Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas
Hey friends! It's Koa and Sarah, the Cajun Mamas! Grab a cup of coffee and press play on our podcast! You may be familiar with our social media content, but now, we can have longer conversations. We are going to dive in to topics like life experiences, what it's like to be a mom these days, inspiration, encouragement and more. Thanks for subscribing!
Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas
Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas: Friendship, Fun, and Business with Sarah and Koa
Ever wondered how chance encounters at the gym can turn into lifelong partnerships? Join us for the premiere episode of Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas as we, Sarah and Koa, share the delightful story of how our paths intertwined. Hailing from Church Point and Gueydan, Louisiana, respectively, we humorously debate whether our shared maiden name, Guidry, makes us distant relatives. From our initial, not-so-friendly gym encounters to becoming best friends and then business partners, our journey is filled with laughter, unexpected twists, and heartwarming moments that prove that the most unexpected encounters can lead to lifelong bonds.
As we navigate the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from teaching to joining the LimeLife business during the COVID-19 pandemic, we share how our friendship evolved into a thriving business partnership. From the struggles of virtual teaching to our creative forays into social media, including the unforgettable "glam wagon" video, we reminisce about the fun and quirky moments that solidified our bond. A spontaneous trip to a Hanson concert in New Orleans served as a pivotal moment in our journey, cementing our connection and shared love for the band. Tune in to hear how our professional collaboration blossomed into a lifelong friendship filled with laughter, creativity, and shared experiences.
Welcome to the first episode of Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas. We're going to take a second out to mention our sponsor, the Pink Paisley in Lafayette. They have your favorite candles, including Tyler and Sweet Grace, a huge selection of pure fragrances, jewelry by Kendra Scott and E Newton, bath and body products, home decor and more.
Speaker 2:That's right, y'all. They really are your one-stop shop for all gift-giving and home decor needs. They even gift wrap for free. So if y'all in the market for a gift for somebody sweet or for yourself, y'all go hit up the Pink Paisley Arnold Boulevard in Lafayette or thepinkpaisleycom. Yes, ma'am, all right. So today's episode y'all this is so exciting. We are so excited to finally be doing this. We have some guidelines, can y'all believe? We were kind of prepared for this A little bit. We tried to be prepared, but we'll see how that goes. So today we want to just tell y'all a little bit about ourselves. We're going to call this the intro, the introduction episode. Meet the Cajun Mamas.
Speaker 1:Meet the.
Speaker 2:Cajun Mamas. Okay, if you hear listening, you probably already know who we are, but this will be a recap, and if you don't know who we are at all, this will be very informative for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we get this question a lot how did we meet? We're going to answer that for you today and let's just get started. My name is Sarah O'Prior. I'm from Church Point, louisiana, born and bred baby. Born and raised, born and raised. And what's your name?
Speaker 2:Oh, my name. Well, it's Koa. Everybody always asks me how to say it. It's spelled K-O-A and it's pronounced Koa. My last name Okay, first name, not Cajun at all. Last name very Cajun, and we was both Gidrys.
Speaker 1:We were both Gidrys. Our maiden name is Gidry, that's another Cajun. We are not related, but probably are somewhere along the line.
Speaker 2:It's possible. You know sisters from another mister somewhere down the line. So I'm not from here, where you grew up in Church Point. I'm from Gaydon, that's even a smaller town, and I married a Church Pointian man Church Pointian, church Pointian, church Pointian. Oh okay, I have to get that right. I've been here since 2010. I should know. Churchpuncion.
Speaker 1:Churchpuncion. I don't know, I don't know, that's what I say.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, but yeah, no, I married somebody from here and been here since 2010. And it's funny kind of how we met. It's probably not what you would think we weren't lifelong best friends?
Speaker 1:No, and blessed for that for sure, because sometimes you know you have friends for the seasons and you really don't know it's for the seasons, but they're lifelong friends anyway.
Speaker 2:But this girl here I tell you what. Okay, so it wasn't like besties at first sight. Honestly, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:No, and it wasn't anything really.
Speaker 2:It was just, we met at the gym and our gym was much smaller at the time.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it wasn't no and it wasn't anything really. It was just we were at, we met at the gym and our gym was much smaller at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was just a little bootcamp.
Speaker 1:She was coming back from having her second baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my, my second born was uh, let's see, about three months old at the time and I was ready to get back, get back in a little shape here. So I joined this boot camp not knowing anybody. So I knew maybe a handful of people in Church Point and I had been married to my husband since 2010. This would have been 2018. So I didn't really know anybody.
Speaker 1:I just wonder, though, what you was doing all that time with no friends in Church Point. I don't know what were you doing.
Speaker 2:I was being a wife, being a mama, I guess. I mean we had a few friends. You know, my husband had a few friends growing up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and y'all have y'all friends in Lake Arthur too. Yes, Like the friends from Lake Arthur.
Speaker 2:Yes, we would do a lot with them we would.
Speaker 1:I take up a lot of your time now. So I mean, so I just don't know. I just don't know what I did before I met you, honestly. Well, anyway, she walks in the gym and I was a grand kill order at the time, okay, and I was me and my friend was talking. We was like she don't even need to be here.
Speaker 2:She don't even need to be here, she's so skinny but then I mean, I was not which you would say but I was very fluffy underneath them clothes and I just you know I just wanted to tone up and get. My idea was to get back in gym shape so that I could go to the gym. Like why do people do that? Like just go go to the gym when you're not in shape?
Speaker 1:So often you know where people are. Like I want to. I need to work out before I go to the gym. No, what does that even mean? And it's probably because of people like me who's gym snobs and judging the people whether or not they should be at the gym. What the heck.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I remember you and our friend Amy, which we like. We're all best friends now. Oh yeah, all best. We're in a group chat and we just anyway.
Speaker 1:And we were never ugly. No, y'all were not ugly, but we were just like. This is what we said about you when we first met you, and now it's like we don't. We can't imagine our lives without each other, Right?
Speaker 2:So we met through the at the gym and I guess we talked I mean friendly a little bit. But then COVID hit 2020, and you was a teacher and so you were out of work and back up a little further than that. I joined Lime Life, a skincare makeup company, and I had a little party at my house and of course it was makeup and margaritas and I went for the margaritas.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you did. No, I lied. I went to visit with everybody, though, you know, because I like to visit and drink, yeah, oh well yeah, free margaritas and a mom's and a night out. Yeah, that was nice, it was nice.
Speaker 2:That was probably my funnest party, but anyway, I only invited my gym friends because that's, I mean, that's the only people I knew from Church, point. So all the gym, all gym friends were all there and you bought some stuff from me and got you hooked on that lime life I got hooked.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I mean it all kind of started. Our social media presence really started with COVID, you know.
Speaker 2:All right, y'all, we're going to take a second to mention one of our sponsors. We got Pizzaville Pizzaville, usa in Church Point. Adam and Haley Duplichan have really just made a fine establishment over there. You can bring your whole family, you can sit inside or outside. There's games for the kids, there's even games for the adults, like on Monday nights.
Speaker 1:And sometimes they have live music. You know it's just, you can bring the whole family and that's what I love about going to PizzaVille, usa it's true, it's true, you don't have to get that babysitter Correct, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:They do bingo every Monday night, and they're giving away some pretty big prizes too, like in in September, some LSU football tickets. Well, what? What I'll talk about Every Tuesday is Bogo pizzas too.
Speaker 1:Buy one, get one pizza. Did you know that? How did I not know this?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but it's true, wasting my life. Y'all make sure to give them a follow on Facebook and TikTok and you can even join their text club to stay up to date on everything they have to offer, all the specials going on and the live events they're going to have going on Pizzaville, usa in Church Point, louisiana. How?
Speaker 1:about. We mention Renewed Vitality.
Speaker 2:Renewed Vitality, y'all. This is one of our sponsors for September. You go ahead with that All right.
Speaker 1:Renewed Vitality in Lafayette offers a personalized, holistic approach to your health and wellness, offering services from primary care to hormone replacement therapy and advanced functional lab testing. You can be on your way to optimal health. Naturally book an appointment online with them through facebook and instagram. Renewed vitality revitalize your health and reclaim your life.
Speaker 2:I love that I love that too, and I love that she's a more natural, holistic way of yeah, for it's for women and men, isn't it? It's for anybody, huh, specializing in women.
Speaker 1:I know specialized in women's health and hormone hormone therapy, all right so how we got started on social media, that's an interesting story.
Speaker 2:So let me back up one step. Go for it. Okay, covid hit. You were a teacher, you were not working, you were using all the limelight and I remember offering this to you like you should just join and do this business with me. And what you thought.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing of it is was I really was still working because they made us teach virtually.
Speaker 1:And that was horrible and I was like you know what I'm going to make this fun? And so I got in front of the camera for my students and I really had some fun with that, you know, even though it was such a horrible time and I absolutely did not love that. But when she asked me to join Lime Life, I was like you are crazy, I cannot do that. And then I talked to my husband about it was it was barely anything to join and get your kit and kind of invest whatever. And so I did. And the next day I was buying a bunch of stuff to make parties and samples and all the things.
Speaker 2:I was like I guess I'm really doing this. Well, you remember our first social media post together. I had taken my Subaru Stop. Yes, oh my God, it was so good, I said she done, jumped on the glam wagon.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I took my Subaru, we opened up the back hatch and I printed out a Lime Life logo. And I taped it to the window on a piece of paper taped it to the window and I took a video of you running in the back and like jumping in the back of my Subaru. That was so funny and I said she jumped on the glam wagon that was.
Speaker 1:We had so many people laughing and we did it like a, a boomerang, so you were like running in, running out yes, jumping out, it was so good.
Speaker 2:And when?
Speaker 1:she, when she sees it every year, she always reposts it, or you? Know, it's so like a time hop or whatever it's so funny it's so funny because from then on we have been making silly videos together. They used to just be longer and they were always about what we were trying to yeah you know, sell products that we'd have a mosquito bite.
Speaker 1:When we did, uh, what you could put on your mosquito bite, it was like we have and we used. You remember that tiger tiger king when I did it and I was, uh, carol baskin and I was like it was with me or by yourself.
Speaker 2:It was by myself and I don't remember that oh girl, it was so silly and like.
Speaker 1:When I look back at it I'm like oh my god, we use snapchat filters.
Speaker 2:We would use snapchat filters to make ourselves look crazy and we'd go back and forth. And in case you was wondering, how did we get where we are right now, well, it started with silly videos about limelight products it did and a lot of people probably think, oh, now that she's got a little following, she's gonna start trying to sell this.
Speaker 1:But honestly, it was limelight that started all this. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's hard for us to talk about how we started, without mentioning that, because we bonded over it and we did and like now. I mean, we run our businesses, we run our teams together and it's so much fun. It's so much fun, but let me ask, ask you this Okay, what for you in your mind was like it sealed the deal on our friendship? I have something in mind and I want you to think of something you don't have nothing Like.
Speaker 2:When you look back and you, like I, knew we were going to be friends for life.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have so many of them that I don't want to mention, but I guess it was just I don't know Whenever, whenever we, when we made those videos and we would one was just as funny as the other, and we laughed so hard.
Speaker 2:We would laugh so hard, it's true.
Speaker 1:Well, what is your specific one?
Speaker 2:I can't wait to hear our Hanson concert. How could I forget? That was our first excursion big trip. As friends me and Sarah and her sister Lainey we went to New Orleans to see Hanson. And first of all we didn't even know each other, was Hanson fans, but back in our childhood they were the deal, the big deal, and we loved them so much. And when I found out you were a Hanson fan I said this is my soul sister right here. We had to.
Speaker 1:We had to, we had to go together and it was like I don't think, I don't think we had we started. We had just started in limelight together.
Speaker 2:If anything, it would I don't know if you had started yet. It was before COVID, it was before okay.
Speaker 1:So we really we really didn't know each other that well, but we liked you so much that me and my sister were like, come on, we have to invite COVID. She loves Hanson and her friend that you had asked didn't go.
Speaker 2:We didn't want to come. So I mean I was so happy that y'all had asked me. I can still remember I was leaving the gym and y'all pulled up and rolled the window down and I was like, oh, what, like, what do they want? That's so funny.
Speaker 1:And when you said, why don't you come to Hanson with us? I was like, for real, you have to make that happen. Yes, but you had already been to a Hanson concert when I was 12 years old. I never saw Hanson until I was a grown-ass woman. So it was like I we me and my sister had gone by ourselves to New Orleans, and then we went the second time with you, and that was so fun.
Speaker 2:It just sealed the deal for me. That is it. Was it? Yeah, that was the best trip. That was fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, y'all but then the big thing that started cajun mamas was we went to palooza and we made a video.
Speaker 2:I made a video about when you travel when you're from louisiana and you travel and none of the food tastes good. It's like nothing seasoned. Yeah, that was your big video.
Speaker 1:And that started going viral on TikTok and honestly, yo, I never really would post on TikTok. It was just I took a shot in the dark and then all of a sudden it blew up overnight, and then I was like I checked my TikTok I was like I got like 10,000 more followers. I kept kind of updating her. I'm like this is insane. And then I didn't even have one. Then she didn't have a TikTok, she didn't want one, I'm not, and was like I'm never getting one. I said, oh you, this is going well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if this is going well, I said so, you're going to drag. You said, you coming with me, I'm going to drag you down with me. You did say that and we started making videos together one day, and then you passed me up in followers.
Speaker 1:Oh well, still on TikTok. She's got more followers than me. Come on, tiktok.
Speaker 2:The number of followers. That don't mean it's a lot of views.
Speaker 1:Honestly it really doesn't, and together like we, just we ran with it and we still running with it we do I know we riding this as long as it's there. The blessings, the blessings that keep coming from it. That's right. So that's how it all started.
Speaker 2:Y'all, that's it. Let's take a second and mention one of our sponsors for September. Y'all, it's Pizzaville USA. They got a Pizzaville pizza ville in church point, and y'all, let me tell you, everything we've had there has been delicious. They got food, they got pizzas, they got hamburgers, muffaladas, salads it's not just wings all the wings, that's right. And it's a good, family friendly atmosphere. You can bring your kids. They have a little game room even for the kids to play games in. So bring your quarters and your dollars. That's right. That's right, and every cajun I know of will appreciate this fact. They got the coldest beer you're ever going to put to your lips over there and the frostiest mugs.
Speaker 1:They'll keep bringing them to you as long as you're buying beer, baby, c'est bon.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm talking about. So visit PizzaVille USA in Church Point, louisiana. You can also follow them on Facebook and TikTok and they have a little calendar where it tells you, like, what kind of events they're going to have during the week and stuff. They always have a little fun things happening over there.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am, all right, I feel like we have really introduced ourselves to the max. Yes, we did not even mention our husbands or our kids, so we're going to have to do that on the next one that will have to be the next episode.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about our families a little bit more.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:For all those who always, often, ask how did y'all meet? Have y'all been friends your whole lives? There you go Now. You have your answer now.
Speaker 1:There you go. Well, with the end of our very first episode, we're going to go ahead and mention our big Grand Café sponsor. It is the Pink Paisley in Lafayette on Arnold Boulevard. They have your favorite candles, jewelry, bath and body products, home decor and more.
Speaker 2:I love their little printed shirts they have. Yeah, in fact, the shirt you're wearing right now has a pretty magnolia on it that comes from the Pink Paisley. They have a lot of cute graphic T-shirts, even little pajamas, something for all ages, Kids too. Kids clothing too, yeah babies for all ages.
Speaker 1:Kids too, kids clothing too. Yeah, babies, they got stuff for all ages. There's a whole kids toy section.
Speaker 2:My girls just love going browsing there.
Speaker 1:So you can bring the kids.
Speaker 2:I was going to say bring the kids and you say don't bring the kids.
Speaker 1:Bring the kids because they really do love to see all the things that they have to offer. Offer Author.
Speaker 2:Or offer too. Okay, pink Pais paisley yes, you can visit them at arnold boulevard in lafayette, louisiana, or shop at the pinkpaisleycom. They have great service there too. We just love everyone we go over there and they treat you like family. They do yeah, and for all the men listening, if y'all don't know what to get y'all significant others, y'all go to the pink paisley becauseley, because they have, they're gonna set you up. They will. They're gonna ask questions and find out what your little wifey might like.
Speaker 2:And they're gonna gift wrap it for you for free, that's right, so don't even worry about it. So y'all go hit up the Pink Paisley.
Speaker 1:Thank y'all so much for listening and we'll see y'all.