© 2014 sarahfortune.

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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Northwest Arkansas, Sponsored

Pantene Beautiful Lengths NWA

I recently had the honor of attending the 10th anniversary of the Pantene Beautiful Lengths event here in Northwest Arkansas. As part of #NWAChampionship week, the Pantene Beautiful Lengths ponytail cutting event unfolded Monday night at the Walmart AMP. This year P&G, in partnership with the LPGA Tournament, set a goal of 1,000 donations in celebration of the 10th anniversary. That’s up from 669 donations in 2015! Businesses and organizations across NW Arkansas joined together and took the pledge to give hope through hair. Research has shown that one in three women will be affected by cancer at some point in their life. The hair that is donated through the Beautiful Lengths program goes to make real hair wigs for those people battling cancer. All wigs are given to recipients free of charge through the American Cancer Society Wig Bank and many stay right here in our community.

I arrived to the event a little early to check out the transformation of the Walmart AMP in Rogers, which is normally a concert venue. With tons of balloons, a pink carpet, and pink lemonade, it was quite the celebration.

As I walked around, I ran into a few people I knew like my friend Cathy who volunteered as a stylist.

I also stopped to chat with some of the donors, like Shea Newport who was donating her hair for the third time. When I asked what inspired her to give, she told me about her friend who is a new mom to a 3-month-old-baby, but is also battling stage-four lung cancer, despite never being a smoker. It was so powerful to see all the donors in pink shirts, knowing that they were inspired in some way, each with their own story.


Shea Newport, with a supporting friend

As the event got underway, Mindy Sherwood, VP, P&G Walmart Team, first spoke about the impact of the program. As of 2015, the campaign has received more than 800,000 donations, which has provided 54,000 real-hair wigs to women battling cancer (it takes between 8-15 ponytails to create one wig). Mindy announced that this year they not only met their goal of 1,000 donations, but surpassed it with over 1,300 hair donors! Joined by Michelle Gloeckler, Executive VP at Walmart, and Morgan Pressel and Natalie Gulbis of the LPGA on stage, the group helped lead the “kindest cut” live on stage.

While hundreds of people donated their hair ahead of the event, over 300 brave souls signed up to have their hair cut on stage. On a count of three, ponytails went flying. There were cheers, applause, and maybe even a Hog call. While I’m not eligible to be a donor (you must have at least 8 inches of untreated hair), it was really something special to watch women, men, and even kids literally give a piece of themselves to help others.

Want to learn a little more about the Pantene Beautiful Lengths campaign in Northwest Arkansas? Below is a short video that tells about the history of the program and if you’d like to get involved, visit www.beautifullengthsnwa.com to sign up.

P&G_PanteneBL_FINAL_2016-06-22

This is a sponsored post.

Travel

Kansas City Dreamin

Less than three and half hours away, Kansas City is one of our favorite weekend getaways. We have several friends that live there, so that adds to the fun and the ease of traveling there. I think my love of visiting KC is in part because the city reminds me of my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Tons of beautiful, historic homes. Wide streets lined with huge, shady trees. Old buildings revitalized into cool projects. And, bar-b-que – duh. While we didn’t get out and explore a ton on this trip, we did fill our visit with great food, drinks, and company. On Saturday night we went over to my buddy Bev’s house to watch Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in the backyard. Blankets, pillows, candy, rosé, popcorn, the biggest pizza I have ever seen and a lot of sleepy kids, made for the perfect KC evening to cap off our quick trip. Here are our adventures in pictures.

Sponsored

Dad-Do Kits: Pantene at Walmart

Two things have never been more certain: Iris has had fabulous hair since the day she was born and she loves her dad more than just about anything (except he might be tied with chocolate). So when we received the opportunity to team up with Pantene at Walmart for Father’s Day, it was a no-brainer. Even at birth Iris had the thickest head of hair, and since then it’s just kept growing. Naturally, I seem to be traveling for nearly every school picture day, leaving Todd to wrangle her locks alone. When we get the photos back a few weeks later, it’s always sweet to see her crooked piggy tails or messy little top-knot created by her dad (and captured for all of eternity).

Research has shown that fathers generally have as much or more impact than mothers on many aspects of their daughters’ lives.

Pantene’s Strong is Beautiful how-to videos show dads how easy and fun it can be to spend quality time with their daughters by doing their hair. Just in time for Father’s Day, Pantene at Walmart is inspiring dads and daughters to spend time together with “Dad-Do” kits. To share the sweetness, I’ve partnered with Pantene at Walmart to give away 35 Dad-Do kits over on my Instagram.

This Dad-Do kit includes:
• “Dad-Do” Instruction Cards
• Pantene Detangler
• Brush and Mirror
• Hairbands, and a
• $5 Walmart Gift Card

Enter here and, for more cuteness, check out the new video of Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams receiving a DAUGHTER-DO at Walmart.com/Pantene.

This is a sponsored post.

Life

Summer Lovin’

Finally! It’s summer and it’s ridiculously hot. Usually I feel like summer is all nice and relaxing, but this year is different. We have so much going on that I can barely stop, sit, and write a simple blog post. Thankfully, that’s how I like it. I spent much of last week in Minneapolis on business, where my hotel was about five minutes away from the Mall of America. I walked that sucker for three and a half hours, so I ended up with more of a work-out than a shopping spree. With that trip behind me, I’m looking ahead to this weekend where we’re headed to Kansas City on a little family trip. We’ll visit some of our good pals and Todd will visit Boulevardia, an annual festival hosted by the makers of my favorite beer.

Besides a little travel and a lot of work, we’ve been keep busy with birthday parties, swimming, hanging out at the park, and being interviewed for this article in Arkansas Money and Politics.

Here’s our summer so far in photos.