It was sudden and it was a long time coming.

The sun was setting and all of the students had gone. We were packing the van as we had done so many days and nights and afternoons and evenings before and suddenly, we knew it was over. With Joe Purdy ‘Make it up’ slipping through the airwaves, we stopped and realized what was happening. This was it. The last event. The final moments.

Of course there were tears, but mostly I felt my heart exploding with emotion as I thought back to all of the people we’ve met, the shoes we’ve sold, and the lives that are about to change. It was too much and it wasn’t enough and everything we had worked for for so long, had just suddenly stopped.

Our lives have been forever changed. The way we view the world, the way we view consumerism, the way we view giving… has been forever changed.

Thank you. Every single one of you. Every rep. Every TOMS fan. Every member of our TOMS family. Those of you who came to our events. Those of you who bought shoes. Those of you who made this tour happen. You’ve stolen our hearts and made us better people.

One for One.

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Our last week was filled with a lot of reminiscing over the past 10 weeks, and we wanted to share with you a few of our favorite things, in no particular order:

A) Our first cupcake adventure in Austin, TX. We bought a total of 11 cupcakes between the two of us and ate one on the steps of the Capitol in the rain. This was day 1 of our favorite tradition!

B) The Shoe Box race at Evangel. Check out our week 7 video to watch this hilarious competition. Good job Cayla for being the winner!

C) Surprising the Northwest team in CO. This goes down as the most epic surprise ever and includes a 20 hour drive, lots of new friends, sea level cupcakes, and the best surprised face we have ever seen, thanks to Gypsy!

D) The TCU event. We both graduated from TCU in May, so it was a huge blessing for us to go there and share what we are doing to change the world with the place that taught us the importance of doing so. GO FROGS!

E) Listening to the radio. We now have a Vagabond memory connected with every popular song currently being played on the radio. Probably because we have listened to it for a little over 14,000 miles.

F) Lauren Allen’s TOMS collage. Our UMHB campus rep made us a piece of art that has been on the dashboard of our van, literally leading the way for us on tour.

G) JANE. Our TOMTOM navigation is named Jane and has gotten us where we need to go by telling us to “Keep left. Then keep left. Then go straight on and take the motorway.”

H) Bonnie Brae: 1 mile. The sign in Denton, TX that became the name of our Chevy Express 3500 15 passenger van.

I) House sitting for the friend of the sister of the mom of a Vagabond. It was so interesting to see how many connections we made through friends, family, and people we met on tour.

J) Playing Mexican Train and Golf ALL day Thanksgiving. For about 8 hours, we played games until we were so tired the dots on the dominos started to blur!

K) Rufus, the precious 11 week old cat we met in Chicago… and all of Laura’s other animal friends she made

L) 2 words: Midnight Madness. It is what we call the mood we get when we are really tired, or have been in the van for too long!

M) Tortilla Michael. We are SO glad Michael Goodman could make it to Edmond, OK with us!!

N) Socks with TOMS?! We finally broke down and wore socks with our TOMS when it got too cold. For Kelsey, that was less than 70 degrees, but Laura could probably make it without socks in the snow.

O) Being tourists in Chicago. We walked the Magnificent Mile, went to Millennium Park, ate a hot dog and deep dish pizza, and came across a huge protest.

P) The accent. Somehow in Santa Monica we started talking with a British accent and we can not seem to stop. We met The Carport Girls in Maryville, MO who are in the same situation. “And we know, darlings, it is mildly hard to stop!”

Q) McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. Yeah, we ate there. A lot. And have all the toys saved in our van!

So that is just a taste of the never-ending memories we have from this incredible epic roadtrip to give children shoes. What a trip.

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The past few days have been a little weird without our third teammate, Tim, around. He left the Vagabond Tour a week early to jump on board the Ten Out of Tenn tour, a two-week-long tour featuring 10 musicians out of Nashville, TN. He’ll be selling TOMS at the shows and helping out with other aspects regarding the tour. After some unexpected transmission issues, Michelle and I are up and running again with the Vaga-Van. We had one of our best events of the tour at a church (which was held in a museum) in Columbia, SC  Sunday night, selling 142 pairs of shoes!! They were doing a series on giving and at the end of each of the three services, the pastor invited the people to take the shoes off of their feet and bring them to a pile in the front, which would be donated to homeless shelters in the city. He then talked about TOMS and announced that we would be in a designated area following the services, where they would have the opportunity to buy a new pair of shoes, and in turn, give a second pair of shoes away. Approximately 600 people donated the shoes off of their feet to their own community before even finding out that we were outside selling shoes, which was awesome. Team Southeast is going out with a bang…!!

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HOLD THE PRESS! Justin can finally drive! This is the first time in a couple weeks that I’ve been in the passenger seat of a car. The subway does NOT count, contrary to popular opinion.

Just had a mini-reunion with our old teammate Ann last night! Ann and I had some of our favorite Buffalo Chicken pizza with green peppers and onions from EuroGyro! It’s a little pizza place in Akron and you should mosdef go if you’re ever in the Cleveland/Akron area!

Days up here in the NE get dark around 5pm and it’s so crazy! Being from FL, I’m used to it being light until freaking 7. I feel like I’m being cheated!

I’ve picked up some sayings of Justin’s since being on the road with him. Here are a few:

“that’s hella [insert word here]….”

“I was droolin’ laughin’”

“hard times!”

He picked up “lame sauce” from me, so I feel pretty awesome because he considers himself a character and he’s hella funny so the fact that he picked up something from ME is pretty superb. So yeah.

We’re constantly singing the new Kanye. I think some of our reps think we’re crazy because we were ALWAYS singing “TELL EVERYBODY THAT YOU KNOWWWWW”

Yo, this is almost over. I’m going to be back in Cali on Fridayyyyyyy. Venice Beach, WATCH OUT! Vagabonds are almost thereeee!

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Help us reach our goal of 30k in 30 days! Check our the latest update at TOMSshoes.com
One for One

jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way
oh what fun it is to buy TOMS shoes this holiday-HEY!

jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way
oh what fun it is to buy TOMS shoes this holiday-HEY!

for every pair you buy, we’ll give one pair away
at TOMS shoes online store, for shipping you won’t pay!

shoes in green and red, glitters, boots, and plaids
what fun it is to online shop, free shipping is so rad!

jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way
oh what fun it is to buy TOMS shoes this holiday-HEY!

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See week 7 from ALL the Vagabonds

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Earlier this week, Hannah and I were invited to attend the Grammy Nominations concert at the Nokia Theatre. On Tuesday night, we got a call from Stefan, our incredible campus rep at Azusa Pacific, asking us if we’d like tickets for the show. Are you kidding me? Do you realize who you’re speaking to? WHAT TIME SHOULD WE BE THERE?

Since we had an event in Irvine on Wednesday (a STELLAR event might I add!) we did a quick change into some gowns in a campus restroom and hightailed it back to LA for the show. Not only did we fulfill our lifelong (ok… yearslong) dream of seeing the Jonas Brothers live and in person, we got to watch some of the biggest names in music perform hits by past Grammy winners. Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, the Foo Fighters, and Celine Dion sang their hearts out and announced the nominees for the February 8th Grammy Awards. Oh, and did I mention that the lovely Miss Taylor Swift hosted—WITH LL COOL J?! For the record, these ladies looooove cool James!

The highlight of the night was when John Mayer and B.B. King performed together. It was pretty much the most mind-blowing duet I’ve ever heard. I can honestly say I’ll die happy having seen those two together. MIND-BLOWING! After the Grammys concert ended, John Mayer decided to play another hour-long set for the crowd. He performed alone, without a backing band, and made me fall in love with him all over again.

He began the set with ‘Waiting On The World To Change’ but with a few lyrical modifications. My heart nearly exploded when he gave a speech about how we are finally, FINALLY entering a time when our generation’s voice is being heard. He sang ‘there’s no more waiting, waiting on the world to change’ and I had tears in my eyes as he spoke about how excited he was to be alive right now. To live in a time when we’re all doing our part to make this the world we want to exist in.

The performance just further solidified my belief in what we’re doing here at TOMS. Everyday, we’re all working towards the greater good. We all want to live in a world of peace, love, and happiness—and our generation is making that happen. One by one, and One for One– Our voice has been heard and we’re not taking that lightly.

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