Showing posts with label Orlando. Show all posts

Park Pizza & Brewing Company


I haven't done a restaurant review in a while but a trendy new spot recently opened up close to home and I love the concept. I know there's nothing new about a brewery or a pizza restaurant but Park Pizza & Brewing Company's menu is eclectic with a delicious variety of rotating beers brewed in-house.

A Church and a Brewery


Have you ever heard of a church that is also brewery? If you have then maybe I've been living under a rock because it's a new concept to me.

Birthday Brunch - Never Too Late to Celebrate


December is so busy, and while the girls tried to plan a birthday brunch for me then, K and I were heading to Charleston and then the holidays rang in so everyone was booked with family functions or traveling for the Holidays.

Neighborhood Pool Bash + Birthday Brunching



Before all the kids start school this week, our neighborhood organized a community pool party with a DJ, Food Truck, and Ice Cream Truck to all get together on Saturday.

A Few of my Favorite Things


Morning friends!

Today I'm sharing a few of my favorite things, Fridays being one of them but I think that goes without saying. Yesterday I was at an all-day conference which was mentally exhausting so I'm going to jump right into sharing some positive things today....Things I truly love <3

Weekending: A Picture a Day

Keeping it short and sweet today since that's pretty much how the weekend was. Always too short right?

Long Weekend Celebrations


 
What an action-packed weekend! Thankfully we have a short work week ahead. A friend from Boston was in town visiting over the long weekend so we definitely kept busy showing him a good time around Orlando. It's always fun playing tourist in your own city as he did the same for us when we went to visit him in Boston back in June.

Universal Studios' Mardi Gras


Happy Fat Tuesday everyone! 

I actually have some Mardi Gras fun to share today since Orlando's Universal Studios has had their annual Mardi Gras festival going on since the beginning of February. I've been able to visit twice so far and I have plans to go a few more times with friends to catch some of the concerts post-parade.


In the Spring, Universal Studios brings the food and festivities of Bourbon Street to their theme park. The French Quarter Courtyard is where you go to grab some "N'awlin's style food and spirits". 

There are several booths selling beads, masks & other Mardi Gras party favors but I would skip that and catch all the beads they sling at the crowd during the parade.



 


When the sun starts to set, the parade begins with street performers, stilt walkers, colorful dancers and festive floats with people tossing out countless amount of beads into the crowd.


I apologize in advance for the blurry pictures. You can blame that on fast movement of the performers + trying to catch beads and enjoy the parade all at the same time.





 

You can view a short clip of the floats going by throwing out beads:



What a FUN night!
Between K and I, we probably caught about 20 beads and both agreed as we were walking to the car that the parade was WAY more fun than we expected.


After the parade, (mainly on the weekends) you can head over to the Music Stage to catch some big-name musicians live in concert. This one we haven't done yet but that will be changing in the upcoming weeks.

Weekend Happenings

 
We made it back to Universal Studios this weekend to catch the Mardi Gras parade which is going on for the next few weeks.

I spent most of Saturday morning doing online courses to become Google AdWords certified for my job.

After hours of "work", it was time to have some fun for the weekend. We started off at Islands of Adventure to go on a few rides and then went over to the French Quarter patio at Universal Studios.






Universal really does a great job at recreating Mardi Gras with the street parade and countless strands of beads being thrown into the crowd. Check back tomorrow (Fat Tuesday) for more details and pictures of the parade.



On Sunday morning I spent another 4 hours doing some AdWords courses and passed the final Assessment. The last step to becoming certified is doing a 2 hour test so I'm saving that for next weekend.


The rest of Sunday was spent:
 ~ Having homemade Eggs Benedict topped with salmon for brunch
~ An hour long massage in the afternoon for my back pain
~ Scoring my favorite girl scout cookies
~ Painting my nails with Essie's "Watermelon" for the toes and 'Lady Like" for the fingers.


Joining Biana for her Weekending linkup.

Weekend: Purple Hair Don't Care


The weekend was exactly what I wanted with lots of relaxing, some pampering, shopping the President's Day sales, and dinner with friends.


I mentioned last week that I went to Tampa on Thursday night for a work conference which was at a beautiful resort on the water.  My coworker and I grabbed a bite to eat and caught a beautiful sunset before the conference kicked off. I didn't get home until super late so I was too exhausted to do anything on Friday night.

On Saturday I had a hairdresser appointment to get my highlights touched up and added in some purple/lavender streaks to change things up a bit. I love how it turned out!


I got roped into the President's Day sales at Target and Kohl's and picked up a few goodies for myself!


Tassel Drop Earrings  /  Gold Layered Choker Necklace


"I Don't Do Mornings" Graphic Sweater

We had dinner reservations on Saturday night with our neighbor friends at a new tapas-style restaurant. The food was amazing and we really enjoyed their company. My neighbor guy especially is hilarious so I was laughing for most of the night with his funny comments and jokes.





 

Sunday was all about relaxing and being productive. I finished off a work project, got my blogging on, and did the usual food prep, laundry, and other adulting stuff one is required to do.

Joining the lovely Biana for her Weekending linkup.

Monday Morning Coffee Talk


The weekend started off with a little happy hour at a spot close to home and then dinner at Outback on Friday night.


I had the bacon bourbon salmon which was pretty tasty.


Saturday morning was a lazy one at home before venturing out to stock up on groceries and figured we'd check out the brand new Walmart Supercenter in our area. Adulting 101 at it's finest! Seriously though it was a huge controversy when they started building this Walmart because "it would attract the wrong crowd to our new community" among other things.


Turns out this is probably the fanciest Walmart in the country with portable scanners you can use and the pay via an app on your phone so you don't have to wait in line. There is also a drive-up window to pick up groceries and an organic restaurant called Grown opening this month. I was quite impressed.


For dinner on Saturday night, K made Buffalo Chicken Sliders inspired by one of those Tasty videos you see floating around Facebook. They were amazing!


Here's the video



On Sunday I met up with some friends for lunch. We chose a Trinidadian restaurant I've been wanting to take them to for over a year now. It was a fun little catch up lunch date indulging in some of my favorite West Indian food. No pictures were taken.

In the afternoon our neighbors hosted a Super Bowl party so we made our "famous" Bite Me Dip and went over there to watch the game.





I didn't stay for the whole game because "Sunday school night" but we had some fun hanging out for a bit to cap off the weekend!

Joining the lovely Biana for some Monday morning coffee talk.

Dancing With The Stars Live in Orlando


When I heard ABC's Dancing with the Stars show was doing a nationwide tour and coming to Orlando I knew it would be a fun show to go see during the holidays. I don't follow the show on TV much but seeing it live was a whole other experience that we all enjoyed, even the guys.



The tour features Season 23's winner and Olympic gold medalist Laurie Hernandez along with some of the finalists including Lindsay Arnold, Sharna Burgess and Val Chmerkovskiy.

The live show had every type of ballroom and modern dance seen on the TV show including group performances, romantic duets, contemporary numbers and original pieces created specifically for the nationwide tour.

 
 
  

With all the fancy lighting and movement of dancing it was tricky capturing good quality photos so some of my photos don't have the best clarity but can still get a good enough idea of the details involved in the production.


 

 


After winning a gold medal in Rio and an individual silver medal on the beam, Laurie Hernandez went straight to the ballroom to compete on Dancing with the Stars where with her partner Val Chmerkovskiy.
 
 
 








 

The DWTS tour is still going on through February 14th in 43 cities across the US so if you're interested in seeing the show you can check the tour schedule on their website: http://dwtstour.com.