Earlier this month, I celebrated my friend Adrienne’s birthday in true Adrienne style with an immersive adventure. This time we got ourselves locked up in jail for the Shawshankd cocktail experience. The show is inspired by the movie and was fun and laid back. Our group had a blast because we all embraced the role-playing aspect of the night. The strong drinks were a bonus.
Here are some pictures of the night.
Need to find my next adventure!
For the past few years, I have been building up my holiday traditions, and one of my favorites is having an advent calendar.
This year I got a chocolate one for my parents, my husband, and me.
Since Maxine is all about CoComelon these days, I decided to get her a themed CoComelon calendar. She loves it so far!
I couldn’t forget about my two fur babies, BB and PJ. They are sharing a Fancy Feast calendar.
Who else is using an advent calendar this season? There are so many to choose from these days. Please feel to share your calendar!
Easter was a two-day adventure this year. My family and I dyed and decorated some eggs, had two yummy feasts, creative Easter basket ideas, and egg hunts.
Dying and decorating the eggs was a family affair! My mom was in charge of the dye, but we all pitched in decorating the eggs with stickers.
Saturday night we had our big feast.
I got my daughter a Slumberkins Unicorn basket, and I got my husband and me a little planter that Maxine could also enjoy. She could watch the veggies grow before her eyes. She is still small, but I think she’ll still enjoy it.
Lastly, and my favorite, the egg hunts. I did two, one indoors at my Mom and Dad’s place on Saturday and another outside at my in-laws. Maxine had a blast!
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, but I’ve been celebrating all week.
On Wednesday, I took part in a chocolate-making class with my parents. It was a lot of fun and very hands-on. We learned how to temper chocolate and made jumbo peanut butter cups, pecan turtles, almond bear paws, dipped Oreos, and strawberries. It was messy yet yummy!
On Friday, Andrew, my parents, and I did a Valentine’s Day-themed chocolate tasting. The tasting was packed with chocolate facts and insight on how they make the chocolate. We also tasted five different chocolate pieces, milk chocolate peanut butter heart, milk chocolate sea salt caramel, pecan toffee crisp, dark chocolate truffle, and dark chocolate lemon satin crème heart. Mom loved the peanut butter piece, I loved the dark chocolate truffle, Dad loved the truffle and lemon satin crème, and Andrew loved them all.
Enjoy your love day!!
Halloween this year was pretty amazing. It was just the right amount of activities for the entire family.
As a Halloween/Fall activity, I like to carve or decorate pumpkins. This year I didn’t get around to carving myself but we made it an activity for my husband’s niece and nephew.
I also decorated some pumpkins with some stickers.
The night before Halloween, as a date night, my husband and I did a virtual Halloween Scavenger Hunt with Watson Adventures. It was pretty tough! The hunt had a haunted theme and we visited various websites with some kind of scary involved. What made it tricky was some of the questions involved us navigating links with virtual tours and 360 views that can be difficult to find and figure out on a laptop. Our daughter was also still awake and would not fall asleep. We had the lowest score of the night but it was still fun.
The best part of Halloween was dressing up Maxine. She was the cutest baby leopard. I also had her in pumpkin pjs the night before Halloween.
On Halloween, instead of trick or treating, we did a virtual experience instead, and enjoyed a bubble show from Bubbledad. Maxine had no idea what was going on but it was cute to see all the kids who zoomed in participate in the interactive portion of the show. The kids got to make their own bubbles by using a cardboard tube, straws, and socks.
To cap the night off, I had myself a delicious treat from Pecking House.
Next year, I want to aim to dress up as a family and enjoy trick or treating or attend a party.
I can’t believe it’s already the end of August. This summer just flew by. Date nights are hard to come by these days, with Covid and having an eight-month-old, but Andrew and I recently hit up the Van Gogh experience in the city and then had dinner at DiWine in Astoria.
The Van Gogh experience was mesmerizing. There were three rooms that looped the same material, but each room was different, and I experienced the footage differently each time.
Here are some of my fav pics…
Before we headed home to our lovely baby, we had a fantastic dinner at DiWine. Not only is the restaurant conveniently close to my apartment, but they have great food.
A little taste of the yumminess…
Last week, Andrew and I accompanied my Aunt and Uncle to the Winter Lantern Festival at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden in Staten Island. The holiday light show had over 1000 lanterns of various figures – mostly animals and flowers.
Here are my favs:
It was def. fun as a group. We had a blast.
I didn’t really get to enjoy this past holiday season but I’m making up for it this week before all the bright lights and decorations disappear. One of my favorite things to do is to check out the holiday displays at Macy’s and around 5th Avenue. The creativity really inspires me. Here are my favorites…
I first heard about the show through my boyfriend, Andrew. I got tickets to see Sleep No More in October and he mentioned a couple of interactive shows he heard of that would be great to attend, this show being one of them. I finally got tickets to see it with him and two of my friends, Adrienne and Christine, on a Friday night.
The show is actually inside a pop-up space with the best outdoor bathroom trailer I’ve been to so far :). The atmosphere is very dark, clubbish, with old school paintings everywhere to set the mood and show timeline of Russia in the 1800s. Seating is a combination of bar stools, tables and lounge tables. I paid for bar stools but once we got there, we were given a table, BONUS.
The show is based on the novel War and Peace, which I never read but overall I enjoyed my experience. It was very interactive, the performers dance and sing all around you. Due to our location, we always had a performer near us and we also had a few sit at our table as part of the show. The performers and wait staff also do there best to try to get you to understand who is who. I also like how they modernize the music and how they give you some what of a small summary to follow if you want via the program. It might have been too whimsical for Andrew but the ladies and I enjoyed it.
Here are some pictures:
Program…you’ll need it
Atmospherics
The Ladies
Ghostly paintings
Pricey food snacks
I spent about $134 per ticket. We received some snacks (perogies, bread and pieces of vegetables and olives) but we bought a cheese and charcuterie plate, shrimp cocktail and plenty of drinks. Andrew, I believe, spent around $200 on us ladies. I don’t regret my night trip to Moscow, it was quite entertaining, but I’ll pass on the food and drinks next time.
The Casual Explorer 