All Aboard: Making Memories on a Train

(re-post first published in 2016)

It's not too often you get to take your kids on a train ride in Florida.

For past few years, I have heard from friends about the wonderful holiday-themed North Pole Express train rides offered at the Florida Railroad Museum in Parrish, Florida, but it sells out very fast. This year was no exception, but when looking at the Polar Express, I saw they also offered another excursion called the old fashioned Hobo Campfire Cookout. 

It was very similar to the North Pole Express including the 6.5 mile train ride to a location they call Willow Yard, but this excursion included campfires along with a dinner of  hot dogs, marshmallows, lemonade. They even had a folk band!  

I was able to purchase tickets online, so we went the end of January. If you are wondering where Parrish is, it's about 35 miles south of Tampa. It's really not too far of a drive.

When we got to the museum, the locomotives were ready to go. That afternoon was one of the colder days of winter especially for us Floridians, but good weather for a campfire. 

My girls ages 10 and 11, loved it because we had our choice of railroad cars we could ride in. Some were open air while others were closed with heat. We chose the train with heat. My parents, who also went with us and loved it because it brought back memories of riding the train when they were younger.

Easy and healthy meals delivered to your door

Fresh ingredients delivered to our front door 

I don't know about you, but every night it is a hassle to think about what to cook the family for dinner. I work from home, have two young kids and I am busy running my girls to extracurricular activities after school, so making a healthy meal sometimes gets put on the back burner.

I have been trying to get my meals for the week on Sunday and make them ahead of time or find simple recipes for the crock pot. It's hard because when I go to the grocery store with some of my new recipes, sometimes I don't know what some of the ingredients even are that I am trying to find. It can get frustrating. I also overbuy the amount of food I need and end up wasting food sometimes.

HelloFresh box with 3 meals

I have seen advertisements for meals that get delivered to your home by a company called HelloFresh and decided to try it out. How could I resist with a $40 off coupon? I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't know anyone else who had tried it yet, so I decided I would see how it worked.

The regular cost for a family of four with three ready to make meals including the meats and shipping  is $105. Since I had the $40 coupon, it was $65. This is a service you sign up for and the food can get delivered weekly, monthly or whatever you want and on the day you want it delivered. It works out to be about $8.75 per person per meal if you buy for a family of four three meals a week without any discounts. With the $40 off the fist box it ended up being $5.41 per person per person per meal. You can also buy the meals for a                                                           family of two. 

Here are the boxes each meal came in
plus the meats 

I had it delivered on Monday, so we could have the meals during the week. I couldn't wait for the package, because I was excited to have healthy meals at my fingertips. When the box arrived, I was very impressed. Each meal had it's own separate box labeled with the ingredients inside. The meats were separate. The package also included a card with each recipe including photos. I love photos because then I know what to do and what it should look like when finished.

Randi last year
learning how to cook at
All Children's Fit4Allkids

Last year my 11-year-old daughter Randi, took the AllChildren's Fit4Allkids cooking classes and learned the basics for cooking. I decided this might be fun for her to do since she loves to cook. We tried it out and she did great. I helped her a little and oversaw the process, but overall she was able to make the meals on her own. It was an experience for her and the whole family benefited from the wonderful healthy meals. Randi made sausage and broccolini orecchiette with pesto and apricot-glazed chicken. These two meals were scrumptious. The cook time was suppose to be 30 minutes. It took Randi about an hour. I think as we make more meals we will get faster.

Randi cooked this
sausage and broccolini orecchiette with
pesto

I will say the portions were also really good. The sausage meal gave us leftovers for another day. I think it tasted even better the second day.

Loved Randi's presentation of
apricot-glazed chicken

I decied to try my cooking skills and
made the Lemongrass beef stir-fry

Overall, this was a pleasant surprise to my cooking dilemma. I have everything delivered right to my door and it's fresh. I don't have to look for ingredients at the store and I don't waste food. It's awesome! The meals are so simple, even my 11-year-old can cook them, and it's a great way to share the cooking experience.

I also found, I can share a special code with friends and they get $40 of their first box and I can get $20 off my next box. You can also send up to four friends a free meal after you get your first two orders. I thought that was pretty good too. Here's the code to start today and get $40 off your first box. Got to HelloFresh and enter this code X7TYB3.

Cooking fresh and healthy meals just got easier

HelloFresh came right to the door with ingredients and recipes

I don't know about you, but every night it is a hassle to think about what to cook the family for dinner. I work from home, have two young kids and I am busy running my girls to extracurricular activities after school, so making a healthy meal sometimes gets put on the back burner.

I have been trying to get my meals for the week planned out on Sunday and make them ahead of time, but that doesn't happen too often. What frustrates me is sometimes is trying to find the ingredients for some of the recipes. I also overbuy the amount of food I need and end up sometimes wasting food.

I have seen advertisements for meals that get delivered to your home are already prepared and some you make. I decided to try out a company called HelloFresh. They deliver all the ingredients for healthy meals to your door and you prepare them. I also a coupon for the company, so why not try it out. 

Randi at All Children's Fit4Allkids
cooking classes

Last year my 11-year-old daughter Randi, took the AllChildren's Fit4Allkids cooking classes and learned the basics for cooking. I decided this might be fun for her to do since she loves to cook.

You get to pick how many meals you want for the week and the day you want the food delivered, so I chose three meals and a Monday delivery, so we could have the meals during the week. I couldn't wait for the package, because I was excited to have healthy meals at my fingertips. When the box arrived, I was very impressed. Each meal had it's own separate box labeled with the ingredients inside. The meats were separate. The package also included a card with each recipe including photos. This made it easy for Randi since everything was laid out and she could follow along with the photos and now what the meal should look like when she finished.

Randi made the first recipe, which was sausage and broccolini orecchiette with pesto. She washed all the vegetables, cut them up, boiled water and cooked the vegetable and sausage. I helped her a little with the pasta, but other than that she did everything. The whole meal took about an hour. The card said 25 minutes, but since we were doing this the first time it took us a little longer.

Randi's apricot-glazed chicken

What was impressive to me and my husband was her presentation of the meal on the plate. It looked just liked the photos. And it tasted fabulous.  Even my other daughter, Graci age 10 who is a little picky when it comes to food, liked it.

She was so happy how everything turned out and so proud of what she accomplished, she couldn't wait to cook the next day.  The next meal was apricot-glazed chicken. This meal was even better and her presentation on this one was outstanding.

I enjoyed helping oversee the process, but overall she was able to make the meals on her own. I look back at the wonderful impact the All Children's Fit4Allkids family cooking classes had on Randi and am thankful for it. What's amazing is it is the classes are free and offered to kids throughout Pinellas County. Click here to enroll for a free class or call 727.898.7451. 

Overall, this was a pleasant surprise to my cooking dilemma. I have everything delivered right to my door and it's fresh. I don't have to look for ingredients at the store and I don't waste food. It's awesome! I found something my 11-year-old can cook, and it is a great way to learn and share the cooking experience. The whole family benefited from these wonderful healthy meals.

If you would like to receive $40 off your first order of HelloFresh put in the code X7TYB3.

***I did the math and the regular cost for a family of four with three ready to make meals including the meats and shipping  is $105. Since I had the $40 coupon, it was $65. This is a service you sign up for and the food can get delivered weekly, monthly or whatever you want and on the day you want it delivered.  It works out to be about $8.75 per person per meal if you buy for a family of four three meals a week without any discounts. With the $40 off the fist box it ended up being $5.41 per person per person per meal. You can also do for a family of two.

Click here for my previous story about All Children's Fit4Allkids.  

Family fun at minor league baseball games

Looking for something to do with the family that is fun and won't cost you a lot of
money? Recently my family went to a Clearwater Threshers Baseball game on Friday
night and paid $32 for tickets which included four fantastic field box ticket, four shirts,
four sodas, four bags of chips and four hot dogs. There was also a post-game country
concert included the night we went. You really can't beat that for a night out.

This deal is every Friday night home game during the season. It's called the Tampa Bay
Times Family Pack. You do need a coupon and can find it in the Tampa Bay Times
Newspaper.

We went with a group of 18 people and had a great time cheering on the Threshers team.
The Threshers are the minor league team for the Philadelphia Phillies. We are so fortunate to have not only the Clearwater Threshers, but several minor league teams right
here in the Bay area including: the Dunedin Blue Jays and the Tampa Yankees. We've
been to each team it's stadium and have a blast.

What my kids love with the minor league teams is being able to get autographs from the players after the game! They also like the contests during the innings throughout the
game. There are races on the field, shirts thrown into the stands and lots of other crowd
interaction.

Minor league teams are great because the teams do all sorts of promotions throughout the
week to get you to their games and the tickets are very reasonable. Most ticket prices around $8 for adults and $6 for kids and seniors. A lot of the minor league teams even have a day when kids get in free to the game and some have fireworks after the game. The Threshers have fireworks every Saturday night home game.

Check online to see what kind of promotions each team is running. If your kids are on
little league teams and you want them to have the opportunity to take the field with the
pros, call the team. It's a great experience and one your kids will remember. My girls
have done this the past two years with their teams and it is a great memory.

What's nice is there are a lot of games and the games will run all summer long. Most
teams play until first week of September. No matter what age your kids are, it's a great
time for the whole family!

Seminole Elementary School Centennial Celebration May 2, 2015

Seminole Elementary School is gearing up for their Centennial Celebration coming up on Saturday, May 2, 2015. In preparation of the big event, the Pinellas County School Board has been renovating the 100 year old building by putting a new roof on the building and restoring the inside with new walls, ceiling, fans and windows. The total cost of the renovations is more than $275,000. The school is also getting a new electronic billboard and a new historical marquee near the Centennial Building.

The Centennial Celebration will take place at the school, 10950 74th Avenue N. The event will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a ceremony at 1 p.m. with several of the former principals of the school including: Ernest Pierce, John Wuertz, Elaine Cutler and Bonnie Cangelosi. There will also be several dignitaries including Representative Larry Ahern and proclamations from Seminole Mayor Leslie Waters and Pinellas County Commissioner Janet Long. 

 The day will be full of food, music, entertainment and activities for the kids including bounce houses, face painting and more.  There will also be tours of the historical Centennial Building. You will also be able to purchase bricks and Centennial shirts the day of the event.
The school invites the community to come out and celebrate 100 years of excellence at Seminole Elementary School. 

Seminole Elementary would like to extend a special thank you to our sponsors including: City of Seminole, Pinellas County School Board, Seminole Elementary PTA, Kiwanis Club of Seminole, Tampa Bay Newspapers Seminole Beacon, Gamble’s Carriage Cleaners, Trust Business Services, Seminole Garden Florist, Seminole Nurseries, McDonalds, Mathnasium of Largo, Seminole Lanes, Campbell’s Tutorial, Law Offices of DeLoach & Hofstra, P.A., All Children’s Guild-Seminole Largo, Whitman Family Foundation, Dr. Mary Jo Allman Brubaker, The R Club, Lunch Bunch, Seminole Chamber of Commerce, Seminole Rotary Club, VFW Post 9272, Sandy Hartmann-Keller Williams and Representative Larry Ahern. 

Date: Saturday, May 2, 2015
Time: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. special ceremony at 1 p.m.
Location: Seminole Elementary School, 10950 74th Ave. N. Seminole, FL 33772
For more information and photos of the renovations: Log onto www.Facebook.com/SeminoleElementary 

Summer Fun on a Budget for Kids

What’s on your list of things to do this summer with the kids? I know a lot of kids go to camps during the summer, but what about the days the kids aren’t at camp?

I found some fun things for you to do with your kids that are either free or priced pretty reasonable.

If your kids like to bowl, you can register them for two free games of bowling a day all summer long. Yes, a day. This is part of the Kids Bowl Free Program. Bowling centers around the country participate in this.   Several new local bowling alleys are participating this year. Locally Liberty Lanes, Ten Pin Lanes, Countryside Lanes, Dunedin Lanes, Seminole Lanes and Sunrise Lanes participate.  You register online and print out tickets each week. I have registered my girls the past several years for this and they love it. The only thing you have to pay for are the bowling shoes, but if you have them than it is totally free. The website to register  click here  

I know my kids love the movies and recently the movie theatre we go to put in all new recliner seats. They are pretty awesome! Regal Cinema’s Largo Mall 8 and Park Place Stadium 16 offer movies for kids during the summer for $1. You can’t beat the price. There are some really good movies this summer. This summer starting June 9 you can see on the big screen, Annie, Dolphin Tale 2, Madagascar 3, Paddington, The Lego Movie, Alexander and the Very Bad Day just to name a few. The movies are G and PG rated and are offered on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 10am. To find out the movie dates and times at the theater nearest you click here. 

If you want to go to the movies on Friday and Saturday nights for free, Pier 60 in Clearwater offers fun family movies all year long. The movies begin at dusk. For a list of the movies click here  and click on Sunset Cinema.

Your kids can also go to a Tampa Bay Rays game for free over the summer if you have them read. The Rays Sponsor a reading program called Reading with the Rays. It starts on June 8. You need to go to your local library to get a score card to write down all the books your child reads during the summer. If they complete 24 hours of reading, they can get a free ticket to a Rays game. Both of my girls enjoy reading and love going to the Rays games, so this is extra incentive to read over the summer.  You can find out more by logging on here.  

If your kids like the water, the beach is a great place to take them. We are so fortunate that we live so close to the beautiful water. Take advantage of the beach over the summer. Check out your city’s recreation department too this summer. Most of the cities in Pinellas have aquatic centers with water parks and pools. The price to go for a few hours is usually a few dollars per child. One of my kids favorite places is Largo's Highland Family Aquatic Center, 400 Highland Avenue, Largo. They kick off their season on May 9 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. They have a 214 foot corkscrew water slide, 3-story speed slide and water area for little kids. It's a lot of fun and reasonably priced. If you have a Largo recreation card it is $12 for a family of five and without a recreation card it's $23 for a family of five.

I enjoy having my kids home during the summer, but I have to have some activities for them to do outside of  the house or they get bored. I also don't want to spend a fortune keeping them entertained. I hope some of these ideas help you kick off your summer.

More than just a day at the zoo

As I watched my two little girls ages 8 and 9 circling around on the Jungle Carousel at the Lowry Park Zoo, I had a thought, “Can a day get any better than this?”

It was such an indescribable feeling, sitting there watching my daughters have fun and not worrying about anything else. The girls were so excited when I said we were going to go to Lowry Park Zoo. They couldn’t wait because they hadn’t been in years and loved seeing all of the animals.

I couldn’t wait because it brought back memories of me taking them when they were younger. It reminded me of days when we could just get in the van and go on a whim. This was before we had restrictions like school and work.

Since the girls had been babies two of my favorite places to go for a day trip were Lowry Park Zoo and Busch Gardens. I think the reason we liked these two attractions was because we love animals and because we could travel there in less than an hour.

 I love going to the zoo, because you don’t have to pay to park and the admission price is reasonable. Since the last time we went, they even included most of the rides for free and in the past you had to pay for each ride.

We would go to Busch Gardens because they had a preschool pass program where kids could get in free until they were five years old.

I loved walking them in their stroller. It was great exercise! As they got older they would walk. Now they run!

 It just brought back so many wonderful memories. Not only memories of the zoo itself, but the people we went with us to the zoo. While we were driving there, we thought about all the different people who went with us including grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends.

I realized so many times, as parents we get caught up in our everyday lives. I know I do. Even at the zoo my phone went off with a text from work. Of course when I got it, I started texting back, but you’ll never guess what happened? My battery that was charged just died. The phone just stopped working. I couldn’t text back.

I knew it was a sign and that I needed to not be thinking about work and re-focus back on why I was there.

We need to take time and have quality time with our kids. I needed to do this without distractions. My kids missed that and I did too. I probably missed it more than them.

My kids and I had a blast. The weather was one of Florida’s gorgeous sunny days, but not too hot, just right in temperature. Even though the parking lot was full, the zoo wasn’t crowded. We were able to see everything we wanted to see and not have to wait too long for anything. The only ride we waited more than 20 minutes was the Expedition Africa Guided Safaris, which is an 18 minute tour of the animals on a trolley. The other rides, like the Jungle Carousel and the Tasmanian Tiger Family Roller Coaster the waits were minimal. The fun part was going on these rides with the girls. Yes, I even went on the roller coaster and I am not one for roller coasters.

I asked my girls what the best part of the day was and they said they couldn’t pick just one part. They said everything was great! I had to agree. For me this day refreshed and revitalized me as a mom and built on the good memories I have with my daughters.

Free Bowling For Kids

This summer your kids can bowl for free 2 games a day! My kids have done it the past couple of years and it is great fun! Click here to register and all summer long you will receive your free passes for bowling by email.  Bowling Lanes across the United States participate in this so log on to find out which ones are offering this in your area.

How to do it.:

1- Go to the website above to register each child
2- Receive the free bowling passes every week by email
3- Go bowling all summer long

Sounds easy and it is!!!

If you live in Pinellas County the lanes you can bowl for free at are:
Twedt's Bowling Center in Largo 727-581-4102
Ten Pin Lanes in St. Pete 727-381-1010

Corn Maze and Pumpkins Ready at Sweetfields Farm

(This is a previous post during the sunflower maze back in June. Now the corn maze and pumpkins are in season. They are open now until November 3 & 4th on the weekends from 10am-5pm. Click on Sweetfields Farm to find out more information.)



Lisa Kessel of
Sweetfields Farm

What a great time we had on Ted and Lisa Kessel's Sweetfields Farm at the Sunflower Maze. We took our family for an adventure on the farm. It was a full day of fun. The farm is about 30 minutes north of Tampa in Masaryktown. The sunflowers were beautiful about 10-12 feet high covering about five acres of land.

This is the last weekend it is open June 2 and June 3. It may be open one more weekend depending how how good the sunflowers look.

You will want to get there early before it starts to get hot. We got there around 10am and it was perfect weather. It is open from 10am to 5pm.

There is a lot to do. We started off with the storyteller.

He was fantastic!

We watched the pig races. Yes, real live pigs racing around the pen. Their names were Peanut, Butter and Jelly. I won’t tell you who won!

We did the sunflower maze. It took us about an hour to do because we got lost at the end of it. It really only takes about 15-20 minutes if you get it right. It was fun even though we got lost.

We fed the cows. We bought the homemade organic lemonade to refresh ourselves. You can bring your own picnic lunch or you can buy lunch there. There are plenty of picnic benches.

We decided to take the hayride around the farm. We also had the girl's faces painted. This was $5 for both of them. The lady did a great job.

There are a few swings and a beautiful wood playhouse for the kids to climb on.

There is also a place where you can paint sunflower pots and stones. The painting will cost you between $3 -$5. You can also plant your own sunflower seed in a rolled up newspaper. This was free to do.

After all of this, we decide to go and pick some organic vegetables for dinner. Let me tell you, I have never seen such huge vegetables. The girls loved doing this. It was a lot of fun.

The vegetables were a dollar a piece. Well worth it!

Our day was so relaxing and calm. It was just a great way to spend time with the family outdoors. What a beautiful farm! We can’t wait to go in October for the corn maze!

For more information click here for Sweetfields Farm

The cost is $8.50 per adult (over 12) and $4.50 for kids (3-11years old). Under 2 free

The price includes almost everything except for the food and the painting.
Everything is weather permitting.

Address: 17250 Benes Roush Road, Masaryktown, FL 34604

Phone: 352-279-0977

Inexpensive Fun Family Day Trip Adventures

The summer is a great time to have family adventures. My family and I went on two recent day trips that were very memorable.

The first adventure was to Caladesi Island State Park. It is located just west of the Dunedin Causeway and you can only get there by boat.  We decided to rent a boat on Indian Rocks Beach (Island Marine Rentals) for the day and travel up the intracoastal. The boat ride was fabulous. Our girls were so excited to be on the boat, and it was a gorgeous sunny day. We were able to see dolphins and enjoy the scenery along the waterways.

We docked the boat at Caladesi Island marina.  We got there right around lunchtime, so we at ate our packed lunch at the picnic area. On the top of our girls list was to find “pretty” shells. We strolled up and down the beach and found very “pretty” shells.

We discovered not only can you walk the beach and just relax, but there are trails you can follow that have a variety of plant and animals along it.  We were lucky and saw gopher tortoises that were nesting. If you prefer kayaking, there are kayaks you can rent and enjoy and 3-mile mangrove kayak trail.  There’s also a park for the kids.  So there’s a lot to do on island or you can just relax and get a tan.

The cost to get on the island was $6 for our family. I would suggest checking out the fees online before you go. If you didn’t have your own boat to take you, you can always take the ferry service from Honeymoon Island State Park.  There is a fee for the ferry service. Click here for a coupon for $1 off the ferry service.)

Our next family adventure was to a farm just north of Tampa called Sweetfields farm.  We travelled there to pick vegetables and to go through a giant sunflower maze.  The maze was incredible. This particular farm has two mazes a year, a sunflower and a corn maze.  Both of the mazes are over right now, but the corn maze will be ready in the fall.

 

You can still enjoy the farm and pick vegetables and berries. This was the girls first time to a farm and their first time picking vegetables.  The vegetables were all organic. They were also very big.

The girls were so excited to pick their own vegetables. We picked squash and zucchini and cucumbers.  Right now in the u-pick fields are blackberries. You can pick your own fruits and vegetables on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The vegetables were delicious and our girls loved eating them because they picked them.

Two family day trips that were fun and ones we are ready to do again!