Helpful Mom

I recently was given a tip on a house to drive by and see their Christmas lights.  Well with a 6 and 7 yr old we are always looking for Christmas lights this time of year, so much awe and joy from everyone’s Christmas lights.  So off we went after a long day to follow up on the tip, and it was worth it.

Funny when I first drove up I was a little disappointed because their website said it had 16,000 lights, which sounds like quite a lot, but when driving up it didn’t seem like that much. BUT once you park, yep you have to park to get the full effect.  You tune your radio to 91.1FM and realize the lights are actually programmed to go on and off to the music.  I tried to take video of it and we showed my husband and Katrina said it’s actually much more impressive in real life.  We actually sat there and watched it for 20 minutes before my girls tired of it, it’s programmed to do show that lasts 38 minutes.  It runs from 5-10pm every night through January 1.

It’s not far from our house so I bet we’ll be stopping by pretty often over the next few weeks, the girls already got one Grandma to drive them back by there today.  The house is located at 15 Academy Dr, which is off Bailey Rd between West Henrietta Rd and East River Rd, not far from MarketPlace Mall.  You can check out his website for directions.

The Eastman School of Music students will be performing at 6pm on Friday, December 9 at the Strong Museum of Play.  It is free with general admission fees.

Scrooge might not approve, but Strong’s National Museum of Play members can save at Geva Theatre’s A Christmas Carol.  Buy one adult ticket to the 7pm performance on Thursday, December 8, and get one child ticket free (age 5-12) for the same show.  For tickets, contact Colleen Brown at (585) 232-1366 x3057 or cbrown@gevatheatre.org.  Tickets cannot be purchased through the box office or at the door.  Some restrictions apply.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Not sure what to do with the pounds of candy your kids will collect tonight? Bring it to Jump Club on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week, and we will trade your extra goodies for FREE ADMISSION FOR YOUR KIDS!

That is this week only, even if you have to buy a bag of candy cause you’re kids won’t give up their new loot it’ll still be cheaper than admission!  They are going to send the candy to the troops overseas so it’ll be for a good cause.

Tuesday

10am-2pm

Wednesday

10am-7pm

Thursday

10am-7pm

3450 Winton Place, Rochester, NY 14623 — (585) 730-8900

Have you ever been in Small Wonders Consignment shop?  I have, it’s a great little shop with quality clothes for fair prices.  Now you can buy a $30 certificate for only $15, what a great way to check out  the shop.  Not only does it have children’s clothes, but it also sells ladies clothes, and have lots of maternity clothes.  Check out LivingSocial.com for their deal, you only have 3 more days to buy these certificates.

They are conveniently located in the Frontier Commons at 1225 Jefferson Road, just off of the Jefferson Road Exit of I-390.

Sun-Mon                Closed
Tuesday                 12pm – 2pm
Wednesday            10am – 5pm
Thursday               12pm – 7pm
Friday                    10am – 5pm
Saturday                10:30 am-4pm

They will be Closed:
Thursday, November 24th for Thanksgiving,
Thursday, December 22nd – Monday, January 2nd for Christmas and New Years

Don’t miss out on this enormous garage sale!  It only comes around once a year and it’s not to be missed!  I was able to go this evening to the preview sale for donors, and the new location is HUGE!  In fact it was so huge I felt lost sometimes just trying to figure out where I wanted to go.  The nice thing about it being so huge is that even though there were 1100 people there this evening they were spread out more than in past years so it wasn’t such a crush of bodies.  So if you have something you are looking for this is the place to go.

Rochester Tech Park
370 Initiative Drive
Rochester, NY   14624

Elmgrove Road Exit Off Route 531
Or
Exit 7B Off Route 490 to NY 33 West/Buffalo Road

We are always looking for something new and different to do as a family.  This time we ended up in Dansville, NY for the 30th annual Hot Air Balloon Festival.  It runs this entire weekend thru Labor Day.  It started on Thursday night with their balloon glow event.  We went this evening for the 6pm balloon launch.  Good thing we left to get there early because the traffic thru town was crazy!  Not at all what I expected, but we made it there with plenty of time to spare. Parking is free but it costs $5 per person for 13yrs and older, under 12 are free.

Since we were early we took our time walking around and checking out all the tents.  There are quite a few with beautiful jewelry, crafts, kids toys, Tshirts, and of course loads of food.  Look out for the guy with the tent selling lollipops for $0.40 each or 4 for $1, that one made our kids really happy.  But then our kids saw the inflatables, why is it kids are so attracted to inflatables?  Well we told them we weren’t sure because although we were there early we weren’t sure if the balloons were going to be able to launch.  Turns out even though it was a beautiful evening it was rather windy so they weren’t sure if the balloons were going to be able to launch.  The inflatables are $2 a turn per kid or you can buy each kid an all you can play bracelet for $10 each.  Since we were thinking the balloons might not fly we might just go home instead, or it would be cheaper to just go to Jump Club or Bounce It Out.

Fortunately they decided that even though they couldn’t launch the balloons they would inflate and float the fun shaped balloons for everyone to see.  So after watching those for quite a while the girls still had inflatables on the mind, so we allowed them to each play on one turn each.  On our way out to head for home we noticed this one balloon off by itself that never got up in the air, as we got closer we were able to read the signs advertising that you could go inside the balloon for only $1, and they didn’t charge us for me to go in with the kids!  Inside they had inflatable balls tossing from kid to kid and your kids could stay in indefinitely.  My girls loved it and if we had realized how long it would take to get out of the parking lot we would have let them play longer.

All in all we had a great time, even if the balloons didn’t launch this time.  There are 5 more chances to see that happen.  Saturday morning at 6am, and again in the evening at 6pm, Sunday morning at 6am, and 6pm, and Monday morning at 6am.  In addition to the balloons there will be free entertainment throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday.  No dogs or pets are allowed.  Enjoy!

Once again there is a great deal on admission to the Jump Club in Henrietta.  Check out Groupon for this great deal, only two more days to buy it.  This is 50% off normal admission.  There is a limit of one person, but you may one extra as a gift.  And they are good until Sept 30, 2011.  It may be used for more than one trip to Jump Club.  Enjoy!  Maybe we’ll see you there.