The fourth Saturday of the month is Family Fun day at Centennial Olympic Park. On June 26th the theme is The Great Outdoors, then on July 24th the theme is All Star Sports. Family Fun Day features free performances, games and crafts.
On Saturday, June 26th The Mall of Georgia’s Movies Under The Stars features Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Musical entertainment before the free movie begins at 6:30 pm.
IKEA has free meals for kids from now until July7 5th. No adult purchase is necessary. IKEA serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with a Swedish theme.
The Georgia Aquarium now offers free admission on your birthday. Proof in the form of a valid I.D. or birth certificate is required. 
For tooth grinders, Plackers has a free sample of disposable night guards you can order plackers.com. Shipping and handling is $2.99.
Check It Out Reading is a summer reading program offered jointly by the Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers. Kids who register and read five books by get a free ticket to both a Hawks and Thrashers game. (From fieldtripswithsue.com)
For updates on freebies and deals, follow valuesval on twitter.com
Nothing makes you want to chop off your hair like ten days in a row of 90-plus temperatures. With nine days left in The Great Hair Cut Challenge, I’m itching to grab a pair of scissors (which would be disastrous, so I’ll leave it to the professionals).
I’d like to dedicate the final push of this fundraiser to one of my Chicago team mates, Kim Rhame. She’s part of the Pixie Club, but not by choice. Kim was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on October 15, 2008. For six months, she traveled back and forth to Houston, Texas for treatment.
This week, she’ll pack her four kids into the car for a road trip back to Texas. While her husband and kids are hitting up the tourist locations, she’ll be getting a new scan. She shared her story with our fall Team in Training runners Saturday with a smile and a shrug. “It could be you. It could be anybody,” she said.
After our four mile run in the sticky heat last Saturday, I was lusting after Kim’s pixie cut. She’s a beautiful woman who can pull it off flawlessly. When I told her so, she shrugged and remembered her long, blonde, pre-cancer hair without an ounce of anger or wistfulness. She never planned to be a Pixie, but if she’s a member of the club, I want in.
The Great Haircut Challenge Ends June 30th at midnight. The fundraising tally is $550 for “Ponytails” (keep the hair); $350 for “Pixies” (cut it off). To donate on my TNT webpage, click here.
The My Gym Buckhead location is having a Day of Deals on Thursday, June 24th from 1pm to 5pm.
My Gym will offer discounts on classes and birthday parties and will be running other specials as well. Parents can learn more about the classes while kids play in the gym. My Gym is located at 267 West Wieuca Rd. NE, Suite 101, Atlanta, GA 30342
Scoutmob.com has the following deals this week:
Monday: 50% off TAP (Midtown) -
Tuesday: 50% off Wasabi (Castleberry Hill) -�
Wednesday: 50% off Carroll Street Cafe (Cabbagetown)- Thursday: 50% off Coldbrew’s Sports Bar & Grill (Roswell)- Friday: 50% off Demure Clothing (Westside)
Amazon.com has Forbes, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and others on sale. Some are as low as $4.99 for a one year subscription but subscribers much cancel the subscription after one year or it will automatically be renewed.
Here a few ideas from Sunday’s What’s on Sale Segment. 
Add your own below!
Finding discounts on golf can be challenging. Halfoffdepot.com currently has a deal at the Charlie Yates Golf Course at Eastlake for $13.50. Diningperks.com offers gift certificates for 50 percent off golf at the Stone Mountain and Indian Creek courses. These deals are for Atlanta but both have varied offers for different cities and offer some great deals!
Big Lots:
Char-Broil Grill $99
Tool Chest 59.99
K and G Superstore
Men’s Designer Suits $79.99
Dockers $19.99
$$Hot Deal$$ Sears:
Spend $50 on Men’s apparel; get $50 Come Back Cash. Come Back Cash is Sears store credit and customers must fill out a mail in rebate form.
Pike Nursery:
Annual Red Tag Sale with some items marked down 70 percent.
Also, select plants and shrubs on sale, buy two get one free.
Tools and home improvement supplies also make good Father’s Day gifts. Home Depot and Lowe’s promise to match each other’s prices as long as you bring in a sale flier that indicates the competitor’s price.
I’ve known 11Alive Meteorologist Chesley McNeil for a long time. We were both new at WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, New York six years ago. In a reunion of sorts, we now both work for the morning show at WXIA-TV. He is a great Meteorologist, an enthusiastic co-worker, and –most importantly–a really good guy. But I know he can’t cut hair. So, how did I end up agreeing to let him cut my mine?
“The Great Hair Cut Challenge” made it onto TV today. In case you weren’t watching 11Alive at 5:55 AM (and shame on you!), here’s the background: to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, people are deciding what I should do with my hair: chop it all off or keep it long. This wasn’t my idea, but I like it. We’ve already raised more than $700 for a cause close to my heart, so I say bring it on!
One of our producers heard about The Great Hair Cut Challenge on Facebook and suggested we talk about it on the morning show. So, in between my 5:30 and 6:00 live hits, Chesley, Jill, Karyn, and I sat on the anchor desk and talked about it on live TV.
Chesley threw out an absurd suggestion: “How about you let me cut it?” And I said yes. Everyone on set, perhaps especially Chesley, was shocked.
He can chop off my ponytail, and then I’ll have my hairdresser clean it up. That’s *IF* the donations swing that way. Right now, the “Keep It” campaign has raised twice as much as the “Chop It”. BUT, we have 21 days left. As we gear up for election season, I’m reminded: anything can happen. Donate and Vote Here.
What is it with men and long hair? Perhaps they’re so concerned with losing theirs, they become so attached to ours. This is coming from the same group of people that take 3.5 minutes to get ready every morning. You know what I can do in 3.5 minutes? Pick out my shoes.
So, I was a little surprised when an 11Alive live chat inspired me to take a Facebook and Twitter vote on whether I should cut all mine off, and the votes were (almost) unanimously “yes”. I now know the “no” voters just kept quiet.
I decided to launch the Great Hair Cut Challenge. If I can raise $500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training by the end of June (I’m training to run the Chicago marathon in October), I’ll cut all my hair off.
But then (like every good story), a very good twist. One of my TNT teammates said he would pledge $500 to NOT cut off my hair. Well, that makes things interesting. So, now, new rules. You can donate to the “chop your hair” or “keep your hair” camp. (You can make a note when you donate on my secure fundraising website or just send me a note).
Whichever has the most money by the end of June will decide what happens. Either way, we’re raising money for a cause close to my heart, which is (obviously) the most important thing. Otherwise, I would not be blogging about something as insignificant as my hair cut.
Because I’m not a guy. I’m really not that attached to my hair. (But I’m glad you are, because I plan on making some money off of you for a good cause! 
As I said in my last post, I made it to Semifinals, which was my goal. But I didn’t expect to make it to the last round of the Semifinals! I spelled ‘venturi’ and ‘intercolline’ correctly in the first two rounds. There were lots of other hard words that other kids got out on. The remaining spellers onstage, myself included, cheered each other on. Finally, in the last round before finals, I misspelled ‘poilu’, spelling it like ‘poilue’. Oh well, I honestly didn’t know the word. I was pretty happy with how I did. After me, there were a couple other spellers who didn’t spell their word yet. But, weirdly enough, the Spelling Bee Committee decided that, if they finished the round, there would be too few spellers left for the Finals. They promised ABC 8-12 spellers, and there might be too few. So they cut the round off and said that the remaining spellers, including the ones who didn’t have to spell their word, would be continuing on to the Finals. It was very strange, but I guess it was in the rules. The finals went surprisingly quickly. The difficulty of words ranged enormously from ‘gnocchi’ to ‘engysseismology’. Anamika Veeramani was crowned the winner at the end of it all. Congratulations to her and the other finalists! Tonight will be the Awards Ceremony and Banquet. Guess what- I get to sit up at the front table with the finalists! All the people from the last round of the Semis will be there. After the banquet, there’s a dance party for all the spellers, which is a ton of fun. One more thing- Shaquille O’neal was the special guest at the Finals. He had a spell-off with last year’s winner. Very cool!
It started this morning on the 11Alive morning chat. A viewer going by just “E” wrote: ‘Julie, love your hair. Didn’t it used to be blond without bangs?’ And so launched a chat about image consultants and hair cut decisions and the terrible Georgia humidity. I dug up the picture below from just over a year ago when I had super short hair. And it got me thinking… maybe I should chop it again.
I need to take a quick minute to bring the men up to speed. Cutting off all of your hair is no small decision for a woman. To go from that (see left) to my long locks today took a year and my hairdresser tells me it’s a miracle. Seriously, she asks, “What are you doing to your hair?!” because it grew so fast. So you heard it here first, my big secret: Super B Complex vitamins. Friends with babies told me their hair grew like crazy while on pre-natal vitamins. Those are expensive and have too much iron, so I went with the super B, and voila. Magic Hair.
I posted the picture on Facebook and Twitter and took a vote: Should I chop it off again? I was a bit surprised by the (almost) unanimous calls to “Chop, chop!”. And it made me think of Mallory Chandler.
She’s one of my mentees on the Team in Training Chicago team. We both ran for the TNT Nashville team. The Country Music Marathon fell on 
the exact seven year anniversary of her last day of chemo. She is a cancer survivor and an amazing woman that continues to inspire me. Post-chemo she grew her long, wavy locks. She cut them off last week and raised thousands of dollars. Pretty amazing (see picture at right).
So, to all of you making the calls to “chop, chop”, here’s the deal: If I can raise $500 by the end of June in my Team in Training fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I’ll cut it all off. Super Short. Pixie Short.
Here’s the website to make donations: http://pages.teamintraining.org/ga/chicago10/jwolfe
I’m already $100 towards that goal, so I think it’s doable. If not, I keep my hair. Let the bids begin.
Last night, the 48 Semifinalists were announced. I was one of them! YAY! We had a very nice dinner with the other semifinalists, and afterward, all the rules and details were clarified to us. A couple of people that I’d met over the week also made it to Semifinals, so it was very exciting for all of us. Anyway, the Semifinals will be on ESPN at 10:00 AM for anyone who wants to watch them. The Championship Finals will be on after that. Making it to Semifinals was my goal, and I’m just so pleased and happy that I made it this far. Only the very best spellers make it to the Championship Finals. Of course it would be wonderful if I could make it there, but I won’t be too terribly disappointed if I don’t make it. Again, I am so honored to represent my school, community, and state. Thank you, 11 Alive News!
Yesterday’s Round One went pretty well, I think. We’ll get our results for it tonight! Also, we’ll find out if we make it to Semifinals. I just took Round Two, which consisted of one word spelled onstage. My word was ‘issei’, and I spelled it correctly! In a few hours, I’ll be taking Round Three, which is another onstage word. The process to determine who goes to Semifinals goes like this: 25 out of the 50 Round One words are graded. The maximum score you can get is 25 (they don’t tell us which ones are graded). The two onstage words each count for 3 points. The maximum score after that is 31 in all. The most kids allowed into the Semifinals is 50. Last year, you had to have 28 points or more to get to the Semifinals. I had 27 
Anyway, we’ll find out tonight who made it! And another exciting thing: ESPN interviewed me yesterday! They did a pretty long clip with me, and I answered questions and stuff. Finally, they featured me in the annual Spelling Bee music video. They’ll be featuring my clip in promos for the Bee. Awesome!
Update: I just finished Round 3, spelling ‘vibrissae’ correctly! I also received my score from Round One. A perfect score was 25, and I got 23. Adding on the bonus points from Rounds 2 and 3, my total score is 29. Tonight, I’ll see if I made Semifinals!
Yesterday was a fantastic day! My family went to one of my favorite museums of all time, the International Spy Museum. We went through all the great exhibits, and we also did the interactive Operation Spy mission, where you do all these things that a real spy would do. Our group ended up accidentally letting the criminals escape, and we pretty much failed the mission. It was still a ton of fun, though! After that, we went to the Great American Barbecue that the Scripps Bee organizes. It was a little rainy, but enjoyable as well. There was face painting, karaoke, carnival games, and more. I watched other kids do karaoke, but I didn’t do it myself (I’m in band for a reason!). Today is the first day of competition. It’s the 50-word written round, which takes place at different times for different spellers. I’m taking it at 12:00. I’ve been studying intensely for it, so wish me luck!
