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welcome back to another segment of Life
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on court we're happy to be here I'm Mel
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and I'm Karen we're excited to see you
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cheers I love your cup Mel okay I have
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to tell you I bought okay I'm gonna go
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thing this first of all it's the Grinch
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which I absolutely love and I was in
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Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago and
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actually it was before Thanksgiving so
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longer than that and I said there's no
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they have all their Christmas stuff out
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already and I said there's no way I'm
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not shopping for Christmas things it's
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too early I can't do it I made it about
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a foot and I saw this on an end cap and
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it's like it's naughty or nice and I
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definitely naughty that's what I was
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goingon to say progress that was my
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favorite one and it was so much fun that
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I had to have it so and it has a candy
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cane straw I mean how fun is that it's
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the cutest thing ever so Hobby Lobby
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there you go I love that that is so much
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fun before I caved and started chopping
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for Christmas things because I have but
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anyway so Cheers Cheers happy you're
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back we've been thinking you know and
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again as we like to say that's always
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dangerous when we think but we've been
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specifically thinking about travel
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during the holidays isn't that fun uh
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it's it's not fun anytime during the
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year right now anyways but in the
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holidays boy that's all I can say well
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and we were lucky Thanksgiving we all
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stayed here but people traveled here and
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you know there's always I always think
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of that movie ples trains and Auto aob
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right because it's it's a running joke
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and it's true I just anything that can
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happen will and it's hard and it's
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stressful and like we talked about last
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week peace of mind yeah keeping your
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peace of mind and keeping your sanity
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calm while you're traveling during the
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holidays is not easy I mean it's so easy
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to just my patience is gone yeah me too
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and I don't even travel my patience is
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gone you know and and there's two pieces
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of that though they traveling people
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coming to travel to see you and then the
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holiday experience of having either
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guests in the house or you know wherever
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they're staying and everyone comes
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together and what happens at the meal um
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you and I make a big point that not to
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talk politics we never talk politics
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it's not anybody you know we just don't
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do that we don't talk about that but you
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can't avoid it at your dinner table it
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just happened so how do you make sure
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that you keep your peace of mind Mel
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when all of a sudden talk goes Dr
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cheers I'm not kidding you I so and I
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and this really came to light during um
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during covid you know I we heard so many
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stories families really torn apart
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because of the differing views and
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opinions on topics at hand and that's
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normal at a Holiday meal and under the
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best circumstances and these are not
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always the best circumstances lately
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there's a lot of opportunity for
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division right controversy and anger
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and inflamed conversations and you try
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and be respectful but there can come a
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point and and especially with immediate
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family I'm an adult but I can get around
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my birth family and I'm reduced to like
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that 12-year-old kid and that role in
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the family and the way that we interact
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comes out and it's like you know no no
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I'm 64 years old stop talking to me like
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I'm 10 right but that all these things
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come out and all these layers and I
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would love to get uh we need to get a
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psychologist on with us because there's
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probably a better way to handle it than
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we just kind of muck our way through the
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dark but the way to avoid it is to to I
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mean I don't like to avoid things I like
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to be respectful because I like I don't
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I like to hear different opinions I like
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right that opportunity and I have a
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husband who likes to stir the pot and he
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knows exactly which people think what
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and he will just sit there and my
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my gave him a spoon last year for
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Christmas Christmas that said pot ster
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official pot stir and we still laugh
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about it because he he just sits back
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and watches it fly but the other thing
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he does he likes to get
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conversations going right and what
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usually comes after the initial
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onslaught of Sparks and the volume and
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talking over each other and the anger
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that can arise in very passionate
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expression comes a really good
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conversation where we see that maybe our
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thoughts are not so different and that
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at the end of the day we really are not
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all so different right even within our
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family so I think that's really
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important and we try and keep that or I
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try and keep that in the back how about
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you yeah well we do two things and we
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just started doing it within the last
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year we actually did it um several weeks
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ago when I went to visit my family and
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everybody was there and there's four of
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us with their spouses and my parents
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everybody was in there's 10 of us and we
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we tend to get into it and this last
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time we decided to do something
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different and we decided to because
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we're very blessed our parents are still
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alive we decided to have them tell us
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stories from when they were growing
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up and it allowed us first of all to
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hear stories some of them we' had never
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heard before or if we had heard them we
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were very very young and don't remember
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them and we had some really great laughs
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in fact we had some laughs because both
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my brother and I were born in Tennessee
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my dad was in the Navy no there's no
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water there I don't get it but that's
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where that's where he was you know
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stationed um and so we uh talked about
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the fact that uh we lived above a
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funeral parlor an apartment above the
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funeral parlor and back in 1956 things
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were way different than they are today
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um and they were telling us all these
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Amazing Stories which really just
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brought the whole family together I love
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that and we started a couple years ago
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on Thanksgiving doing that going around
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the table and and sharing one something
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that we had been really grateful for
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that happened to us during the previous
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year and then our hope for the coming
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year whether it was for our personal
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lives or collectively and it gives us a
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chance to really move out of the current
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event opportunity for contrast and
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Division and it was also a beautiful way
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to go forward right I love that that is
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awesome uh so we're telling you there's
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different ways to do this you know you
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you can prepare in advance um we we do
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this we've done that as well what are
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you grateful for you know give us the
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one thing and or who do who are you
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grateful for who are you grateful for
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and generally everyone will look to the
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person next to them and they'll say well
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that person sitting right over there um
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you know we're talking about travel and
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it's not just about the holidays you
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know you and I went um traveling a
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couple of months ago and um we have a
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really cool ebook that we are um it's
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launching this month and you can get a
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copy of it is our travel guide to Napa
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how fun is that yeah and we had fun
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putting it together it's all of our
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favorites and we you know Karen lived
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there you lived there so you showed me a
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Napa that I didn't know and I've
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traveled there a few times and I love it
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and we share our experiences and kind of
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really dial down why we've picked the
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venues whether it's the hotels or the
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restaurants that we have and the
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activities um a little off the beaten
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path and it's really toward our
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demographic right and when we travel and
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we were two women traveling alone so we
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took that into account and we really had
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creating this for you you're I think
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they're going to love it because it's
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what to do what to see where to shop um
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where to go all that really cool stuff
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and you'll be able to get um the link to
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get this it's absolutely free it's going
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to be down in the copy go check it out
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and let us know what your favorite place
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is if you go and actually um visit some
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of these places we'd love to hear or if
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you've been there and there's something
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that you really love that's not in our
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list you know share it because part of
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the community is sharing that and
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expanding our experience Mel we love our
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we love our people out there and as we
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said make sure you check down below in
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the copy we have links to some of the
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things that we talked about and most
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importantly check out the Napa travel
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guide we are so proud of it Mel works so
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hard on this and we hope that you enjoy
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it it's absolutely free click on that
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button and we'll see you next week next