It’s been a few days since Eat Drink Vegan (EDV) and I’m still recovering!

It was a really fun day and time and time again, I am blown away by this amazing community. So nice, so fun, and so supportive. And I should mention the AMAZING food. I enjoyed everything I ate, and yes, this time I did get to eat 🙂

And my team rocked it. A few of them were totally new to this and they dove right in like they had been doing it for years. I was worried without having my family and my sister’s SUV, but it all came together with no major curveballs for once – Yay!

The hardest part was the prep the 2 weeks before, all of the schlepping of coolers, supplies, etc from Yoga-urt storage (aka my condo) to Yoga-urt and then to the Rose Bowl and back again. Plus the 15 hour day. I’m tired just typing it, but I’ll bounce back.

And then did I mention we introduced a NEW FLAVOR and Kombucha floats at EDV? Well, we did. We went for it. It all came together in the last few weeks. I had been thinking for a month or two about doing a flavor with Kombucha since Kombucha is a big part of EDV and fits within our brand. And as a backup if we couldn’t pull that off, to do Kombucha floats.

So I asked the Kombucha expert herself, Kombucha Hunter, for a good brand to partner with and she thought Humm’s flavors would be complimentary. So I contacted Humm about 3 weeks ago and they were excited to collaborate 🙂

Our recipe collaborator dove right in and I LOVE this new flavor – Mango Sunrise with Humm Kombucha! And the floats were SO GOOD that I decided to have both at the booth.

And luckily, the super supportive Janette (@vegangirl4ever) & Tim (@veganfatkid) came to Yoga-urt a few days before to taste and take pics. That was a lot of fun but meant we had to be ready!

People seemed to respond well at EDV so it seems the rush and extra pressure was worth it. And we are definitely going to offer Mango Sunrise in our store sometime in June and also figuring out if we can do the Kombucha floats this summer too.

Other EDV highlights: getting interviewed on the radio (I heart radio), meeting yogi Seane Corn, seeing so many friends & familiar faces, having a team that had my back at the event AND at the store (we were very busy at the store that day), seeing the response to our product, and being a part of a great event.

And as for Memorial Day Weekend, it was busy. So busy we had a hard time keeping up with product, but we did because of my great team. I love the Yoga-urt community so much and you all make all of the challenges and hard times worth it. 

And a Memorial Day highlight was having the ABC News Team visit us on Sunday night to each enjoy a bowl of Yoga-urt before they headed back to work to report the 11pm news (they ate and were not reporting). How awesome is that!

I took today off to get one more day of mostly rest (and to work on the Yoga-urt newsletter) before I go back to my day job tomorrow. As fun as it was, I’m glad the event is over as I continue to try to find some balance in my life.

It’s game time!

It’s been a very busy few weeks introducing Taco Tuesday, Mother’s Day, hotter weather, new chalk wall, and extending our hours.

And now, Eat Drink Vegan is 1 week away and there is so much to do this week to get ready: test, finalize, & photograph new flavor, test & finalize another treat, make tons of quart containers, make tons of waffle cones, signage, stamping bowls, general prepping, keeping up with demand at the store, preparing for Memorial Day weekend, plus all of the additional normal store needs. All of this plus my day job means craziness. Just trying to breathe through it.

I still get super nervous before these events. We’ve done enough now where I feel we know what we are doing, but you never know how many people will come to the booth, how much to bring, and how people will react, etc. This is the first event my family can’t help out with, which just means more falls on me. I have a good team lined up and so feeling ok about it, but I’ll miss my family and their support.

I am very much looking forward to seeing friends I have made in this community and introducing Yoga-urt to new people. That is always fun!

And I’m really excited about the new flavor which is a collaboration to be  announced soon. I love it because it fits within our brand and tastes SO GOOD! 

So trying to relax a bit today as once tomorrow hits, it’s full steam ahead!