Beth Blair

Archive for the ‘Minnesota’ Category

The Mall of America is one of Minnesota’s most popular attractions and it happens to be my local mall. As a flight attendant I frequently meet people flying into the Twin Cities simply to shop and play at this massive mall that has every store imaginable and much more including my kids’ favorite, Nickelodeon Universe. Now that the holidays are in full-swing the parking at Mall of America is going to be rather, well, competitive.

Today you have the chance to win one of twelve parking places on December 21st for the 12 Days of Parking at Mall of America. What this means is if you’re a winner, you can bypass the holiday parking situation all together with a VIP parking spot and win a gift card to help with your shopping!

Details: 12 winners will receive a $25 Mall of America gift card and a coveted parking spot in the north surface parking lot for the entire day of December 21 (see the photo above). As a winner, you can come and go as you please the entire day. The parking lot will be patrolled as well as a huge sign announcing that violators will be towed at owners expense (that means so sneaking in!).

How to enter:

• You may enter by leaving a comment below telling us where you will spend your $25 gift card if you’re a winner (enter daily) or why you should be a parking spot winner.
• You may increase your chances by tweeting the following on Twitter: I entered to win the @MallofAmerica 12 Days of Parking giveaway with @BethBlair http://bit.ly/moabb (You must come back and leave a message in the comments below that you entered this way to earn your extra entry.)
• Contest ends at 5 p.m. Central Time on December 16, 2011.
• The winners will be chosen via random.org and will be contacted by Mall of America. Please make sure you have a working email and be prepared to give your name, car make/model and license plate to valid your parking pass.

Good luck!

Congratulations to the 12 winners. You will be notified by Mall of America!

After “National Lampoon’s Vacation” Clark Griswold became an American road trip icon dad while the Wagon Queen Family Truckster (aka the Griswold station wagon) represented the the 80′s popular mode of transportation (the Swagger Wagon of yesteryear). It’s special to me because my parents drove a very similar station wagon. My folks would pile us five kids in our own wood-panel wagon and drive us through the byways of Louisiana and Mississippi or to the Alabama and Florida beaches. Those trips are what inspired me to pursue travel as a career.

More recently though, you might remember the HomeAway Super Bowl advertising campaign featuring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo. Well, the Wagon Queen Family Truckster featured in the commercial is on the road this summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day promoting HomeAway vacation rentals.  The wagon is stopping at destinations across America and this past weekend it came though the Twin Cities. The timing was perfect because it was the weekend of the Minnesota Red Bull Flugtag (homemade flying contraption competition) and there was an entry called Team Griswold, aka Team 20. The Family Truckster Team designed the green station wagon with wings!  We attended the event and even saw Team Griswold “fly.” It looked great and even came in 3rd place (the world record was broken by the 1st place winner). After that we headed over to Minneapolis restaurant Joe’s Garage where the Truckster was parked.

HomeAway had asked me if I’d like to be part of their promotion and ride in the Truckster as one of their bloggers this summer. I had to decline but my friend Jennifer Miner is going to be representing The Vacation Gals on a stretch of the trip departing from Seattle this weekend. She’ll have a great time.

While I didn’t get to ride in the Truckster my family did snap some photos with this famous station wagon. If you do the same as it comes through your town, be sure to enter the contest on Facebook. HomeAway is giving away a few vacations this summer.

A couple of weeks ago I met up with some fabulous ladies from The Blog Pantry (a Twin Cities, Minnesota blog/networking site). This group of bloggers meet every so often for various social, fundraising and networking events. The blogging topics range from culinary to health to PR to parenting and everything in between. Local businesses frequently sponsor the events, including this particular gathering. Mom’s Best Naturals offered samples and cereal boxes to take home and France 44 supplied the delicious wine, goat cheese and crackers. Photographer Elissa Bean Kadue kindly opened up her colorful Little Bean Photography studio for our event and was extremely generous to offer every blogger a fresh, professional headshot (see my photo on the left). Most of the ladies, like me, were using random photos for their social media avatars, but now I’m seeing the other ladies’ black and white shots popping up on Twitter and Facebook. They all turned out gorgeous. I’ve updated my Gravatar and other social media sites with this new photograph so you will be seeing my new photo around too.

If you live in Minnesota and are thinking about family photos, I’d highly recommend Elissa, so give her a call. She makes the process painless and if you’d like to see her work, check out her amazing online portfolio. She has a sure talent for working with kids.

A big thank you to Elissa and the other sponsors for their generosity.

If you’d like to see what the The Blog Pantry ladies are up to – follow Twitter hashtag: #MNBlogPantry.