Lindsay, Author at Laughing Lindsay

My #GreenGiantVV

August 19, 2011 By Lindsay 7 Comments

Wow! I still can’t believe everything I was able to experience on my GreenGiantVV or the Green Giant Valley Visit! It was so much fun and interesting. I have another post detailing stuff I learned about Green Giant. In this post, I wanted to go over what we actually did.

#GreenGiantVV Arrival

Tuesday
I arrived in Minnesota and was greeted with a great package from Green Giant and a fabulous room at the Marriott Southwest. My package contained my first blogger badge. 😀 I’m official now. Haha! It also contained a wonderful L.L. Bean tote bag with some awesome green boots, sunblock for Wednesday, a Green Giant folder which sings the Green Giant Ho Ho Ho tune when you open it and a Green Giant branded hat. My room had 2 queen sized beds in it! Plus, it had a nice television and an iPod docking system. Such a nice room!

Everyone went out for a dinner cruise on Lake Minnentonka that night. It actually stormed while we were out there. However, the conversation was lively, fun, and interesting. I somehow managed not to take any photos of this. *sigh* Afterwards, I hung out with some of the other bloggers at the Marriott, which was a real hoot.

GreenGiantVV Tours

Wednesday
This day was jam-packed with stuff! This is when I learned everything I want to tell you about Green Giant. It started with a nice breakfast and I got to meet Lil’ Sprout. 🙂 Then, we headed off to the Valley.

We visited the Green Giant Ag Research facility. I got to walk through the Seed Vault (which is colder than I thought it would be) and toured the Test Plant. I couldn’t take pictures in either of those locations. However, it was really fun. Then, we were driven to a nursery where I wore my awesome green boots and learned more about Green Giant’s sustainability projects.

Next, we went to a local farm for lunch. This lunch was simply magnificent. The apple pie was some of the best pie I’ve ever had. Plus, it was a beautiful day which made for a lovely experience. Then, we took a hay ride to the corn field where we got to pick, shuck, and eat sweet corn. OMG! The corn was so sweet!

Then, we returned to the Ag Research Facility to taste different types of Green Giant corn. Fyi: I love the canned niblets. Then, we were driven to the Le Suer Museum which has a room with just Green Giant stuff in it. It was really interesting to see all of the stuff. We also got to view a video on the history of Green Giant as well as some upcoming commercials.

We headed back to the Marriott to freshen up for dinner. General Mills was generous enough to send us bloggers to Bar la Grassa that night where the James Beard Foundation 2011 BEST CHEF – MIDWEST: ISAAC BECKER cooks. Bar la Grassa was named one of the top 10 best new restaurants by Bon Appetit in 2010 and I can see why. This meal was really the best one I’ve ever had. It was a five course meal! Some of my favorite dishes included the Soft Eggs and Lobster, Crab Ravioli, Halibut with Wild Mushrooms, and the dessert. I picked the Salted Caramel Crespelle for my fifth course and I’m so glad I did. You can see a picture of it in the slideshow above. It was to die for. I even did my butt dance for it while seated. 😉 Oh, and the conversations during the meal were very insightful – thanks to my new found friends at Robyn’s Online World, Serendipity Mommy, and Confessions of an Over-Worked Mom. What nice ladies!

GreenGiantVV Departure

Thursday
I traveled back home which was pretty uneventful (thankfully).

So, there you have it. I feel so lucky/blessed to have been chosen for this trip. Thank you General Mills and Green Giant.

Disclosure: General Mills sponsored my trip to the Green Giant Valley. The opinions expressed are my own.

Titanic Museum Audio Tour Review

June 15, 2011 By Lindsay 8 Comments

A year ago, I went to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge and did 3 separate Titanic Pigeon Forge Reviews posts on it. Well, this past weekend, I was lucky enough to make a return trip to the museum with my mother to witness their new audio tour!

The Titanic Pigeon Forge Audio Tour is pretty cool. For an additional $6 (or 2 for $10), you receive a cool personal handheld speaker device. The device has numbers as well as volume controls. There is an adult and youth version of the audio. Around the museum they have several plaques up which have numbers on them. You simply enter this number into your handheld device and press the green button to hear about this part of the museum. The cool thing about this is that you can hear either the adult and/or the youth’s version since both are stored on the device.

I really enjoyed the added audio. It means you can get additional information not written up in front of you. Plus, the extremely cool thing is that some of the audio is from interviews with actual Titanic survivors from years ago. So, you can get the facts, plus the experience from the people who were there! I thought that was so neat!

My mother and I tried to listen to both formats of the audio. The youth’s was a little more exciting/fun than the serious adult. However, they are both good. I liked that you can control the volume and you hold up to your own ear. That makes the experience more personal. I definitely think the audio adds something to the experience of the museum.

My mother really liked the museum, as this was her first time seeing it. It was a nice experience that is wonderful for the whole family. As you know from my previous posts, there is something for everyone at the museum. The addition of the audio just makes it even more open for the whole family. Plus, it’s a nice place away from the heat of the day. Haha!

You can keep up with all of the new additions and events at the museum by liking the Titanic Museum on Facebook and following TitanicUSA on Twitter. Additionally, you can text TITANIC to 62447 to receive event information or text ICEBERG to 62447 to receive a discount in the gift shop! 😀

Disclosure: I received free passes and an audio tour for myself and my mother. No compensation was received. The opinions expressed are my own.

Viva la Vera Bradley

May 24, 2011 By Lindsay 7 Comments

I’m sure you’ve heard of Vera Bradley for the wonderful bags and accessories. The designs are simply beautiful and interesting. Did you know there’s even a cupcake pattern? While I didn’t receive any of the cupcake patterned items to review, I did receive two items from the beach and straw Viva la Vera Bradley collection. Yay!

Viva la Vera

I received the Viva la Vera Hobo bag and it is pictured above. I think it’s stunning with the criss-cross of pattern across the straw. It’s actually a very roomy bag. I’ve been using it to carry my stuff for my summer class. The bag is the perfect size for my textbook, a notebook, some pencils, my keys, id holder (which is also Vera Bradley), and my iPod Touch with room left over.

I attempted to show you how big the inside is in the bottom left picture. The picture on the bottom right shows the handy snap closure. The strap is actually the perfect length. It hangs right about my hip, which is great. I also like that the strap is soft and doesn’t rub my shoulder.

There are many little touches on the bag. I like the bamboo rings which the strap goes around. I am also in love with the insider zipper. Look at it…

Isn’t that nice? I love that is has the name on it. The insider zipper portion is pretty roomy, too. I also like the outside pocket which is equally roomy.

The other item I received was the Viva la Vera Beach Towel. This towel is beautiful! I love the wonderful and bright colors of it. It’s the perfect towel for the beach or pool. It’s the perfect summer towel. I also LOVE the size of it. It’s got some great length to it, perfect for laying out on it. See how pretty and big it is…

Isn’t it so cute? I think the entire line is so fun. It’s a wonderful summer time line with all of the bright colors and designs.

Just curious, do you own any Vera Bradley items? What is your favorite Vera Bradley item or design?

Disclosure: I received the hobo bag and towel for free. No compensation was received. The opinions expressed are my own.

Nestle Back to School Giveaway

September 12, 2010 By Lindsay

I’m super excited about my new partnership with Nestle! I hope to bring my readers many great reviews and giveaways from them in the future. This first one features a Nestle back to school giveaway! How great is that?

Reading is Fundamental

Nestle is a partner of Reading is Fundamental.

RIF is the oldest and largest children’s and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States . All RIF programs combine three essential elements to foster children’s literacy: reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep.

Through this partnership, NESTLÉ has distributed millions of books to elementary school children across the country that are associated with the NESTLÉ Adopt-A-School program. And the books donated are designed to not only encourage literacy, but are specifically focused on teaching kids about the importance of nutrition, health and wellness.

To correspond with this the brand is having a great Happy New School Year Sweepstakes that you can enter daily for a chance to win a $2,000 literacy grant for a school near you or a Crayola daily prize!

Nestle Back to School

As an education major, I’m really impressed with their involvement in fostering good literacy in our schools. That’s why I’m especially proud to bring you this new giveaway featuring their products. Nestle wants to help one lucky Laughing Lindsay reader start the new school off on the right foot with a fabulous prize package filled with lovely items. Any parent or college student should be happy to receive this prize package!

WIN! THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED!

Disclaimer: I will be receiving $50 in books to donate to a local RIF school as well as my own identical back to school prize pack from Nestle for posting this. No compensation was received. The opinions expressed are my own.

New Blog Courtesy of Angie Vinez

July 5, 2010 By Lindsay Leave a Comment

I want to welcome everyone to the new and better Laughing Lindsay! Thank you to everyone for sticking with me during the transition. Someone that really deserves to be thanked though is Angela Vinez! That’s because she worked really hard on this blog. She actually designed this wonderful blog you are looking at! She also moved Laughing Lindsay from Blogspot to WordPress for me! Yay! Go her! She did all of this in exchange for a review! How nice is that? I mean this woman is truly one of a kind. I can’t think of enough nice words to describe her! That’s why I feel that it’s only right for her services to be the first review on the new Laughing Lindsay!

New Blog

So, let’s start from the beginning. Originally, I just wanted a new look for Laughing Lindsay and I had seen her work on other blogs and really liked it. That was right before the time that Blogger deleted some blogs and had issues. I was put onto a waitlist (she is a very busy woman and her work is great, it’s to be expected) and began thinking about things. I decided that I wanted to move Laughing Lindsay because I thought it would be better in so many ways and that I wanted to do it during the summer while I still have loads of free time to get used to the new set-up and could try to build up my pagerank and stuff. I contacted her again to see about transferring me because at the time I didn’t think she did WordPress blogs. However, I was happy to discover that she was now doing WordPress and had had to move several other blogs to WordPress because of Blogspot’s issues. So, I asked her if she could move and re-design Laughing Lindsay. She agreed to move and do a WordPress design for Laughing Lindsay and I rejoiced! Trying to do stuff on a college student’s budget is really hard and I had been looking around comparing prices for hosting and transferring and things were looking pretty sad.

Blog Design

Luckily, Angie is very patient and can provide many services. She designs WordPress blogs, Blogger blogs, offers hosting and can sell you a domain! How awesome is that? Her prices are extremely competitive as well! I actually purchased my domain and hosting from Angie (on my own, she did not require me to)! Poor Angie has had to put with me for a few weeks now. It started with the design because I had no idea what I wanted. Haha! I’m actually a pretty indecisive person and hate making decisions (I have opinions on all sorts of things, but just hate making decisions). So, I was of little help in giving Angie ideas for designing my blog. It was actually her idea to include a cartoon girl on the site! I loved the idea and simply requested that it have brown eyes, glasses, and be a brunette. In case you were wondering, that is similar to me! : ) Then, I told her I’d like something blue-ish and cute/fun. Haha! Seriously, that’s all I told her and she managed to make what you see here! She even uploaded the design and let me see it before it went live! I actually had her make a few changes (mainly the font) before moving the blog over here. She was very nice the whole time!

Move to WordPress

Then, she made the move to WordPress very easy for me. I didn’t have to do much except put up a blog post telling my readers what was going on, close comments on the live giveaways, and give her my info. That’s it! She moved my Google Friend Connect followers (Haha! I knew it had to be possible!), my feed, and my posts with comments! We didn’t lose any comments on the live giveaways (something very important) and it didn’t take that long to do. Granted, I was worried/nervous as I sat at the computer and waited for Angie to move everything. However, looking back on it, I had nothing to fear. Angie did everything and did it well!

She’s Nice Too

Angie has also been very quick to answer my questions regarding WordPress and logging in (haha! sorry, Angie!). She responds to all of my emails VERY quickly and fixes things super fast! I can really tell that Angie cares about each client and site! I’m very happy to use her for my hosting and to have been able to have her re-do Laughing Lindsay. Thank you for everything, Angie! You really are a wonderful lady!

If you want, you can try and keep up with this great woman on her blog (she has lovely reviews and giveaways, as well), 5 Vinez Monkeys! I follow it on Google Friend Connect myself and visit it often. If you are thinking about switching from Blogger to WordPress or simply need a new look, I would HIGHLY recommend that you allow Angie to help you! She is informed, timely, and caring. I seriously can’t say enough nice things about her!

Thank you Angie for everything!

Disclosure: Angie did move and design Laughing Lindsay in exchange for a review. However, I purchased my domain and hosting from her on my own. No compensation was received for this post. The opinions expressed are my own.