Flower Delivery Made Easy With The Bouqs!


Disclosure: I am an affiliate and ambassador of The Bouqs.  I received flower delivery for review purposes.  All opinions are my own.

If you’re anything like me, you love flowers.  And nothing makes my day better than when flowers are given or delivered to my doorstep.  And, of course, that means, I also loving trying out any new flower service.  I’ve used many others in the past, but as of late, I’ve been hearing a lot about The Bouqs.

The-Bouqs-Desperado

The Bouqs is a new online flower delivery service that guarantees beautiful, bright flowers, on the day you want them delivered.  Picked the day you ordered fresh, right off the side of a Volcano and sent straight to your door.  Right on their website you can easily sign up for calendar reminders through their concierge services to make sure your beloved gets the flowers on those special dates or even on those “just because” days.

Of course, I had to try them out.  When I went on the site to order I was able to choose the exact day I wanted them delivered.  I picked a “Friday” so I could come home after a long week of work and start my weekend with a smile. On the day of my delivery, when I got home, my flowers were waiting for me in a box just like this:

the-bouqs-box

And inside the box sat 2 dozen flowers.  The most work that happens when you receive your bouqs of flowers is the assembly.  So you could send the flowers to your doorstep, you do the work then deliver the beauty to your beloved in person, or, if like me, have many loved ones at a far away distance, can deliver them like above.

So, the assembly begins:

flower-assemblyOr, in other words, unwrapping of the flowers.  They are wound up pretty tightly so with a scissors on hand, you begin unraveling, and this is what will greet you.  Grab your favorite vase, cut off the stems below which are protected in ice, and begin creating your bouquet.

bouqs-bouquetSince it was 2 dozen flowers in total, I ended up creating three bouquets altogether that I could decorate throughout my house fully.  The best part is, 3 days later, and the flowers are still looking exactly the same as when I first got them.

flowerbouq

The bouquet featured above is The Desperado Bouquet, however, there are many many others to choose from with a variety of flowers, colors and designs.  The bouquets all start with a flat 40 dollar rate, then you can always add more flowers to it.  Desperado is a beautiful combination of Pink Roses with Purple Dianthus or similar accent flowers.  My only complaint is that there weren’t enough accent flowers added into the bouquet per dozen of roses, but needless to say, the bouquets still turned out beautiful.

For more information about The Bouqs definitely head to their site and start creating your perfect bouquet.  Have fun and let me know your thoughts if you end up ordering.

Categories: Campaigns, Fun Stuff, Product Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Review: Avalon Bay Wine Cooler: AB-Wine18S Why it Saves You!


Disclosure: I received an Avalon Bay Wine Cooler for the purpose of this review. This post was made possible by Mom Spark Media. Thoughts are my own.

For the last few years I’ve had a huge, huge problem whenever I opened my fridge.  There would be tons of bottles of wine in there. Bottles that were opened, bottles that were closed.  But, wherever I looked, I was always looking for extra space to place that bottle of wine I was looking to enjoy that evening or week ahead. It was a battle between my food and wine.

For awhile now I’ve been thinking about purchasing a Wine Cooler but I didn’t know quite where to start so when I received the Avalon Bay Wine Cooler to review, I was ecstatic.

Avalon-Bay-Wine-Cooler

 

Right away, the day I received it, I filled it up.   I noticed that my taller bottles of wine, and any bottles that were a bit wider didn’t fit into the cooler as well, but it was perfect for regular size bottles of wine.

Wine-Coolers

But, the thing I truly loved about this wine cooler was how easy it was to turn the temperatures up and down.  There was an up and down bottom right on the front of the cooler that you could hit, and the temperatures would fluctuate.  And it would showcase the temperature right there.

Avalon-Bay-Wine-Cooler

See right up at the top?  The temperature showcases right there.  You should store wine between 45 to 65 degrees fahrenheit often saying 55 degrees is the ideal temperature so I actually have it a little high here (first day and all.)  After trying to lower the temperature down I did notice that the cooler does like to stay in the low 60s range, which is ideal for white wines.   But after 48 hours the cooler did lower itself to the upper 50’s.  So, if 55 is your ideal, give it about 48 hours to get there.  As long as the wines are below 65 degrees you’re doing okay.  And this cooler definitely keeps them there.

The button on the far right is the light switch where I could turn a blue light on inside the wine cooler or turn it off.  If you turn it on just remember to turn it off afterwards, but once on, it’s a beautiful blue light.

In the end I am really happy with this wine cooler, and will eventually be placing it next to my wine shelf right inside my home.  It easily solved my solution to keeping my wine cool for those days I’m craving wine.  Now I can just grab and open up a bottle and serve it right away inside of waiting awhile.  And the best part?  My love of wine is no longer cluttering up my fridge.

If you want to see a more in depth review of the Wine Cooler in action be sure to check out this video:


You can find the (Affiliate Link) Avalon Bay 18 Bottle Single Zone Wine Cooler
on Amazon and on Air-N-Water.Com

Disclosure: I received an Avalon Bay Wine Cooler for the purpose of this review. This post was made possible by Mom Spark Media. Thoughts are my own.

 

 

 

Categories: Wine | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

The 25th Year of the San Jose Jazz Summerfest! #sjzsummerfest #SanJoseUnplugged


Disclosure: I partook in a Media Tour of the San Jose Jazz Summerfest and surrounding Downtown San Jose area this past weekend.  All opinions are my own.

When it comes to music, no matter the genre, it will always bring people together.  And that was entirely the case this past weekend at the 25th Anniversary of the San Jose Jazz Summerfest.

Bootsy-Collins-Friday-Night

What started in August of 1990 as a 2 day event on one stage in the Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park has immensely grown over the years.  This year alone offering well over 12 stages to choose from.  From stages along the outdoor park to Cafes and Restaurants throughout San Jose offering a venue for performances to come in and show their talents to all of San Jose.  And lets not forget the beautiful historic theaters partaking in the fun thanks to the City of San Jose.   What truly makes the San Jose Jazz Summerfest stand out from many other festivals is the comraderie that happens throughout the city that has continued to allow this festival to grow year after year.

The team behind San Jose Jazz curate amazing acts for this one of a kind festival.  This year alone bringing acts from all parts of the world.  But what this festival does is not only bring together one of a kind acts, but they are also looking to bridge the future of Jazz by looking for up and coming performers to showcase to the Jazz world.

Some highlights of this year’s festival included:

Friday Night Opening: Bootsy Collins:

Bootsy

If there was one performer that knew how to open up a festival, it was none other than Bootsy Collins, and my oh my, the crowd couldn’t have agreed more.  Adorning a San Jose Earthquakes Uniform on stage along with a rockin’ red wig, Bootsy got the crowd moving Friday evening along with his crew.

Other performances Friday evening included: Maureen Carol King, Con Funk Shun, Jessica Johnson, Jimmy Bosch Sextet, Kris Bowers, and Gizmo.

Throughout the festival, people could stop off at the Swing Stage located at the San Pedro Theater and get one of a kind Swing Dance Lessons or hear from Big Bands such as Sons of Jubal, Los Gatos/Saratoga Big Band, Ron Gariffo Big Band and many others.

Swing-Dance-Lessons

Saturday:  The Real Snarky Puppy

Snarky-Puppy

Headlining the festival right away Saturday was none other than Snarky Puppy, a band coming straight out of Dallas, Texas, who now resides in NYC.  A band that has great comraderie, and truly showcases the focal points of those awesome musical instruments they adorn.  It’s truly a band that can reach out and touch almost any audience.  It was  the right way to kick off the festival Saturday.  And that day alone, headlining 4, yes 4 performances.

The fun continued right after with the Big Easy Parade.  Saturday afternoon, festival goers has many choices on what they wanted to see from Latin Jazz to more soothing jazz at the California Theater with Hot Club of Detroit to an afternoon ensemble from San Jose Jazz HS All Stars.

Hot-Club-of-DetroitHot Club of Detroit at the California Theater

And for those that didn’t want to end the festival quite yet, local area hotels had live performances in many of their lounges throughout the weekend on both Friday and Saturday evenings for the Club Crawl:

Hotel de Anza, San Jose Hilton, Hyatt Place San Jose and the Fairmont San Jose.  The perfect night cap.

Two Special Film Screenings also took place at the festival that were featured at Camera 12 Cinemas:

Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton

Take Me to the River

And, there was no hiding it, the influence of Latin to Jazz has sprung, and there’s some incredible talent blossoming out of this realm including Sunday’s performance from Viento de Agua, their very first time performing on the West Coast.

viento-de-agua

This band adds in fresh Afro-Puerto Rican rhythm combined with other Afro-Caribbean ryhthms.  In other words, they make you want to get up and dance.  It was impossible to not want to move your body during their performance.  And the crowd was just as excited about being there for it.

Viento de Agua, a term used in Puerto Rico to describe the damp and humid air that precedes a heavy rainstorm.

BUT, a huge highlight of the festival truly took place Sunday evening during the San Jose Taiko Performance at the California Theater.  Taiko, a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments, meshed together with The Bangerz, a local San Jose, DJ collective.  The first time performing together since their 2013 debut at the Montgomery Theater.

And, let me tell you, it was pretty incredible to watch.

RapTaikoSan-Jose-TaikoTaiko-with-BangerzAnd one more:

Japanese-TaikoIf you just happen to reside in the Bay Area you may want to head to San Francisco this upcoming weekend for another amazing performance.

Sunday, August 17  8:00PM – ODC Theater Music Moves Festival  ODC Theater, San Francisco
This presentation will have full lights and sound set in an incredible and intimate space at ODC Theater.  As part of the “Music Moves Festival” you will be encouraged to move as the spirit moves you.
(as of 8/11/14 there are 8 seats available.)

Needless to say, from a person that didn’t know too much about Jazz going into this festival, I came out wanting to know more, and with a fuller appreciation for this beautiful genre of music.  There’s already big plans for the 2015 Summerfest.

 

 

 

 

Categories: East Bay, Northern California, South Bay, Tech, Travel | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments