I can't believe it!

Guess who's 30?

And flirty!

More about my big day of surprises, and my birthday trip to Sephora later! :)

Hallelujah!

I *JUST* found out that I'm getting a Sephora store in my town! WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I wonder if employees get a discount? Which leads me to wonder if I'm ready to get a part-time job?? ;)

We're also getting a Bebe, Coach and Cheesecake Factory. All is suddenly right with the world.

The Plane Didn't Crash!

I'm home. yay! We had an awesome trip and so much fun, but I am happy to be back in Cali.

This was the first extended vacation we have ever taken as a family, and the first time the little ones have taken an airplane ride. Poor hubby had to attend classes 8 hours a day for all the weekdays we were there, but the kids and I had plenty of adventures in the meantime.

The first full day we were there, I took the munchkins to Build-A-Bear and they created new members for our family. Tyler and Riley have such unique personalities, and this activity really showed it. Tyler created a very preppy little dog which he named "Huskie Dog", complete with Docker style pants, a sweater vest, and Converse hi-tops.
Riley stuffed the exact same puppy, but made a bee-line for a Batman costume he saw on display. Thus, "BatDog" was born.
Caleb didn't build his friend until a few days later. He chose a sweet teddy, and we dressed him in distressed jeans and a surfer tank. (Mommy & Daddy chose the clothes, so, no insight into Caleb's personality just yet.) Caleb's bear and namesake, "Mister", has a sound effect in one paw, that is a recording of Caleb's hysterical laughter (which I had saved on my phone to cheer me up on crummy days.) Whenever he hears that bear yuk it up, he smothers it with kisses. It's the sweetest thing. Ever.

We also visited a Lego store, which prompted a small meltdown when one child wanted the largest most expensive set in the place. His reaction so extreme, that he ALMOST left there empty handed. Luckily he saw the light (with Daddy's help) and did score a prize before we left.

We visited OMSI, a science museum, and saw a fascinating dinosaur exhibit that is traveling thru. Here we saw how we might look when we're 80, learned how babies grow in the womb, and even dug for dinosaur bones like archeologists. There were many hands-on type activities that kept everyone interested, although, the glass elevator that afforded us a great view of the waterfront proved to be one of the most exciting parts of our visit there. lol.

A trip to the Portland Children's Musuem had everyone playing make believe from the time we walked in the door. We put on a show in the theater, painted faces, pretended to be shoppers AND cashiers at a kids-sized grocery market, "drove" an ambulance, examined & x-rayed each other in the hospital, helped build a house, and even sailed a ship! This was one of my fave places that we visited and we spent nearly 4 hours there. I, er, the kids, could have played store all day. ;)

We also took a drive out to Roloff Farm of Little People, Big World. On our way there, we encountered a little red VW bug at a 4-way stop and who was driving? MATT ROLOFF! I was so excited, i almost jumped out of the car window. We didn't get to see the farm since it's closed until pumpkin season, but it was exciting enough to jump out and take pictures by the sign we see everytime we watch the show.

So those are a few of the highlights of our trip. Yes, i did visit Sephora and was very excited about that, but just hanging out with my kids beat playing make-up hands down. (and playing grocery store was super fun too. hee hee!)

Sorry I'm so Quiet!

I'm still away on vacation. The weather is so weird here in Oregon. It was a comfy 75 degrees the first day, then it got HOT, all the way into the 100's. Today, it's 65 and raining. LOL! my poor hair. i could never pull off this bob if i lived here. It's a frizzed out mess!

when my husband and i made a move to another city a few years ago, i told him i'd be okay as long as i had a Target and a Starbucks near by. Here on vacation, we have both just across the way. And just like at home, i've been to Target every other to every day. LOL! Last night i picked up a cream to powder eyeshadow pallette by revlon. I don't know how i never saw these before but it's a great consistency. i'll try it out today. I also visited Sephora when i was in less of a rush, and received a birthday present from them! A "vanilla cupcake" scented bubble bath. So cute!

So we'll be here for another week and then i'll be back to good ol' California and back to regular posting. TTYL! XOXO

I could've been a millionaire

Do you ever have those moments where you say to yourself, "Somebody needs to create *insert invention here* so it would be easier to *insert difficult thing to do here*." I do it all the time. And then one day, somebody does invent it and I say to myself "I could've been a millionaire..."

Well, a company called ColorOn stole another of my brilliant ideas... A nifty little invention that puts your eye make up on perfectly, in one easy step. Or so they say. I haven't tried these yet, but I'm going to have to soon before I'm dead from the curiosity. (These are also available at Sephora.)


Check these out - seriously wild!



As for my last post, I didn't get the video up yet and today is my baby's birthday party. So i'll have it up as soon as i can!

The ULTA Fiasco

Okay, I didn't want to write about this until it was resolved, in order to have a full report on their customer service skills. I finally heard back from them, so I thought I'd explain my earlier post about being furious with them.

What Happened:
In an earlier entry, I wrote about how that when I purchased my Bare Minerals Starter Kit, i decided to buy from ULTA.com because they have a club where you earn points on your purchases. (Sephora has a club too, more on that later.) Since I don't have an ULTA store near me, I had to purchase online, and at that time I signed up for the club, printed my card, and earned points on my first purchase. When I was out of town a few weeks ago and made 3 visits to 2 ULTA stores, I used my printed card to claim points on all my purchases. It wasn't until my 2nd visit to the 2nd store that I and the cashier realized no points had been registering. (Bear in mind that each visit didn't include only ONE purchase. lol. There were MANY purchases.) So the cashier asked a manager who inspected my card and announced that it was "expired". I was confused since points expire once per year but cards do not. Regardless, she said my card was no good, set me up with a new one, and gave me a customer service number to call.

Doing the Math:
When i got home from my trip, I gathered all of my receipts and noticed that the points were at ZERO even for my original online purchase of $68. I totaled everything, did MATH *hurl* to figure out what my points should be, and discovered it should have been in the THOUSANDS.

The Worst Part:
ULTA Club points expire ONCE PER YEAR. And guess when that happens? JUNE. So if everything had worked out correctly, I would have been able to REDEEM my points in-store while i was on my trip. But because of this whole mess, I was going to be out of luck and have to start over from scratch. I was ticked. Call me petty, but this made me pretty flipping mad, and like i said, ULTA got my business over Sephora, over Bare Minerals direct, BECAUSE of this little club. I am a sucker for getting free whatevers by carrying a little card around.

Customer Service Experience:
I called the number I had gotten from the manager and spoke with a woman who CUT ME OFF while i was trying to explain what had happened. I HATE HATE that. Especially since I had 10 minutes of sitting on hold to get my facts straight so I could explain it as simply as possible.
Anyway, she cut me off to ask for my card numberS since i now had two. I had to keep repeating parts of the story out of order because she wouldn't just let me explain what had happened. Finally *I THINK* we were both on the same page and she told me to throw away the new card, it was pointless to worry about the few measly points i had collected on it that day. She then did some searching and found out that even though my register receipts said zero points, i had in fact been earning points on all my purchases with the online card. So now i have two cards with two different amounts of points, and the whole year of earning had expired anyway. GET THIS- then she tells me to throw away the online card - it's no good to have anyway. HUH? So i should have no card? At this point i think FINE, SINCE I'LL NEVER SHOP HERE AGAIN! She keeps contradicting herself a bunch until my head is spinning and i finally get ticked and tell her i want credit for all of my points because that was money i spent and it doesn't matter that their system is all screwy.

Here's where it gets interesting:
She goes on to explain that the online card is good anywhere, but the first 3 digits indicate which STATE i got it in (and it came up as ohio or something...). The in-store card i got is only good for California. So i can use the California card online, but only in California stores. I can use the online card anywhere but wont be sure of my points until i double check them later. "so throw away this one... no that one... well maybe keep them both..."

How they fixed it:
At the end of it all, she tells me she's going to talk to her manager (who conveniently isn't available) and see if she can go ahead and send me a $15 gift card for all of the points on my "online card", and I'll just lose out on the 2 purchases i made on the new "California card". She'll call me the next day to let me know. FOUR DAYS LATER, she calls to tell me the gift card is in the mail. So I'm happy they somewhat resolved it. I'm disappointed that my other purchases didn't count, and that i even used a new card because i was told my other one was no good, because their system is jacked up and didn't recognize that i WAS earning points. I'm also disappointed that they weren't HAPPY to resolve it and I had to get testy on the phone to even get anywhere.

I still don't know which card to keep and which to throw away.

The conclusion:
Overall, they did try to resolve it somehow and I'm grateful for that, even if I'm less than impressed with HOW it all went down. I still love make-up and ULTA is one of my dealers, so I'll make purchases there because ultimately i just want my "fix". The club was a bonus and I'll not be counting on that mattering from this point on.

Sephora:
In the midst of all this, I contacted Sephora to find out about their club. I emailed their customer service thru the website and got a response the NEXT DAY. It turns out that for Sephora, you don't even need a card so there is no confusion on which cards work where. (Although you MAY have a card if you'd just like to have one.) You are in their system by name or phone number and your points are always credited to you the same whether you purchase online or in-store. When you reach a certain number of points, you can redeem them for DELUXE SIZED SAMPLES with your purchases. It certainly isn't store credit like ULTA, but it's still a fun freebie and who doensn't like those? :)

Tell Me:
Do you have any exceptional (good or bad) experiences with either of these stores and their customer service? If so tell me about them! I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I try to not be just a complainer, and tell people when I've had a really GREAT experience as well as contacting businesses with the bad stuff. I also like to give people a chance to make it right and in this case i guess they KIND OF did that. I'll still shop with ULTA and I'll anticipate great future experiences.

But I'm definitely excited to give Sephora a whirl and will report back about how well I'm courted by them. ;)

Make-UpLand?

Okay, I was visiting Disneyland 3 years ago and saw a Sephora in Downtown Disney (can you believe I didn't go in?!?) It was my first encounter with the store however, and somehow I always think of Disney when i think of Sephora. So HOW FUNNY that when i emailed their customer service yesterday, i read a blurb on their website referring to their store employees as "Cast Members". Is it seriously an extension of DisneyLand? Like in addition to TomorrowLand, and Frontierland... Makeupland? Makes complete sense to me. I can't believe Disney didn't think of it sooner.

I can't wait to visit Sephora

I wonder if there is one in Portland for my next trip out of town??

ETA: There are *3* in Portland!