 Elisa's Daily Scoop |  Tanya's Daily Scoop |
TRAVELIN' COUSINS BLOG HAS BEEN RANKED #7 IN
BRAND BALLOT'S TOP 100 MOM BLOGS FOR 2018!!
BRAND BALLOT'S TOP 100 MOM BLOGS FOR 2018!!
Elisa's Travel Event at Vera Bradley A big Sunday hello!! What a crazy weekend this has been. Not one minute to breathe!! As you know, yesterday was the Travelin' Cousins In-Store Travel Event at Vera Bradley, here in Garden City at the Roosevelt Field Mall. I had a great time! Met so many people - many of which loved travel as much as we two cousins do! As I chatted away about how great Vera Bradley products are - for on-the-go - whether it be locally or on a trip to fun and exciting destination, the store guests were totally loving perusing the store and the beautiful displays of branded merchandise! I'm sure this will not be the first of events for which we partner with this particular store and I'm so hopeful that there may an opportunity for Tanya to do a "west coast" store event! We shall see! For now, here is a short video that was taken live at the event along with photos, with my dependable photographer, Gianna! If you are unable to view the video on the email - just click on the blog or on the Travelin' Cousins logo to bring you to a viewable web page. An excited ME before the event begins!!  Outside the Vera Bradley Roosevelt Field Store (c) travelincousins.com  Beautiful window display (c) travelincousins.com  Lovely in-store display table (c) travelincousins.com  (c) travelincousins.com  (c)travelincousins.com  Sporting Vera Bradley's Resort Tote and Sunglasses (c) travelincousins.com  (c) travelincousins.com  Chatting about two of my favorite travel items. (c) travelincousins.com  (c) travelincousins.com My day was no less hectic today as me and the girls had our weekly, weekend brunch. Today we dined at Le Pain Quotidien at Neiman Marcus at the Roosevelt Field Mall - my goodness, I can't stay away from this place. It was a vegan delight for me and Gianna! I enjoyed a warm grain salad of Quinoa and farro) with sweet potato and brussel sprouts (YUM!!) and my girl ordered a big bowl of zucchini noodle pad thai. Kelsey loved her usual open faced grilled chicken with mozzarella and pesto (sorry no picture) and we all chowed down on a big basket of bread!!!  Sweet Raspberry preserves on one of their delicious breads (C) travelincousins.com  Warm Grain Salad with sweet potatoes, arugula and brussel sprouts (c) travelincousins.com  Zucchini noodles pad thai with arugula and cashews (c) travelincousins.com After picking up my laundry, hitting Trader Joe's, we are finally home. Have a great evening! -Travelin' Elisa xoxo  | March travel plans and a few surprisesHello out there, It's another rainy day here in SoCal, and I'm still luvin' it! As you know we are heading up to Agoura Hills in celebration of Dave B's mom's 85th BIRTHDAY!!!  Hopefully she remembers that it's her birthday. And that she recognizes us. She has dementia and is in a memory care wing of an elderly living facility. We shall see.  In travel news, I had mentioned that I would be sharing with you my March travel plans. AND. HERE. THEY. ARE. TAMPA, FL - In 5 Days PHOENIX, AZ - In 19 Days SALT LAKE CITY, UT - In 23 Days Our flights for our Tampa getaway were actually just purchased yesterday! I also managed to reserve our ANNUAL FAMILY CAMPING TRIP for Labor Day weekend. This year we will be going to Lake Arrowhead and in the past we have tried to get reservations to this destination, but have always come up empty handed. But I was ahead of the game this time around. The reservation window has just opened for our desired dates and I made sure that we didn't come up empty handed this time around. WE. ARE. BOOKED. In other fun travel related and TC blog news, I have posted 3 new featured videos to our home page.    NOTE: These are just screen shots of the newly posted videos. In order to play the videos you need to be on the HOME PAGE. Now for as far as yesterday went... After picking up Cosette from work. Dave and I went to our old stand by The Loving Hut for some super yummy Jackfruit Salads (the kids didn't want to come along). While munching away I received several text messages from Cosette who has been itching to get back on the ice and for me to continue coaching her. However being that the schedule at the local rink wasn't matching up for us, we need to continue working on our schedule until we have one will work for us and match up with the one at the rink. But then lo and behold Cosette found a brand new rink that I knew nothing about. The Rink at the Great Park in Irvine. They only just opened their doors on Jan. 2nd, 2019 and will have their Grand Opening on March 7th! The schedule had worked and I started dreaming of skating on amazing ice. The rink was new after all. My thoughts were "How many people actually knew about it yet?!" "How bad could it be?"... "It'll probably be PERFECT!"  We went home, grabbed Cosette and our skates and we were off. The drive was about 1/2 hour and the excitement built. However once we had arrived at this HUGE establishment (4 rinks all under one roof), we could see how crowded the parking lot was.  We walked in and saw the massive ticket line. Things were no longer looking so good. Dave held our place in line while Cosette and I went to scope things out. 3 hockey rinks, 2 of them being used for practice and 1 for a game, while the 4th rink was for the public session and it was rather busy. No room to practice or train. I also took a closer look at the ice and was shocked and disappointed all at once.  Aside from the crowd. The ice was wet. It was soft ice. Apparently not cold enough. I was no longer in the mood to get out there and skate. I offered for us to stay and that way Cosette could do a few laps and maybe carve out a small space to work on a few things. But she wasn't having any of that. She was definitely disappointed. But there was nothing that I could do about the situation. I took a closer look at the condition of the ice in the rink for the Hockey Game and also noted how wet it was. This venue is apparently trying to save on costs and not keep the temps as low as they should be. Either that or they have no clue what they are doing. But as long as they are raking in the money and the crowds keep coming out (who obviously don't know the difference between good ice and ice that sucks) there won't be anything done to change things. And thus we probably won't be going back.  I had an offer from a friend to go see Sarah Brightman and since we were cancelling our time at the rink, I had thought that it would be a good recovery for the night. However neither Dave nor Cosette were interested so I didn't go. Instead, we had a mellow (well not so mellow, because there was some family drama) night at home. I didn't feel like cooking, so we went to pick up pizza for the kids from Pizza Press - Founded in 2012 and based in Anaheim, California, The Pizza Press is a rapidly growing brand with over 30 locations nationwide elevating the ‘build your own pizza’ concept and you craft your story by “publishing” a pizza!   The kids both "published" the same pizza, yet two different members of the staff made each other them. EVOO with Roasted Garlic as a base, vegan cheese, topped with artichoke and spinach (c)travelincousins.com  Same toppings. Totally different looking pie. (c)travelincousins.com Aside from doing some online shopping, that was pretty much how my night went. Now we are off to Agoura Hills. See you tomorrow. -Travelin' Tanya  |
