fundraiser

1st Annual Cleveland Comedy Awards

April 3, 2018 by Rachel 15 Comments

I know we don’t tend to get out a lot these days (hellooooo, pregnancy!), but last week Chad and I were lucky enough to get out for dinner and an event! That’s right — we had the honor of attending the inaugural Cleveland Comedy Awards at Hilarities on East 4th.

Some background: I am not a comedian in any way. But comedy has always played a huge role in mine and my husbands lives. It’s something that brought us together when we first started dating and something that continued to bring us together long into our relationship. We’ve seen various comics perform over the years and shared a love of laughter through television shows like Last Comic Standing.

So when my friend Sarah invited me to attend this event, I was overjoyed! Not only did we get to laugh, but we got a date night, too! Win, win!

Our pre-event dinner was at Barrio in the Gateway District.

I’ve been craving Barrio tacos and guac for a while. And, even though there was a wait and even though we were in a bit of a hurry, I convinced Chad to sit at the bar so we could still enjoy some pre-show tacos.

Sidenote: Here is where I say that my husband was right and I should listen to him more often. I told him my plans of getting two tacos and also guac. He laughed and said that there was no way I would be able to finish that much food. I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about and I can totally eat two tacos AND guac.

I was wrong. So wrong. I absolutely want to be one of those people who can eat a normal amount of food, but it seems like I can barely finish two tacos! Sad face. He was right.

From there we walked down to Pickwick and Frolic to meet my friend Sarah on the red carpet!

Y’all this event was amazing! Because Sarah was a presenter, our seats were right up against the stage. That’s front row… at a comedy event… while 7 months pregnant. Eek. I was nervous!

See what I mean?! I really didn’t want to be called out by these guys. Ha! Luckily, they decided to pick on Sarah’s husband instead of me (phew!).

The event was presented by Comedic CLE and hosted by Rob Ward, whom we’ve seen perform before — and someone I happen to think this hilarious.

My husband happened to think that many of the jokes were, indeed, inside jokes between the comics; but for whatever reason (perhaps it’s because I listen to a lot of these guys on the radio so I happen to know their backstories); so I thought it was fabulous.

Some of my favorites from the night include Jasmyn Carter’s performance and Brian Kenny’s long-form joke performance. They had me dying of laughter!

I was sad to see that Mike Polk Jr. and Mary Santora weren’t present to accept their awards, but totally saw that coming. They are rockstars of Cleveland comedy and so busy travelling! Props to Bill Squire for filling in for both Mike and Mary! It was great!

The night ended with a truly amazing performance from Ramon Rivas, who can be found on Comedy Central and shows like Vicelan and Broad City.

Thank you so much to Comedic Cle, Hilarities, and specifically Sarah for the invite. It was a pretty awesome night, even if that means I didn’t get much sleep nor did I get to put my babies to bed — it was still worth it.

Check out the full list of 2018 winners here. And be sure to check out all of the above mentioned comics — I promise you won’t be disappointed!

Living Like a Warrior with Hungry Howie’s //

October 6, 2017 by Rachel 12 Comments

I’ve been a self-proclaimed ‘warrior’ well before I became a mom. In fact, ‘warrior’ was a term that was in my vocabulary every single day. I was attending daily yoga classes and felt strong as a humble-warrior to my practice.

It was around the same time that I took my yoga practice off of the mat and started to be a warrior for my fellow women, as well.

Serving a purpose for women and health has long been a passion for me. And, as we enter into this new month, I’m reminded of that purpose.

Sure, October is the month of my birthday (hellooooo, 33!). But it’s also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Many of us have been touched by someone who has or has had breast cancer. There are several warriors in my life that have battled the big BC.

And, as a socially conscious woman, I’m happy to support businesses who make it their mission to give back towards the cause of Breast Cancer Awareness.

The other day I picked up a couple of pizzas from Hungry Howie’s. Not only was it delicious (just ask my kiddos who devoured both pizzas in one, 12-hour, period!), but these pink-boxed pizzas also mean that Hungry Howie’s made a donation to Breast Cancer Awareness Month on our behalf.

The cool thing? For purchasing one of these pizzas in a pink box from Hungry Howie’s AND posting the photo on Instagram, we’re entered to win a FREE YEAR of PIZZA! Being a warrior for the cause AND entering a contest!? Yes please!

So, will you join me in the fight for Breast Cancer Awareness!? Check it out here and enter to win!

Red & White on Thursday Night // Recap

February 2, 2017 by Rachel 14 Comments

Last week Chad and I legit skipped our way out the front door to attend the 20th anniversary of Red and White on Thursday Night — a food and wine event to benefit The Arthritis Foundation.

I’ve said before that this event is truly our favorite event of the whole year. It’s something we continuously look forward to, year after year. In prior years, Chad and I have entered together, but split up and gone in different directions.

This year was so different. It was clear — more than ever — that we truly needed this night to reconnect with each other, at one of our most favorite places. So we made it a point to stick together nearly the entire time!

We headed straight to the VIP Lounge when we arrived, which was more glorious than ever! Dante Boccuzzi and his team were serving up the most delicious sweet potato and shrimp skewers!

I’m honestly not even a big fan of shrimp, generally speaking. But these were beyond amazing, ya’ll. Chef Dante is just amazing.

After eating several of the shrimp and sweet potato skewers, we refilled our wine glasses with red wine and headed over to the VIP dessert table, which featured this incredible creme brûlée from West Side Bakery.

Here’s my moment of truth: It had dairy. AND I ATE IT! Honestly? It was absolutely worth the cheat. Truthfully, one of the only reasons I ‘cheated’ with dairy at this event was because it’s hard to tell if something has a bit of dairy in it or not. That being said, I totally passed up cheese and pizza and other just plain ol’ cheesy things. (Le sigh…)

The rest of the event was spent meandering around, trying new-to-us wines and sampling foods from some of our favorite local restaurants!

Some of my personal faves from the night were the tacos and guacamole from BOMBA Tacos & Rum, the bacon-wrapped-dates from The Twisted Olive, and the goat-cheese and berry donut from Hudson’s Restaurant!

And my all-time favorite wines from the night came courtesy of Filia Cellars in Wadsworth, Ohio! This local winery stood out amongst it’s competition!

All in all, it was another perfect event. We ate, we drank, and we reconnected in a way that we truly needed to do. Thank you, again, to the Arthritis Foundation for inviting us to attend this event!

life update

March 24, 2016 by Rachel Leave a Comment

Since Remy Bea was born (you know… TWO months ago), life has been a roller coaster, which I’ve talked about. Extensively. Like, extensively. And this here blog has suffered the wrath of long days and nights… By the time I have a few moments to myself to sit down at my computer, I just stare at a blank screen — sometimes for an hour or more — just trying to put words into sentences. But I promise — we have actually had a life over these last 8 weeks — we have actually had fun!

Lavish Salon + Cleats // Fundraisers For My Cousin

My cousin’s 9-year old daughter has been hospitalized for over 7 months now, awaiting surgery to have her pancreas completely removed. Friends of hers arranged two benefit fundraisers for the family and their expenses.

The first fundraiser was at Lavish Color Salon on Valentine’s Day. 100% of the proceeds + tips went directly to my cousin and her family. Haircuts, makeup, nail polish changes, basket raffles, and pictures with Elsa + Olaf were aplenty!

Ari l-o-v-e-d Elsa! At first he was a bit standoffish; but after he warmed up to her, he literally chased her around the salon.

The second fundraiser was at Cleats Restaurant in Chardon. They shut down the restaurant because the turnout was so huge! It was packed! It was wonderful to see such a great turnout for such a wonderful cause! And it happened to be such an amazingly beautiful day.

NOTE: Just before I went to post this I noticed that Gia was featured in a video from The Today Show!

Therapy dogs bring joy, happiness back to kids at children’s h…“Gia had been so sick every single minute of the day. Months and months went by with us not seeing a smile on her face or joy in her eyes, and the first experience of seeing our little Gia back was when she and Drummer got together.”

Posted by Today Show on Wednesday, March 23, 2016

{if you feel so inclined to donate, or just to read the story of Gia, please go here.}

The Akron Art Museum // Tots Create

It’s no secret that I freaking love the Akron Art Museum. It’s a wonderful asset to our community (no, I’m not [yet] a member and have literally zero skin in this game). Their Free Thursdays are the bomb dot com. But they also host amazeballs events, including Creative play dates for tots!

This is me: “You mean my kid can make a mess at YOUR place and I don’t have to freak?? DEAL.”

In the last month we’ve gone to two Tots Create events with Ari’s friend Veronique (and her mom, Betül). He has had so much fun — and released so much creative energy!

The Library // Story Time + Cooking Demos

Sigh – the library! Such a hidden gem! Our childrens section of our library here in Cuyahoga Falls has just gone through a major renovation. It is amazing! Ari loves the ‘puters [aka computers], which are kid-friendly in their bright colors and fun mouse! I’m impressed at how easily Ari has caught on to using a computer!

In addition to the computers, he has absolutely loved story time. Story time, at this age, consists of a ‘warm up’ song to get them singing and moving, before settling in for a series of short stories. It’s wonderful and engaging!

Another local library does other events like cooking demonstrations! Chad has taken Ari to a couple of these demos and events! I’m not certain if Ari has taken much away from it (I’ve not gone with them — Mama needs a break once in awhile!), but it’s awesome that these are offered, nonetheless!

The Parks // SOAR + More

I’m not certain if I’ve mentioned this before [though I’m certain I have at one point in my blogs life…], but we have a park in our backyard. Literally. Behind our property line is a park, complete with a toddler wading pool + playground! Unfortunately the playground is a bit out of Ari’s league at this point. It’s a ‘bigger kids’ type of playground.

But about 10 minutes from where we live is SOAR — an amazing wheelchair accessible playground, which happens to also be equally accessible to kids of all ages! Ari loves it — and I love it! Win-win!

We’re so grateful to have had a few really nice days to get outta the house and enjoy some sunshine!

Arts + Crafts // Creativity at Home

Not only have we had several playdates with friends + their kids over the last 6 weeks, but we’ve also managed to get in our share of crafts at home! Much in part to some help from Mimi, Ari has gotten all kindsa crafty!

I, on the other hand, prefer (at this point, at least) to use the Target easy-‘assembly’ craft-type things. Easier. Less-messy. More mom-of-a-newborn friendly. 😛

SO MUCH MORE //

We’ve been hitting up places like Cafe O’Play, The Lego Store, and local coffee shops with friends to pass the time. As hard as the days are, it oftentimes helps to have a ‘change of scenery’ — for all of us!

Mama’s Night Out // Paint Nite + CIFF Preview Party

I’ve had one semi-successful “night out” without Remy Bea. I went to a Paint Nite event with a dear friend. It’s, like, my 10th paint + wine night in the last 3 years. The one I recently went to was…. disappointing, to say the least. But I did get out for a night and get creative!

My first painting for Miss Remy Bea. ?? #latergram #paintnite #akron #RemyBea

A photo posted by Rachel (@itsahero) on Mar 23, 2016 at 6:51am PDT

I also had the chance to attend the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) preview party at the Akron Civic Theatre!

I will never get tired of this view. @akroncivic #ciff40 #akroncivic #wksu #ciff

A photo posted by Rachel (@itsahero) on Mar 16, 2016 at 3:24pm PDT

I actually brought Remy Bea with me to this event. Not only did I see previews for a ton of movies I want to see, but Remy Bea was a huge hit with the crowd!

So yeah… life has been every emotion under the sun: Fun. Exhausting. Creative. Hilarious. So exciting. Miserable. And mostly just oh so full of life! ♥ I may be exhausted, friends; but my heart is happy.

Red + White // Wrap Up

February 3, 2016 by Rachel 1 Comment

The Arthritis Foundation of Northeast Ohio‘s annual fundraiser in Akron, Red & White on Thursday Night, is easily my favorite event of the entire year! Heck, even having just given birth, I desperately wanted to still attend. So last Thursday, at just 5 days old, Remy, Chad and I ventured to Quaker Station at Quaker Square for just a short time!

Luckily, we are very close to where the event is located; so with a babysitter for Ari [thanks, Grammy!], we bundled Miss Remy Bea up, and arrived shortly before 6pm. This was the 19th annual event for the Arthritis Foundation, and I believe it was also our 4th or 5th time attending [mommy brain is real, yo].

The entrance to the event was located at a different part of the building this year, and some new computer software they were using for auction-bidding slowed down the entrance process to a practical halt. My single critique of the event is that they should have set up the credit card/auto-bid process for the auction when people were purchasing tickets presale. Because it wasn’t set up that way, everyone who had a ticket in their hands, still had to wait in a half hour line. And for those of us with willcall tickets, we had to wait in line for a half hour as well. It was crazypants. And people were super upset. I was just super uncomfortable because I was babywearing Remy Bea.

When we finally got in, we went straight for the VIP room to meet up Crystal from EatDrinkCLE. Both Crystal and I weren’t feeling 100% well, but we managed to make sure we didn’t miss the event — even if that meant having to leave a bit early! After saying our hellos, I went straight for the wine and food [recognizing I’m a nursing mother, and I was wearing a sleeping baby, I recognized my ‘window of opportunity’ to taste a couple of sips of wine had to happen at the very beginning of the evening].

The VIP wine selection was beautiful. I wish I could say that I took a ton of pictures, but I didn’t. Because, babywearing an infant [duh]. But, thanks to the VIP section, I did have the opportunity to taste two fantastic wines — a Malbec and a Cab. And that was, sadly, all the wine I had that night. Because, nursing.

[borrowed this photo from Jen at Why? CLE]One of the awesome changes the organization did make this year was the introduction of a VIP Chef in the VIP lounge! Chef Dante Boccuzzi, of local Akron restaurant, dba, as well as Dante in Tremont, and Ginko in Tremont [as well as several other restaurants], was serving up tasty sushi!

We ate so much of this sushi. Seriously. I mean, I hadn’t really and truly had sushi in about 9 months, so I was pumped to not only have sushi, but really, really, great sushi!

After checking out the complimentary chair massages, courtesy of Massage Envy, and pastry and coffee bar, courtesy of Panera, we headed out to the general admission area. I’m not going to lie, I was super nervous to join the masses. I was afraid of judgment from other attendees for babywearing an infant at a 21 and over event!

To my surprise, people were just super excited to see a newborn baby! No judgment whatsoever. So we made the rounds! I knew I had a very strict food limit. Being postpartum and being sick means my appetite is close to nothing. So instead of hitting up every single place, I carefully planned my ‘attack.’ Ha!

Two places that were ‘musts’ were Nuevo Mod Mex [pictured above] and Melt Bar + Grilled. Nuevo had an awesome taco, but Melt disappointed me a bit. They had dessert cookie sandwiches. Bummer, cause I was totally looking forward to a tasty grilled cheese sample! Also, the cheesecake shooters [also pictured above] from West Side Bakery was awesome!

Chad hit up a few more restaurants while I chatted with Jen from Why? CLE and her husband, Matthew, as well as my longtime friends Cristin and Chris. [above picture also borrowed from Jen! Again, I didn’t have much access to my phone throughout the event.]

We ended up leaving around 7:30pm. I was just… tired. And I wanted to get Remy Bea home so I could feed her before bed. All in all, it was a great first night out and a great event, yet again!

Disclosure: I was asked by the Arthritis Foundation of Northeast Ohio to help promote Red & White on Thursday Night and run a ticket giveaway. In exchange, I received 2 complimentary VIP tickets. As always, all opinions are my own.

GIVEAWAY | Red + White on Thursday Night

January 7, 2016 by Rachel 8 Comments

Chad and I have had the honor of attending one of Akron’s most anticipated events, Red and White on Thursday Night, for the last 4 years in a row. And even though Baby Girl is expected to arrive just a week before this years event, I plan on my first post-baby outing to be the 19th Annual Red & White On Thursday Night, Thursday, January 28th, 2016!

The event will be taking place at Quaker Station in beautiful Downtown Akron, presented by the Cleveland Clinic Akron General, from 5:30PM to 9:00PM, and benefits the Arthritis Foundation of Northeastern Ohio.

The event, voted one of the best in Akron by AkronLife Magazine, is expected to raise more than $82,000. All proceeds support critical local Arthritis Foundation initiatives including advocacy and access, help and support, and research.

Arthritis is the nation’s leading cause of disability and affects more than 50 million Americans and nearly 300,000 children. In Northeastern Ohio, nearly 1.3 million people of all ages have been diagnosed with arthritis. More than 108,000 of those are Summit County residents, according to 2013 figures.

Nearly 750 guests are expected to attend and enjoy delicious dishes from Akron’s top chefs and a variety of both domestic and international wines, while checking out offerings from the available silent auction. VIP ticket holders will have access to both general admission areas as well as exclusive access to special fare from Chef Dante Boccuzzi of DBA, specialty desserts and high-end wine pairings.

Participating restaurants include: Chef Dante Boccuzzi of DBA, Barmacy Bar & Grill, Bistro on Main, BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, Cilantro Thai & Sushi Restaurant, Chocolates by Erin, Chowder House Café, Hudson’s Restaurant & Catering, Melt Bar and Grilled – Akron, Nuevo Modern Mexican & Tequila Bar, Panera Bread, Saffron Patch in the Valley, Silver Lake Country Club, The Galaxy Restaurant & Banquet Center, The Pierogi Lady, The Taverne of Richfield, Thorpe’s Market Avenue Grill & Pub, and West Side Bakery! I’m getting hungry just thinking about it now!

Honestly, speaking from experience, this is one of the most anticipated date nights we have all year. Chad loves it, I love it, and we are always fed well and surrounded by so many fun people!

And one lucky reader will get a chance to win TWO General Admission tickets (valued at $85 each) to the event. I just ask that those who enter be local to Northeastern Ohio and willing to attend this amazing event on January 28th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
General admission tickets are $85 presale and $95 at the door. VIP Lounge tickets are $125 presale, and $135 at the door. Purchase tickets online at www.akronredandwhite.com or call 216-285-2822!

** Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post, but did receive two complimentary tickets to the event. All opinions herein are my own. I just really really love this event and believe in this cause! **