For the first time in contest history, we’re asking you to decide the winners of our one-and-only “Take Your Acorn on Vacation” competition.

The procedure is simple. Go online to www.theacorn.com. Click the Vote box for Take Your Acorn on Vacation and pick the single shot from Simi Valley readers you like best. There are 10 finalists for each paper, so you can also select your favorite photos from Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Agoura Hills/ Calabasas/Westlake Village.

You can vote only once for each paper from the same computer. The deadline to vote is 5 p.m. Mon., Oct. 12. The winner, who will be announced Fri., Oct. 16, receives a check for $100. Second place gets $50 and third place $25.

Only the top three photos receive prize money, but all of the hundreds of entries we received will appear on our Acorn on Vacation photo pages throughout the year until we’ve exhausted our supply.

Please notice the kind of shots that finished in the top 10.

Some people drive all the way to Des Moines, for example, and then take a photo of a backyard barbecue at Uncle Bob’s or a dining room shot at Aunt Mabel’s. We’re not trying to be overly critical, but those pictures could have been taken right here in Simi. If you drive 1,800 miles to vacation in Des Moines, why not shoot a picture of the gold-domed state Capitol building or of the 8-foot-high cornstalks just outside of town? Creativity sells.

And make it easy for us, if you would.

Please don’t send a dozen pictures, but pick the very best one of your entire vacation. And please don’t offer a link to Photobucket and those other online photo services, because we simply don’t have the time to sift through all the shots.

Believe it or not, some people submit photos without providing contact information. If we can’t determine who sent it, we can’t make it a winner.

Although most entries are correctly sent as high-resolution jpg attachments to vacation@theacorn.com, we still accept color prints if they’re sent to the address on this page.

Thanks for voting, and watch for your Acorn on Vacation photo in an upcoming edition.