A trip to Madison to #ChooseDreams

So, I mentioned in my post on Monday how life for me became pretty busy in the past month. Exciting, but busy! When the Food and Wine Conference ended a few weeks ago, the craziness did not stop there. This past weekend I hopped on an airplane to take a trip to Madison to #ChooseDreams with American Family Insurance!

First of all – for those of you who didn’t already know, I lived in Wisconsin two different times in the past. I had not been back to visit since I was a freshman in high school when my family moved down to Florida. If I was going to go back for a visit, I could not have asked for a better time of the year to do so! So, Isabel, Denise, and I took off from Tampa and had a short layover in Detroit, where we met up with Jennifer before heading on to Madison. Oh my goodness…from the moment we stepped off the airplane I knew our trip was going to be glorious. The weather was perfect…the city of Madison was perfect….the company was fabulous….I couldn’t ask for much more!

Of course, as soon as we walked into the Madison airport, we were met with cheese hats. Oh, I’d missed seeing those! Posing for a picture seemed like the right thing to do. We checked in to our hotel (HotelRed – pretty cool place, if I say so), then quickly went out to gather supplies for our demo the next day! We knew we had plans of hitting up the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, but there were some essentials we needed beforehand.

After some prep work, chatting, and dinner, it was time to hit the hay in preparation for the following day’s activities!

Before our demo, we HAD to visit the farmer’s market. Isabel had been telling us over and over how amazing the Dane County Farmer’s Market is, but seeing and experiencing it in person was pretty much epic. I had to resist the urge to cry every ten seconds as we walked through all of the stands. I wanted to take EVERYTHING home with me, and knowing I couldn’t stuff my suitcase full of produce was a very sad realization.

Everything was locally grown/made and FRESH. And AFFORDABLE. What an amazing place. If I lived in Madison, I would absolutely be at the market every single Saturday.

After the market, it was time for our live event! American Family Insurance has a DreamBank right next to the capital, and it is an absolutely awesome space. The building itself used to be a bank, but they converted it into a DREAM bank. People can visit the bank for interactive events, experts, and tools to help them discover their dreams. You guys – every Sunday they host a Pinterest party! They make a craft based on something discovered on Pinterest. I don’t know about you, but I totally want to be a part of one of those parties….

Anyway, our demo was all about Fit and Healthy Family Living. Our presentation included four different recipes – all of them were fresh, bright, and delicious! We started with a more traditional caprese salad, followed by a panzanella style caprese salad, and I then did a demo on another caprese twist, involving avocado and cilantro. We also announced the winner of our social media contest and did a demo of her fabulous Bacon chopped salad with strawberry poppyseed dressing recipe. In addition, we shared some tips and tricks on how to get involved in the garden, make healthy twists on family favorites, and how to get your family members active! The entire demo is available to view now!

Sometimes taking a trip to a new place, meeting new people, and experiencing things outside of the norm really allows you to get inspired and invigorated. I have to say, looking around the DreamBank, it was amazing to catch glimpses of what others aspire to. The bank has collections of small keys with tags attached to them – you can write your personal goals/dreams down and they hang them. To see the rows of cascading dream keys definitely put a smile on my face. Whether they are large or small, it is so great to be able to #ChooseDreams and empower ourselves to achieve them!

Thanks again to American Family Insurance for such an awesome #ChooseDreams campaign and for inviting us all to be a part of it. Now…when can I come back to Madison????