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Bonefish Grill — 3-Course Date Night for Two!

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Chad and I are rapidly approaching our 7th wedding anniversary. It’s hard to believe that nearly seven years have passed. And in the last seven years, we’ve only had a handful of evenings completely to ourselves. In fact, the last time we actually relaxed at a dinner out was probably two years ago.

Last week Mimi was in town to watch all three kids, so we were able to sneak out for a proper date night at Bonefish Grill. Chad and I were greeted by the friendliest staff at the North Canton location and promptly seated.

We were really excited to try Bonefish Grill’s O M G (Ocean Mixed Grill) 3-course dinner for two! Here’s what’s included in this special offer:

Course 1 // Bang Bang Shrimp

Course 2 // House or Caesar Salad

Course 3 // Potatoes Au Gratin, Seasonal Vegetables, and Jasmine Rice

Course 4 // Caribbean Cobia, Shrimp & Scallop Skewer, Atlantic Salmon and the Local Catch

All four courses for 49.00 with a bonus of select bottles of wine for $25.

I have to admit something, I’ve never had Bang Bang Shrimp before (I know, I know — pure craziness!). Well, friends, I am in love. I could eat Bang Bang Shrimp all day, every day!

You certainly can’t beat the cost of $49 for three courses for two people. It was more than enough food, for sure.

Recommended Add-Ons //

I highly recommend pairing your meal with a bottle of their $25 wines. With options of reds, whites, and rosé, there’s something for everyone!

I also cannot say enough about the Crispy Brussel Sprouts! They were flavored perfectly with the bacon and mayo. So, so, delicious!

And then we were greeted with dessert! First, it was the Molten Lava Carrot Cake (holy smokes — warm and gooey cream cheese in the middle!) followed by the Crème Brûlée

Not only was the food delicious and the service spectacular, but we were actually able to sit and enjoy one another’s company without the distraction of children talking at us for a change.

Hurry up and get a sitter because this special is only good through April 30th! Find your closest Bonefish Grill location here and be sure to sign up to become a Bonefish Insider!

What’s your favorite menu item

from Bonefish Grill?

Disclaimer: I was given a gift card to cover the cost of our meal in exchange for this post.
As always, all opinions herein are my own.

Red & White on Thursday Night // Recap

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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!

Giveaway // Red + White on Thursday Night

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Chad and I have had the pleasure and honor of attending one of Akron’s most anticipated events, Red and White on Thursday Night, for the last 5+ years in a row!

In fact, it’s the one event of the year that I absolutely refuse to miss. We went just 5 days after Remy Bea was born last year! I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Thankfully, this year I won’t be wearing Miss Bea! But last year she came with us — and she was a HIT!

The 20th Anniversary of Red and White on Thursday Night is being held on Thursday, January 26th, at Quaker Station at the University of Akron.

We will indulge in an incredible evening of fine wines from around the world and amazing local cuisine from top chefs and the best restaurants in the region — including a personal appearance from local celebrity chef and James Beard nominee, Dante Boccuzzi!

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.

Participating restaurants include: Chef Dante Boccuzzi of DBA, BOMBA Tacos and Rum, Chowder House Cafe, Nuevo Modern Mexican & Tequila Bar, Melt Bar and Grilled, and more!

The silent auction is incredible. Wine baskets, tickets to local events, and memberships to everything under the sun! Last year I was so busy running from table to table that I didn’t have any time to bid on any auction items, but this year I’m absolutely ready for it! I have big plans to bid on one of the kid-friendly items!

I hope that you can join me in supporting the Arthritis Foundation at this incredible event. General Admission tickets are $85 and VIP tickets are $125. VIP tickets include exclusive tastings from Chef Dante Boccuzzi, sweet treats from The West Side Bakery, spa services, high-end wines. All tickets can be purchased here.

In the meantime, you can enter to win TWO GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS using the Rafflecopter widget below! Please only enter if you’re local and able to attend on 1/26/17 from 5:30 – 9:00 PM.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclosure: I received 2 VIP tickets in exchange for this post. As usual, all opinions herein are my own. I just really love supporting this local event!

 

 

Life Lately + A Last Minute Gift Guide //

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I’ve had grand plans of all of these amazing things I want to share with you before the holidays. But, realistically, my time management has not been great lately. Combine that with a sleep regression (thanks, Remy Bea) and the stomach bug? Well, that’s a recipe for dirty dishes and takeout every night.

So many-a posts have gone neglected.

That being said, there are a few things I want to share with you before we all get completely overwhelmed with the holidays.

  • Ari had his first Christmas program at school and it was every bit as adorable as you might imagine. He knew we were taking video and photos, so instead of singing, he was saying “cheese!”
    Melt my cold as stone heart!

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  • If you’re frantically looking for last-minute gift ideas, I leave you with these:
  • We were given a #JustBecauseCard at Chick-fil-A the other day. It was an awesome experience. And I still have butterflies from the whole experience! It turns out the movement was started by a local church. Even though we are not church people (at all), I’ve already had mega respect for this church. And this just elevated them even more.

 

  • For those of you trying to find the perfect wine to bring to your upcoming holiday party, run — fast — to Aldi. You heard me right. Aldi. Grab a bottle of their Flirty Bird Red Blend. It is incredible. No joke. And it’s less than $6 a bottle. Yep. You read that right. Less than $6 a bottle and an amazing wine!
    flirtybird

 

  • I’m still totally okay with cancelling Christmas obligations. Right now the only thing on my radar is getting through the next two work days, shopping for last minute gifts, and taking Ari to the movies Saturday morning. From there? We’re staying in. That’s it. Nothing else. Nada.

Easy Gift-Giving with #GrouponGoods

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groupon

Back before having children I felt like my gift-giving game was on-point! I mean, I had energy to plan and prepare for birthdays, Christmas, and everything in between. Now? Now my life is full of uncertainty. I was barely able to plan and prep for my own kids birthday this year, let alone anyone else’s!

And nowadays I have countless nieces and nephews to buy for, but, quite frankly, little clue what to actually get for them! (Having kids that are four and under means I’m totally and utterly clueless what is fun and popular for older kids!).

Over the last year I’ve purchased nearly every birthday gift from Groupon.

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The options for gift-giving are endless on the Groupon Goods section of the site! From books, to dolls, to baby gates! And don’t you worry, there are plenty of gifts for adults, too! The ever-so-popular adult coloring books and, my personal favorite, wine shipments!

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It’s a great way to shop for all of the special people in your life, from babies to adults! Even my very hard to buy for husband has enjoyed goodies courtesy of my purchases on Groupon Goods, especially on the electronics section!

So for once I’m not concerned about the holidays coming up. My gift-giving needs are completely covered — and I don’t even have to leave the house while I’m saving money! I call that a major win.

What’s your favorite thing to shop for on Groupon?

Red + White // Wrap Up

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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.

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[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!

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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!

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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!

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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.