HELLO
Mom to Iris. Wife to Todd. Our little family lives at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We love it here and I love sharing little bits of our life.

© 2014 sarahfortune.

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Articles written by: Sarah

GIRLS’ SPA DAY: The Pearl – 30A

I’m back home from vacation, but still daydreaming about last week. For the second year in a row, my girlfriends and I treated ourselves to the spa at The Pearl Hotel during our annual trip to Rosemary Beach, Florida. Spending nearly a full week at the beach with a gaggle of children, we knew we wanted a scheduled break just for us ladies. Scratch that. We NEEDED it. The three of us did the same thing last year and it was HEAVEN. In fact, for two years in a row it was one of my most favorite parts of the trip.

Greeted with a glass of champagne upon arrival, we each enjoyed an 80 minute massage at Spa Pearl, which is located right next to one of the most Instagram-worthy pools I’ve ever seen. Afterwards, fully relaxed, we escaped the warm sunshine by sitting in a roof-top cabana, sipping on Frosé and pina coladas. Of course we needed the cheese plate too. Going to Rosemary Beach every year has become a tradition, and I think now a trip to The Pearl has too.

Special thanks to The Pearl! While I paid for my services, they did treat me to a special discount. Muah!

Packing my bags for the beach!

My bags are (almost) packed and I am beyond ready to hit the road for our annual trip to Rosemary Beach down in Florida. As gear up for the warmer weather, here are just a few of my current fave summer items.

Bando Wine Tote Bag | Highrise Denim Boyshorts | Quay sunnies

Beach Reading – The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo | French Market Basket | Oasis Palms Dress

Wish You Were Here towel | Color Block One-Piece | First Class bag

#CrazyforCraisins – Our New Fave Snack!

This is a sponsored post, but all opinions are my own.

With Iris in kindergarten, I feel like I’m still new at this whole packing a lunch thing. Then of course there’s the after-school snack thing. So many things, yet so few easy, wholesome ideas! I keep grabbing the same items on my Sunday trip to the grocery store (much to the dismay of Iris), so I was excited to have the opportunity to partner with Craisins® on their new variety packs, available at Walmart. We tried two different packs of flavors – Tropical with Kiwi Melon and Mango and Fruit Splash with Raspberry Lemonade and Watermelon. Perfectly portioned, I can pop one flavor in Iris’ lunch box and then another in the car for pick-up.

Naturally flavored, these real, dried cranberries have no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. Plus each pouch contains a ½ cup of fruit! And for the record… I’ve been eating them too. :)

Dancing Queen

Did you know that kindergartners have dances? Well, I sure didn’t – but now at only six-years-old little miss Iris has TWO school dances under her belt. The first one was a Back to the Future theme and the most recent was a Decades theme. I’m not sure who had more fun – Iris doing the Nae Nae with her friends or me picking out her outfits. As of right now there is only one more month of kindergarten, so her next school dance will be as a first grader… Fingers crossed she still lets me pick out her outfits.

Take the Tide #QuickColdPledge

This post is sponsored by Tide at Walmart, but all opinions are my own.

Living in Northwest Arkansas is amazing for many different reasons, but one reason people might not realize is that we have a lot of unique opportunities with Walmart‘s Home Office located here. We often hear of cool new happenings before the rest of the world, which is exactly what happened to me this week! I had the chance to visit Walmart’s headquarters during their Sustainability Milestone Summit where Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Tide shared some major news: announcing their commitment to eliminate 50 million tons of greenhouse gases from their supply chain in support of Walmart’s Project Gigaton. If you aren’t familiar, Project Gigaton was launched by Walmart last year with the goal of eliminating one billion metric tons (that’s a gigaton!) of CO2 emission from its supply chain by 2030. For reference, that’s the equivalent to taking 211 million passenger vehicles off of U.S. roads and highways for a year. Talk about #goals!

P&G and Tide’s commitment is to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in half and purchase enough renewable electricity to power 100 percent of global manufacturing sites by the year 2030. Along with this commitment, P&G and Tide are encouraging all Americans to join in this effort by taking the #QuickColdPledge. So what exactly is it? The Tide #QuickColdPledge encourages everyone to switch to quick and cold cycles when doing laundry. It’s THAT simple, but the impact can be huge. By using the quickest setting and cold water, you use 80% less energy with 40% fewer emissions in every load. And, Tide PODS provide 10 times the cleaning power in half the time when compared to the leading bargain brand detergent, even in cold water. Earth Day is right around the corner, so what better time than now to make the pledge?

I am indeed a loyal Tide user at home, but honestly I’ve been buying it because I just love the smell and how it cleans my clothes. While those are important factors when choosing laundry detergent, I now can feel even better about my washes. And it’s not just because of the #QuickColdPledge. I also had the opportunity to explore one of the Tide Loads of Hope trucks at the Walmart Home Office. Essentially a mobile laundromat, the Tide Loads of Hope truck was developed to provide the basic comfort of clean clothes to families affected by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, etc. The program has been around since 2005 and in that time has provided nearly 50,000 families across the country with clean clothes. I got the grand tour of the smaller truck, which does about 100 loads of laundry a day! The bigger truck can wash a whopping 200 loads. Tide Loads of Hope partners with Matthew 25: Ministries, an international humanitarian aid and disaster relief organization, to arrange the deployments.

Let Tide know why you’re taking the pledge by posting using #QuickColdPledge. If you live in Northwest Arkansas, stop by the Walmart Supercenter on Pleasant Crossing in Rogers on Saturday, April 21 from 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm. There will be a bright orange Tide booth out front, with loads (pun intended) of information on the #QuickColdPledge and, everyone’s favorite, free Tide PODS samples! I swung by the booth at the Walmart store in Bentonville on Wednesday to get my goodies and, of course, to make my pledge.