Christmas Town at Busch Gardens Tampa

My family and I visited Busch Gardens Christmas Town on this year's opening day, November 28th.  My boys were thrilled that their oldest brother and his son joined us for the day at Busch Gardens.

After parking and riding the tram to the park's front entrance, we were greeted by playful elves and stacks of huge ornaments.  I noticed lights and garland decorated the ticket booths and awnings.

Christmas Town transformed Busch Gardens Tampa into a holiday wonderland.  I hadn't realized that the entire park was Christmas Town (instead of a small area within the park). We found lights, carols and tasty treats of the season.  All of the shows were reformatted to have a Christmas theme. Even the park map was replaced with a Busch Gardens Christmas Town map.

Thousands of twinkling lights surrounded many of the Busch Gardens' trees.  Holiday characters, like snowmen, spread cheer throughout the park.  Enormous Christmas trees decorated seasonally named areas like Three Kings Oasis and Christmas Time Terrace.  I loved the organic nativity scene, made of plants and straw.

A 50-foot tree light show that came to life every ten minutes

The sign reads "The tradition of Christmas lights comes from early Christians who displayed lit candles to represent that Jesus is the light and hope of the world".

Live band in Holiday Hills

I was excited to board the Christmas Town Express sing-a-long train!  I sang along to my favorite holiday songs until I had tortured my 10 year old enough (he was lucky enough to sit next to me).

Christmas Town Village was the perfect spot to buy gifts or yummy holiday treats like warm cookies, hot chocolate, or waffles.  My boys enjoyed watching the electric trains go around and around.  The younger kids could go for a ride on the Jingle Bell Express next to the electric trains.

Our entire family had a wonderful day visiting Busch Gardens Christmas Town.  Dylan even wanted a Santa hat tiger to remember the day (his words as he talked me into buying him a souvenir).

Busch Gardens Christmas Town is open 23 select dates from Nov. 28 through Dec. 31, 2014. You may experience all of the Christmas celebrations throughout the day with your park admission.  Park closing times range from 8pm to 9pm throughout the event.

Disclaimer: I was given 4 tickets to Busch Gardens as a Busch Gardens Ambassador.  All opinions are my own.

Sweet Potato Casserole

I love Sweet Potato Casserole at Thanksgiving, Christmas or any holiday meal.  The crunchy top layer of pecans and warm brown sugar pair perfectly with the sweet creamy potatoes below.  Sweet Potato Casserole is a family favorite at holiday gatherings and goes well with turkey or ham.  I even love this dish as a leftover!

Sweet Potato Casserole Ingredients: 3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed 2 eggs, beaten 1/2 cup white sugar 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 cup milk 3 Tbsp butter, melted 1 tsp vanilla 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup flour 3 Tbsp butter, diced 1 cup chopped pecans Directions: Put cubed sweet potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Boil until tender, about 15-20 minutes. Drain and mash.  Allow to cool slightly before continuing Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine sweet potatoes, eggs, white sugar, salt, milk, 3 Tbsp melted butter, and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined (I used an electric hand mixer).   Place mixture in an 8x8 baking dish. In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar, flour, and chopped pecans.  Add remaining 3 Tbsp butter and rub into mixture until only small pieces remain.  Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, until nicely browned on top. Recipe by Chrissy @ Loving Life http://lovinglife27.blogspot.com/2014/01/sweet-potato-casserole.html

Original recipe found here.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring The Rockettes Review

This show was amazing!  I've always wanted to see the Rockettes perform live on stage.  They were everything I imagined and more in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular.  I think my love of the Rockettes started with the 1982 movie Annie when she, Daddy Warbucks and Grace visited a show at Radio City.

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular started off with the dancers in adorable reindeer costumes. I must say, all of the show's costumes were absolutely incredible.  Santa's reindeer danced to "Sleigh Ride" in this opening scene.

Santa introduced "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by lifting the curtain just high enough to see the Rockettes' famous legs.  The audience got quite a kick out of that move.  With the curtain up and out of the way, the Rockettes tapped out the twelve days of Christmas with a different dance movement to signify each day.

The Nutcracker scene was performed by dancing animals or rather dancers in full clown, teddy bear, ragdoll, and mice costumes.  It was unique.

"Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" was my favorite scene! The dancers were in complete synchronicity as they marched, turned and fell after a cannon's boom.  Their billowy hat feathers shook with every meticulous, straight-legged step. Such precision! 

 

In "New York at Christmas", the Rockettes boarded a life size double-decker tour bus, taking the audience on a guided tour through the streets of New York City, including Central Park and Time Square. The bus and background moved enabling the audience to feel as if we were actually in New York City sight seeing with the Rockettes.

 

I also very much enjoyed "The Living Nativity" scene.  It featured some of my favorite Christmas songs while telling the beautiful story of the first Christmas using pageantry, music and scripture.

"Let Christmas Shine" featured the Rockettes and the entire company with a touching message of hope and love for the Christmas season.  The Rockettes performed their signature kick line with head-high kicks.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Radio City Christmas Spectacular performance. It was a fantastic show suitable for the entire family.  Even my 12 year old son said he'd go see the show!

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring The Rockettes is performing at the Straz Center in Tampa, December 12-29.

For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Straz Center online.

Disclosure: I was given two tickets to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own.

The Great White North

This Christmas we visited DH's family in Buffalo, NY. I grew up in Florida, not seeing snow until I was in college.  So for me, it's a treat to see and play in the snow.  Of course it's bitter cold and I would never want to live up north but I enjoy the snow for the week we are there.  My boys love playing in the snow too!  It's such a change from Florida.

It was great to see family, play euchre and relax.  I brought my running clothes and planned on running some miles on my sister-in-law's treadmill but it was packed away in the basement.  I had no desire to run out in the frigid cold on icy, rural roads.  Besides, I brought cute running skirts and tanks...nothing appropriate for 30 degree weather.

When we go on vacation, I like to see the sights and go on adventures.  A visit to Niagara Falls was a must for this trip.  I think the falls are beautiful, amazing, majestic and we go see them almost every time we are in Buffalo but this was the first time our boys got to see them from the Canadian side (and visit another country).  As we made our way to Niagara Falls, instead of listening to our GPS, we saw a sign for Canada and jumped on the interstate.  Well this interstate did not lead to the Peace Bridge right at Niagara Falls but into some northern part of Canada.  As soon as we crossed the border, the GPS was useless and our cell phones were roaming with astronomical data charges.  We were headed north with no option to go south.  By now the boys were whining, DH was aggravated and wished we'd stayed in NY.  It was touch and go for awhile but we finally got turned around and headed south towards the falls.

Finally, we reached the falls, parked and walked to see one of the great, natural wonders of the world.

 

 

My boys LOVED these ice trees.  As they were posing for this picture, the branches on the tree next to them fell to the ground with a loud crash.  Time to get out from under the pretty deadly trees boys!!

 

 

Oh, icicles....how we love thee!

My family had a fantastic time at the falls even with our rough start.  We were all glad we decided to see Niagara Falls.  Another successful vacation.  Until next time Buffalo!

Advent Calendar

December is here! In preparation for Christmas we use an advent calendar....or two.

One calendar contains little doors for each day. I put a note in each door that tells the boys what activity we'll be doing that day. Our other calendar is the Playmobil lego-like type. Each day they open a box of lego-like pieces to create an entire scene by the end of the month.



Dec 1 - Eat dinner at Chick-fil-a and enjoy their Christmas lights and snow

Thanks for the pics Kelly!

Christmas in Buffalo, NY

Being a FL girl, I do enjoy visiting the snow. I'm prepared with warm jackets, hats, gloves, snow boots, etc. and usually end up hot under all the layers. Here's the only snow fall while we were there.

Having never grown up with snow, I love playing in it! Fortunately, so do our boys! We visited Jodi & Bobby's new place on Christmas Day.






Bobby bulldozed through some earth to create a great sledding hill (it was done before we got there). I was ecstatic that the new house was just as much fun as the old.

Chrissy & Jared

Mike & Jared

Dylan with his sheet of ice

Tubing here we come! This was the first year the boys were old enough to go tubing on their own. Jared dove right in and loved it! Dylan needed to spend some time on the bunny slopes first but eventually made it to the big hills. I'm so proud of both of them!









Down came the rain and washed the snow away. On Saturday, it warmed up to a FL winter. We got a full day of rain. The snow pretty much melted where we were staying. I wanted to go to Niagara Falls that day. But we postponed the visit for Sunday. Mike wouldn't be joining us because he had tickets to the Bills game.


On Sunday came the hurricane force winds! It didn't seem that bad at the house so we braved the falls anyway. Whoa! The winds were 10x worse at the falls! I was afraid Dylan would be blown away.

Us in front of the Horseshoe Falls

Brett & Jen in front of the American Falls

What a terrific trip! A bit long but still enjoyable. Our pets at home were starved for our attention. We were all glad to be back in sunny FL.