Field trip to The Getty

Today the interns took a field trip to The Getty.

It was absolutely beautiful both inside the museum and outside in the courtyards.

Our assignment at The Getty was to find a piece of art that inspired us and related to our lives.

It was a great break from our busy work schedule.

Before we left, we spelled out TOMS! in the courtyard!

Yes, everyone stared at us like we were crazy. Didn't bother us though.

10 things I have learned about California...

1. Everyone has some type of diet restriction. No meat - no dairy - no meat and dairy - vegan - organic only... you get the point.

2. Exercise is a top priority.

3. A fancy sports car is as common as a minivan.

4. The interstate is referred to as "The 10" or "The 405" not I-10. The 10.

5. Meditating on top of your roof is totally normal.

6. Spandex = appropriate anywhere.

7. Food is expensive. I paid $17 dollars last night for average Mexican food.

8. Most people think they are someone famous or will be someone famous.

9. Gas at $4.00 is cheap.

10. Dogs are treated like babies (sometimes better)

Influencers

Inside of those bags you will find TOMS Shoes for top fashionistas and celebrity influencers in LA.

We had to pick them up this morning from our public relations firm, PMK BNC and then hand deliver them to other agencies and locations.

When this opportunity was presented to me, I jumped on it!
The fact that I visited/toured a HUGE PR firm in LA pretty much made my whole month.

Oh and isn't the girl next to me absolutely gorgeous?
Her name is Katherine and she is one of the giving interns at TOMS.
She has traveled so many places in her life and even speaks an African dialect (she learned it when she lived in South Africa for six months)
She used to model for Ford Models in NYC.
She is absolutely amazing and one of the most humble, caring, and sincere people I have ever met in my life.
She is going to change the world. I know it.

My girl Katie

Finally got to spend some time at the beach this past weekend.

Katie and I soaked up the sun on Saturday afternoon.

Katie is going to be a senior at Texas A & M.

She is the marketing and strategic partnerships intern at TOMS.

To say she is a remarkable person would be an understatement.

Katie found our apartment out here in California and took care of everything you can possibly imagine.

 She is organized, punctual, and has a huge heart for others and for the Lord.

Katie has worked as a student correspondent for Seventeen magazine.

She appeared in ten published issues of the national magazine as a college student advisor to teens.

(I'm so glad I'm her roommate because I get a lot of good advice from this girl)

Today at work I attended a creative wall session.

The creative designers place the pieces they are working on up on a wall and people shout out their critiques/suggestions. (Heavy constructive criticism)

I knew what was going on because I have been blessed to have Jacquie Lamer as a professor in college.

During my advanced advertising class, she brought in creative directors from ad agencies in Kansas City.

I will say it a thousand times, she is the best teacher I have had at Northwest.

Speaking of Northwest, I sure do miss it.

Sunday Funday

Nothing better than some self-serve frozen yogurt before a worship service in downtown LA (with some pretty cool people of course)

Fish Fest Event

 Fish Fest is a music festival featuring a variety of Christian artists.

TOMS set a booth up to inform people about the One for One Movement.

Here is myself, Katie, and Katherine in our matching tees and TOMS.

It was such a neat experience to see people looking at the shoes with huge smiles on their faces. 

I love working for a company where I can open up our giving report and say:

We have given over 1,000,000 pairs of shoes to children in need since September 2011.

We give shoes to children in need so they can receive an education and stay healthy.

We are a company based on giving to others.

How can you not persuade people to buy a pair of TOMS with this supporting material?

 Our booth was next to one of the three stages.

Katie was excited that we could stand in our booth and see John Mark McMillian.

I got really excited when he started singing one of my favorite songs: He Loves Us.

I had no idea he wrote it. (cherry on top of the night)

I love these two girls.

We had some great conversations about our faith in God.

I strongly believe that God places people in our lives to teach us and help us grow as a person. I can't thank God enough for giving me these two remarkable individuals this summer.

 We made friends with these guys from Collaborative World.

Collaborative World is a for-profit apparel company that exists to support the non-profit organization.

Check out their website to learn more.

Giving partner visits

Yesterday at work a giving partner from Honduras visited headquarters.

They run an orphanage and distribute the shoes to children in need.

Many people think that children only receive shoes when a 'shoe drop' occurs. 

This statement is false.

TOMS works to establish shoe-giving partnerships with humanitarian organizations worldwide that have experience and a long-term presence in the countries and communities they serve.

The giving partners are responsible for hand placing the shoes on the children's feet on a rotated schedule. 

The giving partners talked about how embarrassed the children will be to show the volunteers their feet.  The children know their feet are dirty and sometimes have diseases.

If a child has a pair shoes, they can go to school and become educated.

It was an inspiring and reinforcing talk.

You are beautiful.

Yes, you are.
I thought I would share it with ya.
(Main Street, Santa Monica)

Today at work I made my first big mistake.
I accidentally enabled a few products to be visible online that were not supposed to be.

Big time whoops.

But all is good and my manger didn't get mad.
He gave me another big project right after it, so apparently he still trusts me.
I have to make it up to him by buying him a Diet Rockstar - in the white can.

Take time and read this article. You won't regret it. Promise.

My Missouri Buddy

Here we sit over our lunch hour sipping on a Coke, Miss Liz Ronzio and I.

She is my roomie and together we represent the Show-Me-State.

Liz is the retail marketing intern.

 She won a Teen Vogue Contest for 'design your own TOMS.'
Watch all about it by clicking here.

(Her shoes sold out in two days)

Not only is she a good designer, she has the most adorable clothes, and the loudest laugh you will ever hear.

I do more than eat cupcakes...

I promise.

Sprinkles is a cupcake place that once again "everyone raves about" ...

Too bad we decided to go during rush hour.

My verdict: the cupcakes are very good, but not as good as Georgetown Cupcakes.

But seriously, I do more than just eat cupcakes.

For example, today I sat in on three different meetings.

One was the Fall 2011 merchandising review where I go to be Vanna White and hold up the shoes.

The other meeting is a secret and the other one was about the eye wear site navigation problems.

It is finally starting to warm up here and I got my first California sunburn on my shoulders!

Garrett's Birthday

 Since today was Garrett's actual birthday, we celebrated by going out to an Italian restaurant called Rostis.

The restaurant is BYOB.

You bring the wine and they provide the food.

So fun.

We also celebrated at work with baby cupcakes.

So cute and petite..

and delicious!

The cherry on top of the whole day was the fact that The Red Hot Chili Peppers were performing next door to our office at the soundstage.  We share a wall so it literally was a concert.

Some people were getting upset because they couldn't work, others couldn't have been more ecstatic.

FYI their new album is going to have some great new songs :)

Happy Father's Day!

Because I have been lucky to have my dad in my life for 21 years, I decided to share 21 lessons I have learned from him...

1. When someone does something nice for you say "Thank you kindly"

2. The 4 wheelers and go cart DO NOT go on the roads.

3. Lazy is as lazy does.

4. Snack size candy bars must be present in the house at all times.

5. Cleaning out the sheep barn at 6 a.m. will not kill you.

6. Mow the grass so that the clippings will blow on top of what you have already cut.

7. Fire extinguishers make great gifts and should be located in all rooms of the house.

8. Spend time with those who are mentally disabled. Just because they have a disability doesn't mean they are not human.

9. Children need a "back yard" to grow up in.

9. When staying at a hotel, it is important to know where you closest fire exit is.

10. Beef is best if it comes from Jim Wasko.

11. Driving a 4020 is easier than you think.

12. Always make friends with your neighbors.

13. Work first, then play.

14. Money isn't everything, but it stinks if you can't pay the rent. (I believe he learned this one from Glen Smith)

14. Just because someone is a stranger, doesn't mean you can't say hello.

15. Vacations to Disneyworld are not vacations.

16. Take care of your car. (Have emergency blankets, clothes, first aid kit, tool kit, scoop shovel, the whole nine yards in there)

17. Drive defensively and always wear your seat-belt with your lights on.

18. Save your money.

19. Boys are nothing but trouble.

20. The History Channel is always playing something good (and educational)

21. Laugh.

I love you Daddy! I have also learned from you that there is "no place like home"

Missing you today even more than I have been.

Happy Father's Day!

I am blessed to have you in my life.

Movie in a Graveyard?

It is a Summer of new experiences.

The Brand Ambassadors at TOMS organized an event for current interns and former interns (who now work at TOMS) to go see a movie in graveyard Saturday night.

Apparently it is a very LA thing to do.

(No space in the city, so why not show a movie in a graveyard?)

You bring your picnic dinner with you, blankets, and watch the movie outside with thousands of people.

As strange as the whole graveyard thing sounds, it was actually a lot of fun.

The movie was "Heathers" and was made in 1988.

It was basically the first version of Mean Girls.

Here is our group, current interns and former interns who are now employees.

Do you see all of that food?

They spoil us.

Hollywood Hike

A group of us decided to tackle the Hollywood Sign Hike Saturday morning.

The weather was perfect, but this hike was hard.

It is about 4.5 miles up to the top and 4.5 miles back down. 

It was an incline the majority of the way up and a constant decline all the way down.

I found myself running/jogging without trying.

You can't actually get close to the Hollywood sign from the front.
You can see it up close from behind though.

Once we got to the top we just sat for about 15 minutes and looked at the view.

While we were sitting a dad and his two sons came up behind us.

This dad carried his baby on his back the whole time in a baby carrier.

He also had a seven year old son with him.

The man wasn't sweating or exhausted.

He took the little guy out of the baby carrier for a while. I got to hold the cutie pie while he took photos from up top.

Yes, I am extremely sore.

Yes, we were all exhausted and hungry so we headed to In N Out Burger to celebrate our achievement.

Photo Shoot & Venice Beach

 On Friday I went to a photo shoot in Long Beach.

This studio takes all of the shoe photos for Nike, Adidas, and of course TOMS.

They also take photos of the apparel that TOMS offers.

 This is the set-up for where they take the photos of the shoes.

I was in charge of steaming the shoes and apparel before the photos were taken.

(I think I did my job well.)

After work a bunch of interns headed to Venice Beach aka Little Mexico.

(Crazy people everywhere wanting you to buy marijuana and get tattoos. No joke.)

We peaced out of there before the sun went down.

 This was probably my favorite part of the trip to Venice Beach.

The artist gives you a pair of 3D glasses and you walk up and down the wall looking at his artwork.
Kinda neat.

After our trip to Little Mexico we all came back to our apartment to have pizza and celebrate Garrett's Birthday.

Garrett is from Green Bay, Wisconsin.

He is studying architecture at Cornell University in New York.

He is helping to design all of the window displays for Nordstroms and Neiman Marcus.

Garrett's last internship was in China where he worked for a huge architecture firm.

Pretty remarkable.

Pacific Coast Highway

 After a long day of work we jumped in Liz's car to go for a drive.

We traveled along Pacific Coast Highway.

Beautiful scenery.

The ocean on your left and mountains on your right.

Work was great.  Learned more about the production aspects of TOMS shoes

...and more secrets I can't share.

This whole "confidentiality thing" is putting a damper on this blog.

On another note...

Happy 27th Anniversary to my amazing parents!

You are both so wonderful to me and I am undeserving of everything you provide for me.

I love you and can't wait to see you in Alaska in about 2 weeks.

May you have many many many more years of happiness together.

Do I look more like my momma or daddy?

I think I am a good mix of both...

Thoughts?

Ice Cream 2x in One Day!

Today at work we had an ice cream bar to celebrate birthdays in the month of June.

Any company that stops working for twenty minutes to break for food and play "Go Shorty, It's Your Birthday" I am obviously a fan of.

This afternoon we had "Shoe School"

We were introduced to the Spring 2012 line.

Yes, Spring 2012.

Unbelievably amazing.

(So is the Fall 2011 and Holiday line)

I signed a confidentiality waiver so that's about all I can say.

After work we headed down to The Promenade to see how boutiques display TOMS.

This store tracks how many TOMS they personally sell. Above the buckets it says:

(I am one of) "2,500 kids who can now walk to clean water"

If that doesn't touch your heart, I don't know what will.

Lots of people have been telling us that we have to try Pinkberry.

Even though we had ice cream earlier in the day, we still thought it was best to try out this frozen yogurt place everyone raves about.

I like it, but it wasn't like Fro-zen-Yo in DC.

Getting my feet wet...

Today was my first full work day.

My internship consists mainly of online marketing.

i.e. looking at how people wear TOMS, how they find TOMS, what advertisements they respond to

...and much more.

Names are clicking and everything is starting to feel more like "home"

(Although I am seriously missing some people back in Missouri and Iowa)

Love to you all.

Give

  As soon as you walk into TOMS Headquarters you see "GIVE" spelled out in shoes.

The theme continues as you make your way around the rest of the old rusty warehouse complete with chipboard serving as office divders.

It has a certain feel to it...and I like it.

When I walk by "GIVE" several times a day I can't help but to thank God for the wonderful opportunity I have been given. I love the Bible verse from Luke that states:

To whom much has been given, much is expected.

-Luke 12:48
 

This statement holds true in my life.

  I have been given a wonderful family,

amazing friends,
and unbelievable opportunites.

He has given to me, so I must give to others.

 

(I'm also thankful he put so many influential and encouraging people in my life to teach me how to give)

Farmer's Market

 Sights from the Farmer's Market we went to this afternoon.

Can't wait to go back next Sunday.

Guess who accidentally went to Mass in Spanish this morning?

Good guess.

Me.

The only words I understood: Wal-Mart, Kohl's, JCPenney.

Who knows where he was going with that homily...

Better luck next week.