National Geographic Kids is having a cool photo contest. Here’s your chance to share some great fall colors from your neck of the woods, and possibly win big.

When you are out patrolling the neighborhood with your GeoPalz-equipped family, take your camera along, and capture some pretty images to enter the contest.

Take a photograph that fits in one or more of these four categories: humor, animals, scenery, or people. The Grand Prize winner in this contest will be selected from the First Place Winners in each category to win a trip to Costa Rica. Then the four First Place winners will go on to compete against other First Place Winners from international National Geographic photography contests. The best photo will win the Grand Prize in the worldwide contest—a trip to Washington, D.C!

What’s the greatest thing about Halloween?

Candy corn? Nope (but check out the fascinating video about it here)

Marshmallow Frankensteins? No

Haunted Houses? You’re getting close.

Giggling Jello Molds in the Shape of a Pumpkin? Hmmmm, that is pretty good, but no.

The best thing about Halloween? Walking! An entire holiday where the primary activity involves getting outside and walking around the neighborhood!

So many of our annual celebrations involve an awful lot of eating and and awful lot of sitting. Christmas – eat pie and wait for the man in red. Easter gets close – at least we have to search for the candy! Thanksgiving? Forget about it. Thank goodness for Halloween, a holiday that actually encourages us to get outside and get moving.

Take full advantage this year. GeoPalz your way through the holiday. The whole family can wear a GeoPalz while you skitter up the streets in search of the motherload score of candy.  You can guess how many steps you’ll take throughout the evening…and check your GeoPalz at the end of the night to see how close your guess came.

Maybe you can try counting steps in between each sweet treat? Rewards for steps are a simple way to regulate your child’s (or your own!) intake. Use this as a basic measure: walk 2000 steps for every serving of candy (that means a handful of jelly beans or candy corn, a mini-candy bar, couple of Tootsie Rolls, and like that). If you do, you’re burning roughly the same amount that you are taking in.

Get outside this year and enjoy scaring your friends and neighbors up close and personal! Check your local community calendars for Halloween parades in your area. Most allow, even encourage children in costume to participate.

Be safe and have fun!

We are so excited to be able to premier today a new blog feature –the GeoPalz Junior Blogger Program. We asked some GeoPalz kidz from all across the country to send us their reports on how they help get their families moving, active and healthy.  Our goal is to help share some personal experiences that folks are having with the GeoPalz family experience.

Our first  GeoPalz Junior Blog post is Cricket, a 12 year old GeoPalz user from Montana.  Cricket shares her outlook on the pros and cons of spending time outside with her family – she has a younger sister and brother, both GeoPalz users, so she tells us  won’t be some strife and contention–siblings are just that way sometimes!

GeoPalz Junior Blogger Cricket:

Hi, welcome to the journal of my steps……                                                            

This is my GeoPalz.

I live in a small town in the NW United States. I have a sister and a brother, and two awesome parents. We try really hard to be active and busy. We live out in the country and have HUGE spaces all around us, so in some ways it’s kind of easy. Although, not living near my school or in town means we have to drive to school and to any events. So that makes it a bit harder to just walk to get to places.

I’m looking forward to sharing the story of how we use GeoPalz, and the kinds of things we are doing to be active as a family and live a healthier lifestyle.

We have a small farm, with some chickens, a big garden, a nice creek, and lots and lots of space. My friends and brother and sister and I spend a lot of time outside playing in the creek, or riding bikes, or just running like crazy. At school I joined the cross country team, so I get quite a few steps in – practice EVERY DAY after school.

A bit about me and my family: I am in middle school – there are about 550 students in my school, grades sixth through eighth.  I have lived in this town since I was 5 years old. My parents both grew up here, and then spent a while in California before returning to their hometown. My father runs a small community group here, where he works to “improve the quality of life” in the area (I’ve heard THAT so many times that I have it memorized!) My mother is brilliant. She went to college for 13 years! She got a PhD (go look that up if you don’t know what it means – you’ll find out it means “supersmart!”) from Stanford University as a cancer biologist, and now she works for Stanford from our home here many miles away as a science writer, reporting on all sorts of amazing science-y stuff that I don’t really understand.

My sister is 3 years younger than me, so you KNOW she’s annoying! My brother is 7, and every once in a while is cute…

I love reading, art, writing, reading, running, reading, Greek Myths, chicken nuggets (oops), reading, and…. did I mention reading?

I think my big challenge will be to get my whole family out exercising together. Everybody in my family stays pretty active – dad likes to bike, and mom goes to the gym pretty regularly – but I want to get us out walking and enjoying together as a family (although sometimes I could do without my little sister….!). I am also active at my school in stuff, and I hope I can get some group walking activities together.

Looking forward to keeping you up to date on our latest GeoPalz adventurez…Talk with you soon!

A 2003 study had Americans and people of other countries including Japan, Switzerland, and Australia wearing pedometers for one day to “test” a day in the walking life of the world.  The results put Americans 2,000 steps (about 1 mile)  behind other countries. The test also covered Amish farming communities. Amish people recorded taking two to three times as many steps than Americans in one day. It was also noted that countries with higher daily step counts had lower obesity rates. Read this article in The New York Times.

Come on, America!  We can do better!  We owe it to our kids to keep in step.  Walk more, drive less, and have fun doing it with GeoPalz!