Elisa's Daily Scoop
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Tanya's Daily Scoop
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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!!
December Travel
Hello! Hope this is a great day for you!
Call me crazy, but the cold air and wind are in the air here on Long Island and I am absolutely lovin' it!! 
I am always the first one outside in the morning out of our little trio as I let my Punkin baby out right away. As such, I am the official weather reporter in the family to let the rest of the gang know what outerwear they will need.
I really felt as if snow was in the air this morning with the gray skies and wind. We'll have to see! Getting back to daily life - Gianna made her way back to school today - not nearly 100% better, she loaded up on cold pills, Motrin, tissues and water. Fortunately, her day is not terribly busy, so she should be able to cruise through. Kelsey is doing just great in her first year of Mandarin. My little girl studies and practices every single night! She is highly motivated in her study of this language and I've never once had to remind her to do her daily practice. 
(photo credit: cheapcaribbean)
In travel news...
The kids are getting pretty darn excited about the start of the Christmas season! We have a pretty exciting Big Apple Daycation planned for the 3rd weekend in December! I just love going into NYC and acting like a tourist!! Then, of course, our Christmas trip to the Dominican Republic follows shortly thereafter - only 24 days left before we leave!! We are pretty well set for the trip. New bathing suits, flip flops, sun hats and sun dresses. In fact, my bag is already packed. It is an easy pack trip. Warm weather wear does not take up as much room as cold weather clothing. I think the kids are going to get their suitcases packed this weekend as well. We'll be staying in Puerta Plata and as you can see from the above map, it is situated on the northern coast of the island. You know how much I love to sightsee, but I promised the girls, since this is a very short trip (5 days) that we would stay put at the resort and simply relax and eat! Yesterday, I purchased part of Gianna's Christmas gift. When we were looking at the website for our Puerto Plata resort, she was very excited that they offered spa services for teens and asked if she could get a few as a Christmas gift. I called yesterday and booked her a facial and an aroma therapy massage! I know she will really enjoy being pampered. I'm still on the look out for airfare to Orlando for our Disney Trip in February and to Sicily for the summer. The rates are still pretty high. You'll be the first to know when I've secured my flights! For now, I'm going to finish an article for you about NYC at Christmastime. -Toodles, Travelin' Elisa xoxo 
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Best Buy is Awful
And now a bit of a vent. Time is a precious commodity and wasting someones time is never appreciated. Having my time wasted really pisses me off. I hardly have enough time to get what I need to get done and then when I am delayed...
Well that just really screws things up! A few words about Best Buy - For starters, I don't think I'll be shopping at this store EVER again! Luckily I'm not typing this up as of last night and have had a bit of time to cool off and chill out. But I am still DONE with Best Buy. It all started on Friday - Black Friday, when I refused to hit the stores and go shopping. But of course that didn't stop me from browsing around online. I found a few items to my liking, added them to my cart and checked out. No issues so far. Then on Sunday we bopped on over to the local Best Buy to browse, shop and pick up my Friday order. Still no issues. I was kinda of bummed out that one of the items that I had in mind to purchase (which was part of the Black Friday) sale was completely SOLD OUT. But that comes with the territory of not hitting the stores on Black Friday. Oh well. As I was handling my pick up I happened to ask about Cyber Monday and was informed that since I am a Best Buy Credit Card holder that I would be able to preview and purchase the Cyber Monday sale ahead of time, to which I found an item to my liking! By the time we got home from the rest of all the running around that had to be done I had looked to make my early purchase. However now for so odd and quite frustrating reason, my account was all screwed up and showing an available credit of ZERO!!! It was too late to call the credit services customer service and something that I would have to deal with on Monday. Now if you recall - my Monday was simply nuts and without much time to be on the phone. I still managed in between all of my craziness to made the call over to Best Buy and find out WTH was going on. Once I finally had them on the line I was told that I had all of these additional charges on my account - all except one that I did not make! For starters it seemed as though the agent did not believe me. That was frustrating in itself. I was them told that I had to speak with the Best Buy dot com customer service department to straighten out the issue. So I was placed on hold. When I was finally transferred and began explaining the issue once again I had been disconnected! Of course I was not happy with this, but had no time to call them right back. After another hour or so I was able to make the call yet again. And basically the call went just about the same, with the end result being my getting disconnected. Do I have to tell you how frustrated I was? Good, I didn't think so. After another couple of hours I braved making the call once again, but this time did it a bit different. This time I called Best Buy dot com first rather than having the credit services department connect me and then disconnect me. I got through to an agent who was very sympathetic and wanted to help. We discussed the issues and then I went to add a call to connect us to the credit services department. Everything was finally running smooth and there were no disconnections. Once I had the credit services agent on the line I had to explain the situation all over yet again and told her that after being disconnected several times that I decided to get Best Buy dot com on the line myself to clear up this issue and the fact that I was not responsible to these other charges which caused my account to be over the limit and frozen! Everything seemed to finally be moving in the right direction, until the credit services agent explained that the call from Best Buy dot com had to originate from them and not from me. So at this point I had asked the kind gentleman who I had now been on the phone with for an hour, if he could call the credit services department on another line and clear up this matter. This was not a problem and he was glad to do it. I was placed hold in hopes of finally clearing this issue and being able to make my purchase. And then do you know what happened? You guessed it...I was disconnected! At this point I just couldn't. I was so frustrated. So drained. So over it. I was just going to make the purchase using another form of payment and deal with this issue at a later time. I made the purchase which was now not available at my local Best Buy. But I was all set to pick it up and went out there yesterday. When I walked in, I was so glad that I was going to be done with Best Buy for a good long while. But when I arrived at the pick up counter and searched for my drivers license, I realized a bigger issue...my license was missing! So of course I started stressing over this. But lo and behold, I have a picture of my drivers license and of my passport on my phone. However this was not acceptable to pick up my order. The fact that I could give them any information that they needed was not enough to allow me to pick up my order. The fact that I could log into Best Buy dot com with my password and show them the order was not enough to allow me to pick up my order. Frustration was on overload! Then I realized that I could change the pick up person and that Dave could pick up the item for me. He was right there and had his license. Easy peasy right. WRONG. The freakin unhelpful manager explained that it takes an hour to change the name of the person who is doing the pick up and since they were about to close that we'd have to come back tomorrow (today). Well that wouldn't be the worst thing. It was on the way to Dave's office. HOWEVER they also told me that if I change the pick up person, that they would charge me a second time for my already paid for purchase!!! WTH?! I was just not okay with any of this crap. I wasn't going to pay for my items AGAIN just so that Dave can pick up my order the following day when I was standing right there ready to pick up my own order. I really wanted to go into beast mode at this point, but of course had refrained. I went home fuming!!!! Luckily I found my drivers license in another pocketbook, otherwise I would've really lost it and stressed and obsessed the rest of the night. I did however decide that I am DONE WITH BEST BUY and no longer a customer of this good for nothing scammer of a company. End of vent. Oh yeah and I did go and get my hair done yesterday too.. 
I'll show you pictures tomorrow. I'm outta time for now.
Ciao 4 now, -Travelin' Tanya 
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