It’s a beautiful day in my college town– a breeze is gently rustling through the trees, the sky is a deep royal blue, and happy golden rays are beaming down from the sun. Unfortunately, this weekend is just one of those weekends I’m using to get caught up on schoolwork. I sure am enjoying the views out of my window though!

So.. what have I been up to these past few days? Last week has been a whirlwind of excitement. Lets start with a little party.. a free ice cream and coffee party that is.

At Ben & Jerry’s, we hosted a huge FREE ice cream and coffee party for customers to sample all of our new flavors and drinks. We had tiki torches on the patio, a professional photographer taking photos, and a DJ playing funky upbeat songs. It was so much fun! I love working for a company where everyone, customers and employees included, is so excited to come to the store.

For four hours, the customer line was out the door, wrapped around the store, and finally ending at the start of the drive-thru line. Madness!

We also had huge donation buckets placed throughout the store for the earthquake victims in Haiti. So the event was a great success in a philanthropic way as well.

I made about a hundred free samples of S’mores Lattes. They tasted so good! It reminded me of making s’mores by the campfire with my family on our camping trips in Georgia every summer.

My friend Ashley and I–aka amazing, hardworking  ice cream scoopers.

Overall, the event was a huge success. We all had an extremely fun night scooping ice cream and making coffee drinks to the beats of the YMCA, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Justin Timberlake. Good music and good food certainly brought everyone together for a night full of Ben & Jerry’s memories.

I hope you all have a great weekend and that the sun is shining wherever you are!

Hi friends! It’s winter time in Florida and those tropical Christmas lyrics are from ‘Mele Kalikimaka’ (Hawaiian Christmas Song) by Bing Crosby. I know I’m not in Hawaii, but the lyrics always remind me of the Christmas season in Florida.

Mother Nature sure has been a lot nicer to us than some of our friends in the Northeast. There is so much snow out there! I’ve only seen snow about three times in my life, and each of those times it snowed only a couple inches or so. Those snow flurries sure were exciting though! It’s a little embarrassing, but when the temperature drops into the 70′s, that is sweater weather to me.

Yesterday, my mom and I made a trip to our favorite local produce stand, Orange Blossom Groves. They changed the name of the location a few years ago to Citrus Country Groves, but the old name has always stuck.

In addition to the bountiful arrangement of fresh produce, Orange Blossom Groves also has a lot of Salt Water Taffy and funky knick-knacks throughout their store.

They also have amazing orange soft serve ice cream, but this time, a specialty flavor caught my eye…. Eggnog Ice Cream!

The ice cream was so good! Eggnog ice cream is definitely my new favorite treat. Now it’s time to go buy groceries and start my Christmas shopping.

At what temperature do you start feeling cold? Mine is the high 70s!

]]> http://tropicaleats.com/2009/12/20/from-the-land-where-palm-trees-sway/feed/ 21 tropicaleats IMG_1063 DSC01772 DSC01773 DSC01774 DSC01778 eggnog http://tropicaleats.com/2009/08/30/i-scream-you-scream/ http://tropicaleats.com/2009/08/30/i-scream-you-scream/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:33:00 +0000 Shannon [Tropical Eats] http://tropicaleats.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/i-scream-you-scream ]]> We all scream for ice cream! Hi ladies, hope you’ve all had a great weekend so far. Mine has been spent doing this:

Working at the lovely Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop.

Rolling up freshly cooked waffle cones by the minute.

Making sprinkle covered ice cream cakes for the display.

Eyeballing all of the 40 or so delicious flavors! MMM.

Unfortunately, our store swapped out my absolute favorite flavor, Cinnamon Buns, for Chocolate Macadamia Nut. Let’s just say it’s been a sad day in ice cream land because of it.

Time to get to work on some problem sets!

**GIVEAWAYS ALERT for the amazing Jenny and Tall Mom on the Run