Posted in Disney, Travel, tagged beauty and the beast, belle, new fantasyland, Walt Disney World Resort, wordless wednesday on December 19, 2012 | 2 Comments »
You’d think after waiting in line for Belle’s Enchanted Tales at the New Fantasyland at Walt Disney World my girls would have been upset that they weren’t picked to be in the story. But, they were more excited that my husband was. And he kept that castle safe!
Posted in Disney, giveaway, Travel, tagged Cinderella Castle, Fantasyland, General Motors, giveaway, Walt Disney World Resort on December 12, 2012 | 49 Comments »
Last week I attended the Grand Opening of the New Fantasyland at Walt Disney World. I hadn’t been to Walt Disney World in probably 20 years or so. My daughters had never been. I still remember walking through Cinderella Castle the very first time – I was 6 years old – and seeing Fantasyland spread out on either side of me. It’s so vast and unbelievable that first time.
This trip was no less magical, and maybe even more so watching my daughters experience it for the first time.
There are a couple of words that get repeated over and over again when you are at Disney World – wishes, imagination and dreams. At the core of Fantasyland are those ideas that form the foundation of fairy tales. New Fantasyland expands on these themes in dramatic and incredibly engaging ways. The expansion of Dumbo into an entire Circus experience is whimsical and wonderful.
Belle’s Cottage, the Beast’s Castle and the little French village built around the Beauty and the Beast area is truly enchanting. And Ariel’s Under the Sea Ride brings you into that undersea world completely. It feels new in every way – from the technology to the artistic details.
For us, this trip was truly a holiday wish come true, an amazing vacation filled with take our breath away moments – especially the end of the evening castle projection show on Cinderella Castle.
Disney hosted me and my family for this trip, but all starry-eyed opinions are my own.
Now, I feel especially lucky to help grant a wish to one of my lucky readers. I have partnered with General Motors Northeast to pick one reader for their Grant One Wish program who will win a $500 Amex Gift Card and a one week car loan from GM Northeast to help make their holiday wishes come true.
Want to visit family? Drive around to volunteer and do good this season? Take a holiday road trip? What would you do with a fab car for a week and $500? I can’t wait to hear all about it!
Method of entry:
Additional Entries:
Stand Out!
Eligibility: Winner MUST be 21 years or older and live in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut or Washington, D.C. areas. Employees, and their relatives, of GM and Beccarama.com are not allowed to enter. Contest ends on December 17, 2012 at 12:00pm EST. Winner will be chosen at random using random.org. Prize to be provided by GM Northeast.
GM Northeast sponsored this giveaway and I was provided with a car loan in exchange for hosting this contest.
GOOD LUCK!
Posted in life in nyc, Travel, tagged Cinderella Castle, Fantasyland, marriage, Walt Disney World Resort on October 17, 2012 | 7 Comments »
Today is my fourteenth anniversary. My husband and I have been married for 14 years, together for 19 years, and met each other almost 21 years ago. It sounds crazy when I think about it in terms of numbers and actual time.
We stopped buying anniversary gifts for each other years ago. We’d rather spend the money on a shared experience – an amazing dinner or a trip without the kids. And truth be told, gifts are not the strong point of our relationship – except for one that I was reminded of this morning when I was at a Disney Parks event celebrating the opening of the newly redone Fantasyland and they gave us a Mickey Mouse watch as a parting gift.
The first time I went to Disney World I was 6 years old. I loved it. I was a Disney kid – and since this was before VCRs, my experience with Disney was in the movie theater. When there was a rerelease of classic Disney films we were there. Disney world was only 7 years old when I visited, having just opened in 1971. So, in many ways it was a brand new kind of place for everyone who visited, but for a 6-year-old, movie addict girl, walking through Cinderella’s Castle was truly a magical experience.
I can tell you exactly what I bought as souvenirs that first time at Disney World: A Snow White figurine, a mug with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves painted on it, and a Cinderella watch. The first two items traveled with me from home to home my whole life and now are displayed in my daughters’ room. The last item, the watch, which I irrationally loved, was stolen by a housekeeper who also stole real jewelry from my mom and our bathroom rugs. True story.
My Disney figurine collection grew over the years since I was lucky enough to return to Disney World many, many times. Yes, we were/are one of those Disney-fan families. But, I never got over the loss of that watch. It had way too much sentimental value, and was the earliest thing I can remember truly appreciating owning.
I told this story to my husband pretty early on in our relationship. I don’t even know how it came up. He was probably horrified that I still had my figurine collection (not displayed – I wasn’t that bizarre) and I was trying to explain why Disney was meaningful to me. I never got over losing that watch. And I never replaced it because they just weren’t the same.
Then one day my husband (who was not my husband yet) presented me with a gift for our dating anniversary. And there it was, my Cinderella watch.
How did he find it? Well, a little start-up called Ebay made it all possible. And while it’s not MY watch (mine had a light blue band) it is the SAME watch. The mid-70′s Cinderella watch that I loved and lost.
So it was so fitting that I started my anniversary day celebrating the relaunch of Fantasyland at Disney World with the Disney Parks people, and will end my day having dinner out with my husband who remembered a tiny thing I mentioned in passing and made it into the best, most romantic gift ever.
Posted in pregnancy, Travel, United States, tagged detroit, Gillian Flynn, maternity monday, Pregnancy, Road trip on August 27, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Interstate 80 – Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Dougtone)
This is a Maternity Monday post by guest blogger Jess Levey. This series appears every Monday on Beccarama.
Well, there is one thing I am sure that I will not do again while pregnant – drive 22 hours roundtrip in a car. Last week, my husband and I made the 11 hour journey to Detroit to see my extended family and to celebrate my Grandmother’s 95th birthday. We figured it would be a fun adventure and would help our depleting bank account. I have been traveling to Detroit every year since I was 3 months old, but this was only the second time that I decided to make the trip via the open road rather than the speedy skies. My husband thought it was great fun! I, on the other hand, was a bit uncomfortable to say the least. With the seat belt simultaneously pushing against both my seemingly always full bladder and my sensitive chest as well as my new found nausea, my aching tailbone, and my inability to find a desirable air temperature, I was pretty unhappy. And, then to top it all off, I noticed when we arrived at our hotel that my feet had begun to swell, REALLY swell! And, since that trip they have yet to be normal. Along with the swelling feet is a strange sharp shooting pain whenever I twist and flex my left foot. So, I am taking my doctor dad’s advice and am not twisting and flexing that foot, although it’s hard not to! Why is it that we always want to put ourselves in agony by checking if that annoying pain is still there even though we are pretty damn sure of it’s existence?
So, onto happier things. The one thing that kept me a bit content during this grueling car trip was the fact that I had just finally started to feel the baby move! I basically just sat in the passenger seat waiting and waiting for it to move again. The movements were rare (but are much more frequent this week!) unless I was driving. It seemed that when it was my turn to drive the baby would dance in delight. I take this to mean that baby already knows who the better driver is in our family ☺, or maybe it’s because I am more relaxed as a driver rather than as a passenger (or more relaxed when I am controlling the situation, eek!) When I was the one driving, I also didn’t endure many of my aches and pains, must be a better position for me to sit in or maybe just focusing on driving took me out of my body enough to actually enjoy myself. Only problem is that I am what you might call a carcoleptic, I fall asleep pretty quickly as a passenger, and get , tired as a driver. What kept me awake, aside from the jumping jacks in my womb, was the awesome audio tape that we listened to – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. WOW!! That book is sensational. I highly recommend it for any long trips, but we would have been better off driving to the Pacific Coast since even after driving for 22 hours, we got home and still had 27 chapters left! We had to sit in our living room over a couple of nights and just listen to this amazing book, so we could find out how it ended.
I have to thank my Aunt M for that recommendation because listening to that piece of amazing fiction made our road trip much more enjoyable and bearable. I am shocked that I am only 5 months along and am already dealing with discomfort. I thought the second trimester was supposed to be the honeymoon period! Yesterday, I was up on a tall ladder pulling books from our ceiling molding (it’s the only place where we can fit my sentimental book collection) so that I could sell many of them at spontaneous stoop sale (sold 50!). I was feeling so proud of myself, and also feeling physically fit and strong. But, by the end of the day, my feet had blown up, I had to cancel plans to go to a friend’s outdoor party in the city, and I passed out on the couch at 7pm. I guess I just can’t do that much anymore, and it’s only going to get harder, especially since tomorrow is my first day back at work which entails standing for long periods of time teaching and/or photographing. We will see how that goes, in the meantime, I am keeping my feet up and enjoying the baby’s reassurance that relaxing is the best position there is.
Posted in Travel, wordless wednesday, tagged americana, Bloomfield Hills Michigan, Classic car, detroit, Dream Cruise, photography, Woodward Dream Cruise on August 22, 2012 | 1 Comment »
This past weekend was the Dream Cruise, an annual drive along Woodward Avenue starting just outside Detroit and heading north. We drove the route from around 18 mile road (Long Lake Rd) in Bloomfield Hills down to 9 Mile Road, ending in Ferndale with dinner at Local Kitchen and Bar, a new restaurant.
Here’s a glimpse into the cars we saw, parading down Woodward just for the fun of it.
Posted in Travel, United States, US, tagged GMC Terrain, Maine, summer camp, travel on August 1, 2012 | 4 Comments »
For the second year in a row my daughters headed to Maine for overnight camp for seven weeks. If you gasped at that number 7 I am guessing you were not a camper- me neither. But, my husband was a serial camper, starting at 4 weeks when he was 7 and then 8 weeks when he was 8. And he never looked back. To him, summer meant, and still means, only one thing – camp. My daughters put on their bravest smiles and boarded the bus last year bound for Maine, and we held our breath. Luckily, they inherited the camp gene.
This year, they are veterans. They knew exactly what they wanted to master – long rope water skiing – and what they needed to pack that wasn’t on the official packing list – school spirit attire, jean shorts, neon socks (that’s a big deal at a uniform camp like theirs.) But, seven weeks is still seven weeks. They are only 10, and homesickness is bound to sneak in, especially when it rains for a few days in a row like it did their first week this summer.
So, visiting day is this wonderfully bittersweet break right in the middle. The girls are settled in and have found their groove. We’ve adjusted to the quiet, to the empty fridge, to the laundry and dishes that barely need to be done – and gotten spoiled by the unfamiliar absence of needing to find a babysitter in order to go out to dinner, or a movie, or anything! But, I have to admit, I barely slept the week before visiting day because I was so excited to see them, and anxious to see – were they really having a good time? Did they make friends? Do they seem content? You just never know. And, I should add here that my daughters’ camp does not share pictures. For this I am eternally grateful. There is also no electricity in the bunks, no tech allowed at all at camp, and an adherence to old-fashioned camping skills – canoeing is required, marksmanship and archery are taken very seriously, and it’s all girls.
We don’t own a car, but I was incredibly fortunate to have a car-fairy godmother in the form of the wonderful people at General Motors! They lent us this outrageously fabulous GMC Terrain for our trip. My Super was outside hosing down the sidewalk when we were loading the car and now, a week later, he still can’t stop asking me about that Terrain. First I have to mention that my husband grew up right outside Detroit. My whole family is from Detroit, and I was born there. So, we had an extra hefty dose of happiness driving this American Beauty.
I’m a tech girl, not a car girl – though I realize these things are not at all mutually exclusive – and the Terrain did not disappoint. Pure joy for me was plugging my fully audiobook-loaded iPod into the mp3 outlet and having it show up in the in-dash screen. Plus it had Pandora and Sirius and bluetooth sync and all sorts of fun tech buttons and menus to play around with on our drive. The hours to Maine flew by.
Our audiobook for the trip? Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. I will review that in another post, but if you also know nothing about James Garfield, his assassination, the role of Dr. Lister and Alexander Graham Bell, and the origins of pleading insanity as a defense – read it! This is an unbelievable part of American history.
And so to Maine we went. We made an unplanned pit stop for lunch near New Haven at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, not knowing that it was a famous pizza joint. Worth the drive alone. Check out the ginormous brick ovens that must go 30 feet deep. The pizza was spectacular, but next time I’m getting the clam pizza instead of the tomato.
When we arrived in Maine we headed to…Target. When a city girl leaves the city it’s really not for salty fresh air and trees, it’s for big, beautiful Target! Stocked up on supposedly forbidden visiting day candy, toiletries that actually needed replenishing after 4 weeks at camp (only toothpaste by the way – the soap, barely touched), and of course paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent and Ziploc bags – because that crap is super expensive in Manhattan! I felt like one of those crazy coupon ladies, but I had a GMC Terrain with a back the size of my first apartment and you better believe I was filling it with Target priced goods!
You can’t go to Maine and not eat lobster. We didn’t go to the place we loved last year in Naples, The Lobster Pound. We were so tired and wiped out we just headed into Portland proper and went to the Portland Lobster Company. Here’s what I’ll say about that: Meh. Truly. I’m a lobster freak. I spent many, many summers in Cape Cod and Sag Harbor, and dirty lobster eating was one of the things I looked forward to most in the summer. This place might be good any other time other than visiting day weekend when it is swarmed with crazy NY parents, but it was not worth the one hour wait for our food, or the price, which wasn’t great considering we’re in the midst of the biggest lobster glut ever. However, the little vibrating lobster that signals when your food is ready. So cute.
So, one point for that.
Finally, the next morning we headed to camp. And it was awesome. My girls were healthy, tan, beaming and so happy. It’s hard to explain that moment when you see your kids emerge from the big wood lodge, pause at the top of the steps to find you standing the crowd of hundreds of eager parents, and then run down the steps into your arms. It’s pretty amazing. It has the power to erase every exhausted annoyed utterance of the year before, the bickering, the frustrations of parenting, and remind you that all o this having kids thing is pretty damn awesome. So, yes, having a break from each other can be a very good thing.
What happens at camp does not stay at camp. What happens at camp can truly help build a child into a stronger, more confident, more self-reliant, and more resilient person. Having to intentionally capsize a canoe to prove you can get back in and save yourself in order to pass on to the next level? That will change you. So will climbing mountains, living with 12 strangers in one big room, having to take care of your body, make your own food choices, and actually remember to use soap in the shower. And maybe in this day and age, the forced state of being completely unplugged. I know my daughters do not have the same perseverance with me around as they do at camp – they push themselves to try new things and tackle new activities at camp in a way that they would not do at home. Why, I do not know. But, I also don’t care. I’m just glad camp is there to give them the experiences and life skills that seem harder and harder to come by in our over-scheduled, hyper connected world.
We ended our time in Maine with a great meal at the EastEnder in Portland. Portland is full of small, locavore restaurants and this is one of them. This big bowl full of lobster poutine was way better than the whole lobster we had the night before, all sweet with fresh lobster, creamy with cheese curds, and salty with super skinny fries underneath soaking it all up.
The rest of the meal was yummy too. Like these homemade s’mores icecream sandwiches.
There’s a reason they call Maine Vacationland – though I think Campland would be apt too. Nothing says summer to me like a road trip, the ocean, shellfish, homemade ice cream and happy, sun-kissed kids. This weekend was the perfect encapsulation of all of those ingredients – and we still have 6 more weeks until the first day of school!
GMC provided me with the incredibly fabulous GMC Terrain for our trip. But, all those opinions, as always, they’re my own.
Posted in Travel, wordless wednesday, tagged flowers, garden, michigan, motor city road trip, nature, wordless wednesday on August 31, 2011 | 2 Comments »
These were all taken on a walk through my in-laws garden.
Posted in food, Italy, social media, Travel, tagged food, Italy, Jews, travel, Travel tuesday, Twitter on July 19, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Image via Wikipedia
Two years ago today I was in Pitigliano Italy, site of one of the oldest Jewish towns in Italy – though of course not anymore. I blogged every day of our month-long stay in Italy and Pitigliano was particularly hard to write about. I thought about this post recently because when I wrote it I was still not very involved in twitter, my Facebook friends were all old high school friends or new real life friends, and believe it or not I had no idea if or why people read my blog. I wrote, I published and I didn’t care about what happened after that.
But, when I came back from Italy where I had been posting every single day – and still not looking at my stats! – I was shocked to see that my blog readership had exploded. I thought I was writing about our trip purely for my family and good friends, but it had been passed around and shared and so on. It was my first real lesson in how far my writing could go on the web if I kept consistently putting it out there. That’s when I discovered twitter too. It was Amy Oztan, selfishmom.com, who shoved me in to the twittersphere, but it was meeting Jennifer Perillo that made me stay.
Jennifer’s blog, In Jennie’s Kitchen is some of the best food and good old-fashioned writing you will find anywhere. An Italian girl from Brooklyn married to a nice Jewish boy (ok – man), Jennifer was looking for and writing about Italian Jewish food. I told her about the cookbook I wrote about in my Pitigliano post, which was the very one she was reading at the time – and then that spurred a full-out conversation about the Jews of Italy, my visit to Pitigliano and so much more. Jennifer linked to this post from her recipe on egg-free gnocchi. And so a friendship was born – of twitter, but thankfully into real life.
So, in a Travel Tuesday reprise – here’s my post about Pitigliano and the testimony to how our food culture endures and social media can keep the conversation going.
Pitigliano – It’s So Not (Jewish) Ghetto
Posted in giveaway, puerto rico, Travel, tagged Caribbean, El Yunque National Forest, family travel, food, Intercontinental Hotel, Old San Juan Puerto Rico, Wilo Benet on January 16, 2011 | 7 Comments »
Every year we go on a huge family vacation with my husband’s entire family. At this point there are 16 of us, in 3 different states on opposite ends of the country all trying to coordinate and agree on a common meeting point. The only non-negotiable sticking point for my sun worshipping in-laws is that it must be warm and sunny. This year the destination of choice was San Juan, Puerto Rico and the Intercontinental Hotel.
None of us had been to Puerto Rico before and we didn’t know what to expect. I think it’s safe to say we loved it. For New Yorkers there couldn’t be an easier trip – direct and under 4 hours. For everyone the lack of customs and immigration was a huge bonus after a couple of years of going to Mexico. The lack of people soliciting you the minute you get off the plane is incredibly refreshing. And, most importantly for this family – the food in Old San Juan was fantastic.
Here are my San Juan Stand Outs:
Intercontinental Hotel – Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that we had a snafu when checking in – our room wasn’t ready for a very, very long time and my daughter had a massive meltdown because of it. How did they rectify this? They gave us an enormous room upgrade – I mean HUGE. So, that made us feel better. But, what really won us over was the incredibly kind, attentive and accommodating staff. Professional and friendly without being unctuous. They made our stay exceptionally lovely. And the pool and beach are great too.
Food, activities and food click on! (more…)
Posted in kids, life in nyc, movies, Travel, tagged audrey hepburn, big, blogher, breakfast at tiffany's, cher, entertainment, fame, film, ghostbusters, kids films, manhattan, moonstruck, movies, new york city movies, nyc, old movies, seinfeld, sex and the city, stuart little, the muppets, when harry met sally, working girl on August 3, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Even if you’ve never been to NYC chances are you feel like you have just from watching Sex and the City, or Law and Order or Seinfeld (with its fake NYC sets it still passes). But I thought I’d put together a list of my favorite New York movies that will put you in a positive New York mood (no Taxi Driver and no Woody Allen – because you know that already) while you’re on the plane, or bus, or even relaxing in the hotel in between all the BlogHer madness.
My Top Five, Slightly Cheesy, but I Don’t Care, NYC Movies
If you’ve got kids in tow you could also check out – Stuart Little, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Ghostbusters, Big and Splash for some child friendly NYC films.
