Yes/No Detroit

I realize that I haven't done many movie reviews here since I rebranded the site to Yes/No Detroit - this won't always be the case, but I have been traveling a lot over the past 4 weeks since I last did a movie review (Rough Nightwas the last one), and haven't had much time to see movies. I did see both Baby Driver and Despicable Me 3 in the theater, though - see below for mini-reviews of those.

Movies being released this week:
Girls Trip. I will be seeing this one at some point, because it screened at BlogHer, and Universal generously gave us Fandango codes to see it. I've heard only good things about it so far.Dunkirk. I actually saw a screening of this on Monday, but I fell asleep for about ten minutes (it's not necessarily a boring movie, I was just tired ...) and also, this is a really hard movie to rate. I'd give it 2.5/5 stars and a Maybe, but most critics are saying BEST MOVIE EVER ... it's a Christopher Nolan movie and has a terrific cast, but there&…

First off, this is not a sponsored post - I just wanted to share my recent experience about flying them. I primarily fly Delta and Southwest, so I was curious to try them out recently, for a work trip.

From DTW, I believe Alaska Air flies from Seattle and also to Portland. The gate for my DTW-SEA flight this past Monday was in the North Terminal, almost at the far end of the terminal ... I actually didn't even know the terminal extended so far down.

I actually Googled "Alaska Air boarding procedures" while at the gate, because I realized I didn't know what to expect - on Delta, I board Zone 1 because I have their credit card, and on Southwest, we line up according to group and number.

Overall, I flew 3 segments on Alaska Air this past week, and my experience was mostly positive. I flew from Detroit to Seattle, then Seattle to Bellingham, WA; yesterday, I flew from Bellingham back to Seattle, and then I was booked on Delta from SEA to DTW.
7 things to know before flyi…

*Disclosure: I received media tickets to attend Salute to America. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

I have been to many other Greenfield Village events, such as their Hallowe'en and Christmas festivities, but I had never attended Salute to America, so I was excited to check it out this year.

The doors open at 6pm, and that is when we arrived, but I highly recommend getting there earlier than that - we had no problem finding parking, but this year they had security/metal detectors, and the lines to get through security were very long. There was a line for people who didn't have coolers with them that was a bit shorter, though, so we chose that one.


The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) portion of the evening starts at 8:30am, but there is plenty of pre-show entertainment, such as the Revolutionary War Fife & Drum unit (see pic above, and video below).


If you're hungry, also, there is food for sale, including a food and beverage tent. There was also a vin…

*Disclosure: I received media tickets from Disney World in exchange for this post. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

Not going to lie: one of the reasons I was excited that BlogHer was in Orlando this year is that I applied for and was accepted for a media pass from Disney. It had been eleven years (2006) since I had last stepped foot on Disney grounds, not including my day at Disneyland three years ago, and I was super excited about it.

Disney generously provided me with two one-day hopper passes (meaning, you can go to any of the four parks during the day), and I started off the morning with Pamela and Vanessa, my two BlogHer roommates.


You are allowed to choose your "FastPasses" 60 days prior to your trip, but you are only allowed to choose THREE rides; we chose Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean, all which are at Magic Kingdom. Once you use your three initial FastPasses, you get one more to use, then once you use that, you get on…

So this year was my FIFTH time at BlogHer - I went from 2012-14, and then again last year, in 2016. It was also my first time as a BlogHer volunteer, but more on that later.

I arrived in Orlando last Wednesday, June 21st, and checked in to the host hotel, the Hilton Bonnet Creek. The hotel is beautiful, and has a fantastic lazy river/pool area, so that was my first order of business: some much needed pool time.

I was rooming with Vanessa from Green Acres Meets Paris, and Pamela from Affirmed Mom was staying with us for one night as well. We had been talking nonstop online before the conference, and it was great to actually meet both of them in-person.


On our first night, we headed to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney), to grab some dinner, and ended up at Bongo's Cuban Cafe, which is actually owned by Gloria Estefan. It's a very fun atmosphere with dancers (see the pic above) and the food was fantastic as well. 
On Thursday morning, we headed to Disney's Magic King…

Something that you may not know about me is that I am a freelance writer in addition to maintaining both this blog and my book blog (and I'm an also an editor for my day job, so basically I'm writing alllllllll the time).

I started writing for Examiner.com way back in December 2010, and soon after, I was invited to contribute "Best of Detroit" articles for CBS Detroit. When Examiner closed down in mid-2016, CBS Detroit continued to keep the Examiner writers on, and currently I write about one to two articles a month for them. "Best of Detroit" has been rebranded to Eat / See / Play, but it's still the same types of articles: the best restaurants, events, store,s and more,  in the metro Detroit area.

I try to choose places that I've personally been to, but sometimes I choose places based on word of mouth, or even Yelp ratings. I also crowdsource on Facebook to see if others have suggestions, for each of these articles.

{If we are Facebook friends, a…

*Disclosure: I was treated to a tasting at Noodles in exchange for this review. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

Last week, I was able to attend a tasting at the Noodles & Company located in Novi, MI, to try out their new Pasta Fresca dish. I say "new" but it's actually a returning favorite, and is going to be a permanent addition on the menu - it's one of my favorite dishes so that's good news to hear!


We started off with some salads and their new Thai soup, another favorite of mine. Pictured above is the Chicken Veracruz Salad, which consists of mixed greens, tomatoes, red onions, chili-lime chicken, bacon crumbles, fresh-cut corn, avocados, and cilantro, tossed with jalapeno ranch dressing and crispy jalapenos. It's a little spicy for me but I liked the chicken in it.


We also had some potstickers, which is my favorite appetizer to order at Noodles. The potstickers come with a mild spice soy sauce, and they're made out of chicken, r…