

We have a great website idea, we have a cool name now we needed to find someone to design the site for us. We considered designing it ourselves but thought it would take too long and we wanted it to look GREAT. First we tried people who we knew who designed websites. We sat down and talked to a couple of them. The plan was they would create the website in their spare time. We quickly realized that 1) they would not be able to get the site done quick enough and 2) it was too complicated for them to create. We then meet with two web developing firms. That is what there business was, designing websites. The first had been recommended to me by a friend. They had created a great site for a not-for-profit that she worked with and had only good things to say about the company. The second company was local which would make it easy to meet and they ran a lot of ads on the radio. We talked, we emailed our ideas, we meet with both companies, we emailed some more and some more. Finally we had made our decision. They had great ideas, it was a smaller company, we like the person we were dealing with. They were a little far away....all the way in Chicago, but that would be okay too. We liked the other company too or should I say that we liked the sales person we were dealing with. The reason we chose not to go with them was that their price was a little higher, we were not going to get as much, we feared that they would start to nickle and dime us for every little thing, we thought that our sales person was just that, a sales person and would be disinterested once the contract was signed. We were happy with our decision. They told us it would be two months before they could start on our project but that once they started it would only take 3 months to complete. We were fine with that. Were we excited and started to plan accordingly.

What shall we name our baby?

Once we had the idea for the website and all of the features that were going to make it useful, we had to come up with a name. What name would let people know that we were a website jam-packed with kid-friendly activities, events, restaurants, stores and services in the Chicago Suburbs? What name would let people know that parents could rate and review kid-friendly business? What name would let parents know that they could search by location, rating, price, season or a dozen other criteria? What name would let parents know that they could get email reminders of upcoming events; or find the distance of a venue from their house; or win prizes in our monthly contest; or that they could sign up for our E-Ad Letter to get coupons and learn about sales. What name would let kid-friendly business in the suburbs of Chicago know those same things? We couldn't think of a good enough name. Finally, we turned to Jean's (my business partner) twin sister for help. Between the 3 of us we must have come up with 200 names. But Jan (Jean's twin) did it! She came came up with the name and so it has been since that day kidwinks.com. Could you have thought of something better?

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

We wanted to create a website that would share knowledge, parent to parent, about things to do and places to go with young kids. When I had my first son I felt like I was in a totally different world. There are so many things geared toward children, I had no idea! I didn't realize that there were channels on t.v. totally dedicated to children's shows. Although, I didn't let my 1st watch t.v. until he was 2 years old. Or that some restaurants had days when kids eat free or for $.99. Or that there were movie theatres that had special showing of movies to which moms bring their infants. Then there are all of those places that don't advertise or don't advertise much. The only way I found out about the really great places was from other parents. We needed a place where we as parents could share our knowledge and experiences. The businesses that we are going to have on our site need to be reviewable. If I love a place or I hate a place I want to share that with other parents. We wanted to have email reminders. So often I would look through the newspaper and see something that I would wanted to do with my kids only to discover that the event had already passed by. On our site if you see an event, and are a member(free), that you like you can request an email on a certain date that will remind you of the upcoming event. We wanted the ability to know how far a place was from our house. On our site, if you are a member (free), you will know the distance a venue is from your house. Pretty cool! We even include a map. We wanted EVERYTHING to be searchable. Not an easy task but we have it. We wanted to have a Dining Deals Calendar. If you click on a day of the week you will see all of the dining deals (example, free kids meals) for that day. We wanted the site to look good, really really good. We think we nailed that one too. We wanted parents to be able to rate a venue so that we could search for the highest ranked places to go or services to use. We wanted businesses to be able to include a link to their website and a photo or two of their business. I always hated it when I would read about a kid-friendly place and then have to search the web for the businesses website. On kidwinks.com all one needs to do is click on the link. Most importantly it had to contain a lot of information and it had to be free to use. We knew that to get the most information about things to do and places to go that it would have to free to business too. The point was to create something really useful.

In The Begining

I, and my business partner, have started a company called kidwinks.com. I feel like we have been working on "starting" the company forever! It all started when my friend and I were talking on the phone about life and kids. We both stay at home raising our kids (then very small kids) but know that some day our children will not need us to take care of them all the time. We both agreed that we did not want to work a regular job again. The hours would be too much to allow us to be with our kids as much as we would like. I had just been to Pump it Up party and thought that was such a great idea. For a while I looked into starting a Pump it Up franchise. That I idea was quickly put to rest when they informed me they would not allow any more locations in my area. I then put on my thinking cap. I do some of my best thinking when I am in the shower or trying to go to sleep. A glass of wine also helps to get my creative juices flowing. I came up with two ideas. One was a line of premixed premium martinis that would be sold cold or frozen. They were going to be called Premium Martinis. The second idea was a website that would have all kinds of great places to go with kids. It would include restaurants that ran kids eat free days. It would describe in detail places to play, hangout, and dine with kids. I love to try new things and am always taking my kids out to different places. Some of these kid-friendly places were great and some of them were a disaster. I would talk to other parents and find out other places to go. It seemed like parents knew a lot of great places but there was no where to find all of those great places in one location that was searchable. Well, I told my friend about my two ideas. As you may have guessed already she didn't like the martini idea at all, not a big drinker. However, she loved the website idea. I have come up with a lot of ideas in my 30 some years and rarely did any one else think they were feasible. And so kidwinks.com was born. Or maybe I should say was conceived.