It’s finally here: giveaway day!
I know my hints throughout the week haven’t been incredibly helpful, but that was on purpose. I wanted this to be a big surprise. If you like sparkling water or sodas of any sort, this giveaway is for you! Just leave a comment on this post completing this sentence: “I remember when…” in order to be entered to win!
About a month ago, John and I were walking through a local Best Buy-sort of store in Germany and found a product by Soda-Club called the Fountain Jet Home Soda Maker, which looks something like this:
John and I drink a lot of sparkling water and enjoy sodas now and then. Finding a product like this that allowed us to make our own sodas/sparkling water at home has been great because it has saved us money, we can make whatever kind of carbonated beverage we want on a whim, we don’t have to lug bottles or cans up 3 flights of stairs and deal with all the recycling/trash, and my favorite part (so far) is the sparkling water tastes just like Perrier. We loved the product so much that we wrote a thank you note to the company, who in turn, offered to let us give one away to you!
In fact, we’re giving away a whole starter kit (approx $100 retail value), which includes:
- the winner’s choice of black/silver, white or red Fountain Jet
- 2 carbonators
- 2 bottles
- a sample pack of flavors
- and 3 full-sized flavors of the winner’s choice.
Please note that we can only have the prize shipped to addresses in the continental US and Canada (sorry no APO addresses or PO Boxes, guys). But if you don’t have one of those addresses, go here to Soda-Club’s website to see where you can get your own soda maker in your area (country selection is in the bottom-right portion of the page). If you live in Germany or the Netherlands, hit up Media Markt for one.
We haven’t gotten to try the soda flavors yet, because apparently Germans are anti-soda flavorings during the winter. I guess they stock up on heavy beers and glüwein then. The flavorings will return to our local stores in the next couple of weeks, so we’ll let you guys know how they turn out, but if they’re anything like the sparkling water, they’ll taste just like the real thing. All the reviews we have read say the soda flavorings taste great.
Soda-Club offers over 25 regular, diet and caffeine-free flavors, including a Dr. Pepper-like flavoring. Yum! Regular flavors have 2/3 less carbs, calories and sugar than store-bought sodas, and contain much less sodium. Regular flavors are sweetened with a combination of sugar and Splenda. Diet flavors are sugar-free and sweetened with Splenda and contain no aspartame.
Can you tell how excited I am? I feel like I’m on a late-night infomercial but with a truly great product!
It’s also a green product. Sodastream’s plastic carbonating bottles are reusable for up to 3 years (and are BPA-free), and their Penguin modlel glass carbonating carafes will last even longer with good care. It also saves energy: no electricity, no batteries and no transport miles.
In order to understand how completely easy it is to use the soda maker, take a trip over to their website to watch this short 90-second video clip.
Normally Fridays on our blog are “Nostalgic Fridays” where we post an old video, photo or tell an old story. Since we didn’t get to reminisce this week, we’d like to hear your stories! In order to participate in this giveaway, just leave a comment on this post completing the sentence “I remember when…” however you’d like. It can be a childhood memory, a fun 80s throwback or even something like “I remember when man landed on the moon.” Be creative!
We will use a random number generator to select the winner sometime on Tuesday. The contest closes on Tuesday at midnight Central Standard Time (meaning Tuesday morning, not Tuesday night). Good luck to all!
– John & Sarah
while we’re on the subject of sodas, i can conjure up a few soda-memories. first of all, my dad never called it pop, or whatever people called it back in the 60s and 70s. i believe what one calls a carbonated beverage has more to do with where you live than anything else. sorry, i digress.
he always called it soda-water. never just soda. and growing up in wisconsin, it’s an over-pronounced “oh” like sOH-dah. i always thought that was kinda weird.
secondly, my mom turned me onto chocolate cokes. another quirky thing of the older generation. perhaps relates to the old-fashioned soda fountains where you could get cherry syrup or vanilla added to your cokes. and of course, chocolate.
i haven’t had a chocolate coke in years. it really is pretty delicious. but try not to look at it, because chocolate cokes have this really gamey scummy chocolate bubbly thing going on on the surface. a real mood killer if you ask me.
and i may not actually be first, but it did say no comments before i started this novel. don’t know if the random number picker thingy ever picks #1. probably never, but oh well!! i hope i win b/c that thing looks super cool!! i’d have to probably throw a party!! yay1!
I remember when my aunt in austin has one and oh boy did we have fun playing with it. I didn’t know there were flavors involved, yum!
You’re right, I would have never guessed that!
I remember when… being in your 20s was old, GellyPens were all the rage, everyone had a great selection of pogs and slammers, Keds were cool, cartoons weren’t annoying, coffee was disgusting, having a job seemed fun, you weren’t cool unless you owned Lisa Frank supplies, lunch boxes were actually boxes, everyone had a Lite-Brite and slap bracelets, and… I remember when it didn’t matter if I worried about the economy!
I remember when gas was under a dollar per gallon. Yes! I do! I came home from Cali my freshman year of college and there was a Racetrack that opened in SA and while everyone else had $.89 or $.99 per gallon gas, Racetrack had $.79! OMG! It was fantastic!
Awesome – this would so come in handy for me as I will be a poor grad student again in a few months and caffeine ain’t cheap!
I remember when…Hypercolor t-shirts were cool. I had a pink one that turned blue and I thought I was sooo freaking stylish (even though the shirt was like 3 sizes too big – it was the only size the store had left, and I really wanted one!). Then my mom washed it and it didn’t change colors anymore. Sad day. Whatever happened to those things?
omg you guys are too cute! i love interactive blogs. after some thought i had to add my entry:
i remember when …sarah and i were at Trudys munching on all its goodness and JOHN was our waiter. Sarah kept telling me right after he would leave our table that she swore up and down that she knew he from somewhere.Either from class but she REALLY thought from her San Antonio days. So as we were leaving Sarah was like “should i leave my phone #? should I leave my phone #?!” and i TOTALLY told her to do it. I was like “why not! what do you have to lose?” ..So Sarah had ME write down her # on her reciept and her face immeadiately turned red and we basically RAN out of the restaraunt to her car. A few days later Sarah called me and told me that John had called her back and they had talked for an hour or so and that they did in fact know each other from UT AND San Antonio…and the rest is history 😉
…i love love stories 🙂
ps i LOVE green products 🙂
I remember when I used to have time to be bored, before I became a mother. I also remember being a teenager and wearing a “cool” shirt that was basically a onesie for grown-ups (thankfully jeans were involved too). I remember when days spent at six flags over texas and wet n’wild filled up my entire summer vacation. I remember when I wondered what I would do when I grow up, who would be my husband and how many kids I would have. I remember the butterflies I had when my now husband told me he loved me for the first time.
I remember when me and John took that road trip to SPI and Corpus that one spring break. I didn’t even tell my parents I was in town. I remember the weather not being so great, and I was really worried about getting pulled over by the cops in Port Isabel. There’s a lot I remember about that trip.
Hope y’all are doing real good!!!
this thing sounds pretty cool!!
i remember when…our old community group hung out all the time…i remember the game nights, the lunches/dinner, the awesome teaching nights w/ logan and amber, and just an overall fun time with everyone in group 🙂
hope you and john are doing well! did you have fun with your fam in town?
Your post reminded me of going to A&W to get a gallon of rootbeer in a huge glass bottle (yes…I’m old…no plastic bottles back then at A&W…and no…at that point in the 60’s we couldn’t buy it at the grocery store either). Getting a gallon of rootbeer on a hot summer day was a huge treat. Heidi in PA
This is one of the best inventions ever!! It tastes exactly like Perrier and is ready within seconds!! Whoever wins will be in for a real treat. Hats off to the inventors or a really great product.
Hugs
Oops! I just read my email and realized I needed to use the starter I remember when…
I remember when water was just water and Perrier was not on anyone’s vocabulary. I even remember a time when, as a little girl, I visited my grandmother and had to get water by using a hand pump in her kitchen! Guess that’s dating me, huh! This pump is much cooler, though, and produces a great tasting product.
Since we are talking about Sodas…
I remember when RC cola was popular and Jolt was something we picked up on youth trips to get hyper.
That sounds yummy.
I remember being in Paris and finding it quite intriguing that their Perrier came in cans.
I remember when…I was growing up and we would go to the local A&W. We would drive up and order though the speaker. The waitress would bring out our meal on a tray that attached to your car window. Oh – and of course ice cream twists! How I wish those days would come back again!
This seems like such a great appliance in this economy. To have fresh soda – and make smaller, convenient sizes – sounds wonderful. I was born in Landstuhl and am always amazed at how far ahead Germany is on some many things. The fact that much less will hit the environment is also a plus.
I hope I’m the lucky winner – thank you and Soda-Club for this giveaway!
I remember when some crazy lady hit my car and y’all came to my rescue! 🙂 ps I would be the coolest girl on the UT campus with a soda machine! Btw I decided on UT 🙂
I remember when I hadn’t seen john in a long time and he remembered my name and it made me really happy!
I remember when life used to be carefree!
i remember when rollerblades came out in the 80’s. i really loved to rollerskate before that time, but my parents wouldn’t buy me a pair. after awhile it became totally uncool to roller skate, but i still did & loved my HOT PINK and white skates. my next door neighbor actually had two pairs of of rollerblades and i was able to borrow one of hers when we went out skating- which spared me from looking like a square!
I remember when John use to drink about fourteen Dr. Pepper’s a day & still sleep at night. 🙂
This is pretty random… but I remember LOVING the show “Legends of the Hidden Temple” (a challenge game show for kids) when I was younger. Then when I was in Amsterdam recently, I was really sick one morning so I stayed in my bed and decided to watch some Dutch TV. There was this awesome kids show that was just like Legends of the Hidden Temple, but it was in English, and the host had an irish accent. It rocked!
I also remember loving the show “Salute Your Shorts” and I’d get in trouble if I’d sing the theme song out loud (“…and when we think about you, it makes me want to fart!”). Of course, these days I can’t get over the fact that it says “we” in the first part and then “me” in the second part. Clearly a grammar fail.