Take the #StackedMac Challenge To Win a $50 Gift Card!

November 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment

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Do you love macaroni and cheese? Do you love Stacked? Well, if you visit Stacked and build your own mac & cheese dish, snap a photo and share it online! You could win a $50 gift card to go back for more!

I visited Stacked recently with my friend Charlene to make a #STACKEDMac creation of my own. But first, drinks:

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Once that part was taken care of, I wanted a #STACKEDMac dish that would go with my strawberry cocktail!

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At STACKED, the options are so plentiful that I had trouble decided. Lucky for us all, the menu has some pre-built combinations that you can just order in 2 seconds by selecting them on the cool iPad menu. But I was determined to be creative, so here’s what I ordered.

Gluten-free macaroni and cheese, with pulled pork, roasted red peppers, carmelized onions, and cilantro. Sort of a southern charm pot of goodness.

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It was delicious.

Charlene created a bowl of mac & cheese with lobster, jalapeno, and bacon. This dish also went well with the yummy beverage!

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We both sampled the restaurant’s Buffalo Chicken Mac – made with chicken nuggets, buffalo sauce, celery, ranch dressing, and scallions.

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Okay, now YOUR turn. It’s easy (and fun) to enter this contest:

1. Go to STACKED
2. Build your own #StackedMac dish and make it the most amazing mac & cheese you’ve ever had
3. Snap a photo
4. Share it on Instagram and tag it #STACKEDMac and tag me! @agourahillsmom

Enter all month long, because it’s MACovember at STACKED. The winner will get a $50 gift card for STACKED, where you can enjoy more #STACKEDMac!

Filed Under: Giveaways, Restaurants Tagged With: , , , ,

New Costco in Woodland Hills [Giveaway]

September 2, 2015 by 28 Comments

In celebration of the new Costco warehouse opening in Woodland Hills on September 12, Agoura Hills Mom is giving away a $100 gift basket!

Costco has been courting me with gifts. They arrive at my house in unremarkable boxes, which are filled with the most random assortment of items. Chocolate covered raisins, body wash, canned tuna, granola, freeze-dried apples and grapes, peanut butter. Each time we receive a box I am so delighted that I made a big deal of it, and the kids come running. Yesterday the big hit was an enormous plastic bin of animal crackers.

All this is to build excitement for the new Costco Warehouse opening in Woodland Hills on September 12. This location will provide all the amenities — on top of the bulk purchasing, prepared meals, discounted household items, and inexpensive pizza we know and love — that other newer buildings have. It’s big – 154,000 square feet. There will be an Optical department with an eye doctor, a hearing aid center, and a pharmacy. Plus it will have a 20-pump gas station!

As a Costco member for many years, they had me at “Hello.” However, in Agoura Hills, we have one of the nicest Costco warehouses I have ever visited close by in Westlake Village, so the bar is high for this new location to dazzle me. Gas pumps with less expensive gas should do the trick right there.

A Costco membership costs $55 year for a household, business and executive levels are also available at additional cost. You can sign up now at Nordstrom in Woodland Hills, otherwise the new location at 21800 Victory Blvd. opens at 8am Saturday, September 12.

What I didn’t know because of course before this I barely had time to pay attention — your boxes of nuts and body lotion got my attention, Costco! — is that Costco offers savings on services too, like auto insurance which I am shopping around for right now. There is also Costco travel, which I did poke around on this summer when planning a short family getaway. Costco is also focused on supplying healthier and more sustainable products and food items.

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Giveaway: To get a taste of the eclectic fare they sell, enter here to win a basket of Costco items valued at over $100! Just leave a comment here by 11:59 PM on Wednesday, September 9, 2015. One entry per email address. Extra entry if you share this post on Facebook and tag Agoura Hills Mom. Winner will need to arrange local pickup Saturday, September 12 or later.

I received free products from Costco and an invitation to the VIP opening party to facilitate this feature. All opinions are my own. Follow Agoura Hills Mom on instagram to catch my pics from the party on Friday the 11th.

Filed Under: Around Town, Giveaways, Local Businesses Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

ONCEKids – Books and DVD’s That Encourage Curiosity and Friendship

May 2, 2015 by 11 Comments

Kids are funny. (Okay, more accurately, kids are weird, but “funny” is much kinder.) Just this afternoon my older son opted to rest among the trees and read his book rather than watch his little brother’s baseball game. Ten-year-old me would have seen the logic in this move. Adult me was just bewildered, and lured him out of his hiding place with the promise of lemonade.

My point is that you never know what will interest them. We all love reading in my family so I assumed they would love it too. Obviously it has stuck with the older kid, but the younger one is unpredictable. So I didn’t know quite what to expect when I put these books from ONCEKids in front of them.

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With titles like “Red Penguin and the Missing Sushi,” and Silent Samurai and the Magnificent Rescue,” the books and DVD’s from ONCEKids are meant to expose children to Asian cultures. But the general idea is sharing, meeting new people, adventure, and more idealistic positive things that kids should learn. The stories are told with engaging, colorful images in quality printed books.

ONCEKids “seeks to expose and excite young readers around the diverse elements from several Asian cultures. Through the stories and supplemental activities and materials ONCEKids stimulates discussions at home, in the classrooms, and among educators and librarians.”

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My younger son enjoyed them – he is in 2nd grade, and a developing reader, so they are perfectly at his level. The DVDs are better for even younger children.

I have a set of ONCEKids books and DVD’s to give away to a local winner who would like to pick them up. Please leave a comment here and if you are chosen at random from all entries received before 11:59 PM on Saturday, May 9, I will arrange to get the set to you.

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