Scrutiny by the Masses

The Kitchen Ninja is Ninja-riffic!

The EuroPro company paid my travel expenses and my hotel stay for the launch of their new product, The Kitchen Ninja. The company sent me the product, a steam mop and a vacuum for my enjoyment. All opinions in this review are my own. I did love NYC tremendously and this was a great trip. Especially meeting great friends and seeing myself on the Today Show - but I NEVER should have worn those sweatpants! Eek!

The EuroPro company sent me to NYC to see the launch of their new product, the Kitchen Ninja. I always love New York, and, very surprisingly, I had NO Bad Travel Karma. Shhh.  Maybe I lost it. Be very quiet. Maybe it won't find me again. I was put up in a great hotel and after a wonderful dinner out with Ilina from Dirt and Noise, Kim from Hormone Colored Days, and Jenn From Frugal Upstate at Ellen's Stardust Diner, we walked about 100 blocks through Times Square to the LUSH store  (my idea!  Sorry, ladies - I love to walk!) and headed to a sponsored meet and greet. I bailed after about 15 minutes - I was tired and it was just too much noise and too crowded. I needed my sleep.

The next day we walked about another 100 blocks to get to the Mandarin Oriental.  Seriously, the most beautiful hotel ever. Filing into the hall, we were greeted by Food Networks own Robin Miller, who proceeded to show us the many uses and the stunning capabilities of the Kitchen Ninja -

And then we were able to lay our hands on not only the Ninja, but the Steam Mop, the Steamer, and several different versions of vacuum cleaners. We were allowed to select which products we wanted to try at home, and I picked the Ninja, the Steam Mop and a vacuum. All of which came very quickly!

And, you know what? I am impressed with the Ninja! I was really very skeptical, but it actually does what it claims - it blends things smoothly and cleanly. Ice shaves to a powder - especially great for mixed drinks - so say my friends who came over for a fight party. We use this product EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.  we make smoothies, chocolate milk, milk shakes, mixed drinks, coffee drinks - the double blades blend everything to a smooth and creamy consistency. My husband drinks the MOST disgusting combination every morning - skim milk, grape juice, carrots, spinach, banana, raw oatmeal, wheat germ, peanut butter - and it all blends to a consistency that is easy to get down.

Not so easy to look at, but whatever. The Ninja isn't a miracle worker.

I especially like that fact that the Ninja won't operate unless the lid is locked in place - which means that my kids are denied access to the double blades - an important safety feature that is vital with my special brand of curious kids. It also keeps the product off my ceiling. No, don't look up. Really. Don't. It's not pretty - I don't recommend whirring hot spaghetti sauce in your blender. Sigh.

The Ninja comes with a the 2-cup mixing bowl and a 48-ounce pitcher, Both the bowl and the pitcher come with lids, so it's easy to store them in the fridge right in those containers. The Ninja retails for about $50 and can be found in various retailers. I am happy to recommend this product!

What Do Women Want, Anyway?

Well, hmmm - I'm not so certain that this blog is the place to go into all of that.

Kidding.  Mostly.  Sort of.

I was invited to join a rockin' group of women to tour the Chicago Ford Assembly Plant and see how they are recreating the Ford brand.

 

Jen, Grace, Jenny, me, Kelly and Jen - the wild girls of the show

Full disclosure:  Ford put me up at a hotel for the night and drove us to the plant.  We had breakfast and lunch together.  I didn't get a free Ford out of it - darn it, I TRIED, but it was a no win situation for me. I thought about stealing some parts to create my own Ford, a la Johnny Cash in One Piece at a Time, but thought I might get frisked at the end so I didn't chance it.

Also, full disclosure:  the first car I ever owned was a Ford Pinto.  It had a rusted out floor - think Fred Flintstones car and you kind of have the idea.  My dad put in a manual clutch since the car kept stalling out on me and dying in the middle of the road is MOST inconvenient.  It took about 12 minutes to go 55 miles an hour.  There's a reason Ford stands for Found On Road Dead. So, I may have been just a teeny bit biased AGAINST Ford. 

Ahem.  I'm just getting it out there. In the interest of full disclosure, naturally.

What Women Want - A Ford Event

I have been chosen to participate in the Ford Drive event while I'm in Chicago.  I was going to write a post about it - and I ran flat out of time, but beautiful, gorgeous Headless Mom wrote EXACTLY what I was going to AND graciously agreed that I could borrow it.  I adore her. 

I have been chosen to participate in an event in Chicago sponsored by Ford Motor Company this Thursday. Totally squee-worthy! But!

I need your help!

While I'm there I will be participating in discussions on what women (or men!) want in a car. So spill it!

Consider the following:

• What's important to you when you get in your car?
• What do you need from your vehicle?
• What do you have to have in your car?

Your comments here WILL have an impact on the designers, engineers, and marketers of Ford, so seriously, spill it. I want to hear it all. All aspects of a car are game. Design? check. Fuel Efficiency? check. Communication/Entertainment Extras? check. Safety? check. Overall Quality? check.

I know from the welcome letters that I've been receiving that I will have TONS of information for you, so can you help a sister out?

Thanks! And stay tuned for some great news from Ford!

Oh, and if you want to follow the discussions on Twitter, just search the hashtag #FordBlogHer. I'll be using it a lot in the upcoming days so stay tuned!

Notes From Let's Fix Dinner!

This was a sponsored trip from Stouffer's.

I can not tell you when I have experienced a more well run event.  From the initial email, which gave me plenty of time to make arrangements - although I blocked my calendar off for the WRONG days, a detail I didn't catch until the day before I went!  - to the box of treats and the binder with all of the pertinent information that I received a week before - truly, there was no detail left unanswered. 

Looking at the list of foods made by this company, I was amazed to see how many reside in my house on an almost constant basis. Macaroni and Cheese, Lean Cuisine Power Bars, chicken lasagna,veggie lasagna, hot pockets - literally, my entire pantry and freezer could showcase this company!

The flight arrived on time, and after meeting up with Elizabeth and Lisa, we found our way to the hotel and checked in.  I always get so.tired when traveling, and so I elected to stay in the room and do some work, deciding that I'd just skip dinner.  Except that when I got to the room, I saw the little red tag from Stouffers - the one I realized signified goodness whenever it appeared - telling me that room service for that night would be covered.  Awesome!

The next day began in the Nestle test kitchen, where we were treated to some really cool displays and  the amazing sight of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies being taken warm from the oven. 

Let's Fix Dinner!

Stouffers is on a mission to connect families together with dinner. Yes, dinner! Simple isn’t it? Not really. Because of everyone's daily life demands, we sometimes just get into that survival mode as parents. Those nights that my kids eat hot pockets and peanut butter sandwiches, and I'm scrounging through the freezer, desperate to find just ONE bowl of leftovers.  So I am proud to be one of the invited bloggers to join the Let’s Fix Dinner round table discussion on the importance of dinner with the family.  I am certain that there will be so much information given out that I just can't wait.

If the event is anything like the welcome package, the next two days will ROCK.  My welcome packet contained a deep 13x9 ceramic baker, a Flip video camera, an American Express gift card for travel expenses, and the information that my family loved - a prepared dinner - lasagna, salad, bread, cookies and lemonade - brought to the house Wednesday night. 

I'm in the room right now - at the Marriott - waiting for my room service.  It's a great night.  A GREAT night.  It's quiet in here, food is on the way, and I can sleep with no little bodies next to me.  Pretty much meets all the requirement for fun for me.

Tomorrow we tour the Nestle facility.  I'm hoping for Stouffer's mac and cheese for lunch, and I call ALL the browned edges.

Great Fun at Great Wolf Lodge

Recently I was contacted by the lovely Liz from Fleishman-Hillard, inviting me (and my family!) to the grand opening and media event for the newest Great Wolf Lodge, in Concord, North Carolina. Sweet!  We've been to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg and loved it - but it was cost prohibitive for us to ever be able to take our family on this type of trip ever again.  Having a larger family size in this economy, we've had to adjust to this type of reality.  So, when I received this amazing offer for an overnight stay for my ENTIRE family - and I asked if I could bring my mother, to help me with the kids and be an extra helper for Riley, and there was no hesitation at all in their acceptance - well, I was a pretty pleased Mommyblogger, I can tell you that.

Reading the invitation aloud to my family, I breezed by one segment, and my daughters went NUTS.  "What?"  I asked.  "What's the big deal?  It just says, concert by recording artist Mitchel Musso. What's so exciting about Mitchel Musso? Mitchell Musso of Hannah Montana fame?"  Apparently, that was a HUGE deal.  The only drawback for me - I don't like long car drives and this promised to be about 6 hours.  Coupled with the fact that my husband would have to drive separately, because he had to be back at work the next day at noon - well, I've never said I was sane.

Anyone Up For a Trip to Sesame Street?

While I was in Mexico, Busch Gardens Williamsburg unveiled their new play area, Sesame Street Forest of Fun.  We were invited to attend, but because I wasn't home, I assumed that we were out of luck.  Fortunately for my family, the lovely Christine, Communications Specialist for Busch Gardens, offered a visit on another day. We gladly took her up on her very generous offer.

When my kids were little, each and every one of them loved Sesame Street.  Riley and Emma both still watch it on occasion, and I'm not too embarrassed to say that I've been heard singing some of the songs a time or eleven.  Sesame Street epitomizes, to me, everything that is good and pure about childhood, everything that is kind and happy and educational.  The show sets very high standards that lots of show have tried, and failed, at copying.  I always wanted to take my kids to the Sesame Place park but it was never in the cards.  Now that Busch Gardens has opened the Forest of Fun, there's no need to go anywhere else. 

Busch Gardens has always been a favorite place of mine.  Not for the rides, because I really hate roller coasters. I love the atmosphere, the bubbling enthusiasm that everyone seems to have, and really, just everything about the park.  Except that just about every time I go it's a million degrees - but Busch Gardens can't control that.   I love the shows, the soft serve ice cream with strawberries and sprinkles, the Canelloni alla Stella, the music and just how much fun other people seem to have. 

I end each trip to Busch Gardens grumpy, exhausted, and broke.  I guess those are the signs of a successful theme park visit.

Sesame Street Forest of Fun was a blast for my kids.  The area is colorful and clean, with a decorated water park area in the middle - one of my families favorite sections of the Land of the Dragons kids area.  When the weather gets warm and muggy here, there's nothing better than tossing your kids - and yourself - under the fountains and cooling off.  There's a kids roller coaster, just right for kids that might be too young or small for the regular coasters.  Every hour, the doors open on the elevated stage and out pop Cookie Monster, Abby Cadabby, Zoe, Grover and Elmo for a fun song and dance routine - and immediately after, they come offstage for photo opportunities.  That was one of the best parts - at any time, you might turn around and bump right into a favorite character, primed for a photo opportunity.  There are a couple of play areas that are well padded and constructed so as to avoid hot spots, and three other rides geared just for kids.  One thing I really liked was that the rides were constructed so that a parent could ride with a child - that's key for Riley.  In another area, we waited for 20 minutes to get on a ride and then they told me I couldn't get on - she had a flip out panic attack at riding by herself.  Whatever they needed to do to make the Forest of Fun rides parent weight friendly was REALLY appreciated.  There's also a 4 D movie of Sesame Street - held in an air conditioned theater, I KNOW it'll be a highlight during the summer months.  We weren't able to get to it, which deeply disappointed all of us - there just weren't enough hours in the day!

One of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen occurred as I was waiting for my kids to finish watching the show.  A little boy had wandered away from his parents, and a security guard was trying to help him. The boy was crying and the guard was patient, helpful and kind, and when the mom appeared a few minutes later, he was kind to her hysterical self as well.  Professional and polite - it was a good indicator of the level of kindness that I found from most of the employees at the park.

One other thing that was really cool - the park offers Character breakfasts and lunches.  It was an enormous theater, which held probably 300 people for breakfast - and yet it was so well organized that no one waited for the buffet line, drinks were brought quickly, trash cleared in a timely manner, and when the photo opportunities came, the grouping were called extremely quickly.  I've been to many a character breakfast and this was, by far, the most impressive example of organization. My only beef with the entire meal was that the picture wasn't included in the price of the breakfast.  At $18 per adult and $16 per child, I thought it should have included the picture.  The charge of $20 for two sheets was really high, in my mind, and one I wasn't prepared to pay, but having it brought to my table and given to me in front of my kids, I felt pressured. I know that none of us ate anywhere near the cost of our meal. 

Overall, we loved the Sesame Street Forest of Fun.  I've loved Busch Gardens my entire life, and this added area just seals the deal for us.  My kids are already planning their next visit!  Thanks SO MUCH for Busch Gardens and Christine, Public Relations Extraordinaire!

Chicken Noodle Soup, V-8 Fusion, and Me

I have to admit, I really wasn't aware of everything that Campbell's meant when I agreed to take a trip to see their headquarters.  Sure, I have had the ubiquitous red and white cans of soup my entire life - who among us hasn't? My kids love the Shrek, Dora and Princess versions of the chicken noodle soup, and tomato soup is a big hit here. (As an aside, 50% of those who make the tomato soup use water, and 50% use milk - which do you prefer?)  The only juice that my kids drink is the V-8 Fusion. We have, in the past, used Prego spaghetti sauce and it was hard to let that go when we dropped the High Fructose Corn Syrup from our diets.  But, what did Campbell's really have to do with kids nutrition?

I was in for a big lesson.