We found a hidden gem! Wondery Melon’s House Party podcast. Ever got your kids into listening to Podcasts and exercising their imagination? This is a great one to start off with. Melon’s House Party is fun, engaging and full of adventures. It’s about a dog named Melon and her human owners Chloe and Luke and all the house objects that come to life whenever their owners leave their home, Including her very Bestfriend, a couch.
Our newly found favorite podcast Melon’s House Party has kept us entertained through our drive home from school and sports. It also recently became a request during bed time. It has replaced our bed time story 3 days out of the week and neither my partner Marcelo and I seem to mind at all. Melon and Couch keep the kids laughing and engaged in the story. Their voices are cute, friendly and so easy on the ears. Every episode is fun and a different adventure, Always something to laugh about as soon as Chloe and Luke leave the house. The first episode starts off with Chloe and Luke leaving the house to go Couch shopping (yikes) Melon definitely doesn’t approve of that. No way she will let her human owners replace her bestfriend, Couch. Now imagine all the trouble she gets into trying to save her bestfriend from being replaced.
Melon’s House party currently has 10 Episode, Each episodes are between 24-35 minutes long. Perfect to get your little ones imagination and listening skills some exercise. Every object in the house comes to life and interact with each other whenever Chloe and Luke leaves the house. You’ll meet plenty of characters throughout all the episodes, there’s Wall Calendar, Bookshelf, and a spell book just to name a few. There’s also episodes and adventures that happens outside the house with Melon. Every episode is nothing short of entertaining. Wondery Melon’s House party is available on Amazon Music, the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen and new episodes come out every Wednesday.
So many Holiday events happening in and around of Los Angeles during this Holiday season, from Drive-thru, Walking experience, shows and more. How do you even pick? Well our Tribe has narrowed down our Top 5 Holiday experiences around Los Angeles for 2021. The list is in no order.
Los Angeles Zoo Lights
L.A Zoo’s annual Zoo lights that was truly missed during the Pandemic last year is Back and we are here for it! L.A Zoo transforms their zoo to a magical walking experience with Lights galore. You can walk around the Zoo and enjoy a cup of hot cocoa (alcoholic hot cocoa available) a churro, cotton candy and other sweets and treats. You don’t see the animals like you would during the day, this is more of a Christmas light experience around the zoo. They have Photo ops throughout and Carousel rides for $3 (not a bad deal at all) The zoo did a great job decorating and making sure there’s tons of lights to create a vibe for you. I recommend purchasing your tickets online. Tickets sold out at the gate an hour after they opened when we were there so its definitely safer to purchase your ticket online. L.A Zoo lights is from 6:00-10:00 P.M every night until January 9, 2022.
Tickets starts from $22-$24 for 13+ and $16-$17 for 2-12 Children under 2 are free and Members are $15
Los Angeles Zoo- 5333 Zoo Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90027
At L.A Zoo Lights Santa Village L.A Zoo Lights Tunnel L.A Zoo Lights Photo Op.
Elf On The Shelf
Elf on the Shelf is Back! This was our favorite Drive-thru experience last year and this year they are back with bigger and better things. This Holiday experience is half walking experience and half is done riding in a trolley (think of Disney’s parking tram). We love this experience because you get the best of both worlds, a drive-thru and walking. Elf on the Shelf made sure you get a whole experience from writing letters to Santa, to watching Elves putting on a show. They have an Ice Skating rink for you to put your skating skills to the test (not included in Ticket price) and Santa’s Village where you can hang out and purchase Food, Drinks, treats and Elf on the Shelf Merchandise. Elf on the Shelf is located at Pomona Fairplex until January 2 2022. Tickets are available online.
Ticket prices start at $19.95 for children and $24.95 for adults, pricing is based on day of the week and proximity to holidays. Fairplex parking is $15 at the gate
Pomona Fairplex- 1101 W McKinley Ave, Pomona, CA 91768
ELF on The Shelf Writing Letters to Santa at Elf on the Shelf Ivy watching the Elves at Work at Elf on the Shelf Gavin on the Trolley ride for Elf on the Shelf
Holiday Road
This Walk Through experience was nothing short of Magical! Everything was beautifully lit and decorated. You can grab food from different food trucks and hit up their Holiday bar for some adult beverage. Everything in this place is so instagrammable and you’ll really feel the Holiday magic as you walk through this Holiday trail. I can totally do this one over and over again. There’s so much to see and you can tell so much work was put into it. We love this one! It was nothing short of Magical. They had different themes through out the ranch, Something straight out of a movie! promise this one is a must.
Tickets starts at $34.99 and changes depending on the day you choose to go.
Holiday Road- 26800 Mulholland Hwy, Calabasas, CA 91302
Holiday Road 2021Plenty of Photo ops throughout Holiday Road Christmas Village they had Real Carolers at Holiday Road not picturedHoliday Road 2021
World of Illumination
Our favorite Drive-thru experience this year! This event is a Drive-thru experience, located at Arcadia California sharing the same entrance as the mall. We love that this lives up to its theme “reindeer road” they created lanes and lanes lit up of decorations and lights. They did awesome making sure there aren’t any big gaps that aren’t decorated while you drive through this mile long experience. They had different themes throughout and I loved that. They provide you with glasses that gives the lights special effects. You can grab tickets online, I spotted tickets slightly cheaper than their website at Costco (gift card section).
Ticket prices depends on what day you come. Weekends cost a little more than weekdays and stat at $59 and can go up to $89 price is per car.
World of Illumination- 285 W Huntington Dr, Arcadia, CA 91007
Gavin and Ivy at World of Illumination’s Reindeer Road World of Illumination Drive Thru 2021Drive Through amazing Light displays by World of Illumination
Snow N’ Glow
This is what winter is made of! This goes beyond the Holiday experience. They had Tubing, Light walk-thru experience, Igloo’s available for rent, Smores kit for sale and Fire Pit tables throughout to keep you warm and where you can sit relax and have your smores. They have a little play area allocated for snow play. Make sure to come prepared if you plan on doing any of the snow activities because you will get soaked. The line for tubing can get pretty heavy so plan to be there early. We got there right at opening and was able to do as much tubing as we wanted without too long of a line but as soon as it got dark the line got heavy. The light walk trough experience consisted of lights, tunnels and letters to Santa. The kids loved that they were able to go tubing and have their smores. Snow N Glow has two locations Del Mar and Ventura. We visited the Ventura location and It made for a great family time.
Tickets starts at $35.99 depending on the day you go. You can also purchase ticket for the light experience only and that starts at $15.99
Snow N’ Glow- Del Mar- 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA, 92014
Ventura- 10 W Harbor Blvd, Ventura, CA 93001
Snow n Glow Tubing Snow Play at Snow N’ Glow Making Smores after the Light walk through experience
Annual Veterinarian’s celebration with Nat Geo WIld
Over Thanksgiving Break our Family enjoyed a whole week of Nat Geo Wild’s Vetsgiving special. A series of new episodes throughout the week to celebrate our Veterinarian’s and all their hard work and love they show to our furry friends. We enjoyed all the episodes that we’ve seen throughout the kid’s thanksgiving break, so for the upcoming Winter Holiday we have Nat Geo Wild’s Vet shows on our watch list.
Here is a list of Shows on Nat Geo Wild that you can stream through Disney Plus during the Holiday Break. A way to step into a Veterinarian’s day where you can definitely see and feel the devotion, hard work and love these amazing Vet’s show to our furry member of the family.
Pop Goes the Vet with Dr. Joya
Heartland Docs DVM
Critter Fixers
Hatcher Family Dairy
The Incredible Dr. Pol
Dr. Oakley Yukon Vet.
Vets on the Beach
Make this Holiday Season a comfy and Cozy one, grab a hot cocoa and start streaming Nat Geo Wild’s Vet shows. Whether you’re curious to see what Vet’s really do, how they save animals on the daily or you’re into the popping pus, gunk and goo, they definitely have a show for you. Each show is different from each other, and you’ll definitely get hooked. Critter Fixer’s are always bringing on the humor while Dr. Joya brings on the gnarly, disgusting yet satisfying talent she has for popping pus. Our family always enjoys watching The Incredible Dr. Pol, he sure lives up to that name! our favorite episode? watching Dr. Pol save the day doing emergency surgeries to bring baby animals into this world.
Make sure to tune in and watch Nat Geo Wild on Disney Plus.
We may be an Odd pairing, But it GHOST without saying, We’re friends SuperNaturally
Disney Channel came out with a brand new must watch series, The ghost and Molly McGee. The kids and I had the opportunity to preview next month’s episode and we are now beyond excited to watch the rest of the series. Two odd pairings, an optimistic tween and a rambunctious ghost as besties? Could you imagine the adventures and situations these two get into? Molly a tween navigating the already confusing life of a tween, it gets even more complicated when you add a Ghost in the mix who constantly shadows you around making him your instant bestie. Two completely different personalities from two completely different world, it gets so fun to watch and wonder weather or not Molly will listen to her gut instincts or fall for all the clever ideas Scratch seems to have.
Molly McGee played by Ashley Burch is amazing at bringing Molly to life and really letting her personality shine through. Ashley’s background is what touches my mama heart. Ashley is bi-racial just like my babies and we all know it’s not everyday you see someone bi-racial play as the main character. Are we evolving?! I am loving it. It is so important to see our culture, background having a representation on T.V and films and I am so happy Disney stepped it up making sure we and our kids have that now.
Scratch played by Dana Snyder is so hilarious! It’s so hard not to like him even though he doesn’t always have the greatest ideas, in fact he’s my kids’ favorite character. He’s full of energy and he’s the voice in all of us that wants to do the opposite of what our gut instinct is telling us to do. He’s by far the cutest grumpy ghost we’ve ever met.
To end our watch party, we had the very talented Disney animator Karl Cruz teach us how to draw Scratch. Gavin loved this activity so much as he recently started getting into drawing so this couldn’t have come at the perfect time.
The Ghost of Molly McGee is nothing short of amazing with a diverse roster and plenty of lessons to be learned this is a Disney series that’s completely mom approved, in fact you might want to sit and join your kids with this one. This is a series filled with laughter, musical, and lots of adventure!. Make sure you catch all the episodes on Disney Channel or Disney Plus. Great job Disney!
HauntoweenLA is keeping the fun and excitement of Halloween alive during this pandemic. Hauntoween LA is a 25-35 minutes interactive, engaging and immersive Drive Thru Halloween experience for all ages.
When Hauntoween LA decided to invite our tribe to their Opening Night we were stoked! We were greeted by an impressive Jack-O-Lantern tunnel and FX On Hulu’s “What we do in shadows” tunnel and then through a Pumpkin patch where you get to pick a pumpkin to take home. They even sanitized it and placed it in our trunk for us.
The kids favorite part of course is the Door to Door Trick or Treating. Hauntoween has 2 streets with 10-12 home neighborhood where they have Live costumed actors. They passed out candies to the kids while staying 6ft away.
Kids trick or treating at hauntoween for the second time
This is the highlight for everyone since we all thought we wouldn’t be able to do it this year because of the pandemic. Hauntoween executed being able to safely trick or treat in your car. The kids had so much fun we ended up going again for the second time around two days later.
FYI: All guests will be required to stay in their vehicles. You can enjoy the Drive-thru experience with your windows down as long as you’re wearing your mask.
Hauntoween LA is running until October 31 2020 and you can purchase your ticket by visiting their website https://www.hauntoweenla.com
Don’t forget to visit my Instagram account (@tribe.adventures) for videos on Hauntoween.
Halloween isn’t cancelled after all! Our Tribe Kicked off the month of October at one of the biggest Halloween event of 2020, Nights of the Jack.
Nights of the Jack is a Drive-thru experience around King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas, Ca. This driving trail experience is a Halloween wonderland featuring thousands of hand carved and illuminated Jack O’ lanterns.
All the carved pumpkins were amazing and impressive, lots of familiar celebrities, sports legends, Disney characters, Variety of scenes, etc all accompanied by music for the extra dramatics. The kids said they felt like they were on a Disney ride!
Here are a few tips when heading to Nights of the Jack with your tribe.
Pack a snack. We sure did! We packed some popcorns, juice boxes, some oranges and Halloween pretzels.
2. Pack some light up toys. For the extra fun I brought the kids some light up toys. They both got their light up wand and party glow sticks.
3. Listen to Halloween Music on your way to Nights of the Jack to get everyone in the mood. When you get there make sure you turn your radio on to their channel. The night of Jack Channel is 100.1 FM
4. If you’re like me and always want to take things up the notch, decorate the inside/outside of your car. We opted to do the inside of our car with some ghost lights and our stand up ghost to ride along in the back with us. Everyone in line loved it and it added a little bit of extra fun for us.
5. Grab your family and head on over to Nights of the Jack after all, we could use a bit of extra fun during this pandemic.
We had such a fun night and glad we were able to do something fun while feeling safe and socially distant. Nights of the Jack has tickets available now on their website
Our Tribe got to enjoy a Family musical for the very first time! What Rhymes with Orange is a family musical comedy held at Second city in Hollywood Ca. It’s showing every Sunday at 1:00 P.M through April 26, 2020 and we hope you get to see it like we did.
It’s a Fairy tale Musical that will take you through the mysterious jungle where you’ll meet singing raccoons, flying books, feathered librarian and help our Hero Amari search for the simple answer that will save the day: What Rhymes with Orange?
Second City and What Rhymes with Orange was the perfect musical and venue to introduce Gavin and Ivy to musicals. It was intimate, interactive and fun. Great storytelling, energetic music and the vibe throughout the whole hour was fantastic! It totally gave us Wizard of Oz and Alice in wonderland vibes. We even got to join the cast afterwards for their opening party and that was a treat!.
Our tribe definitely recommends What Rhymes with Orange! If you’re looking for a way to introduce your kiddos to musicals this is the perfect one to check out.
Who doesn’t love blocks? It’s a classic Toy, provides open ended play, creativity and tickles their imagination. A good set of quality blocks can cost a bit of $$$ and you’d want a good amount of blocks to create more, you really just cant have enough blocks (at least my kids made me think so). So what does this mama do? We headed to the thrift store on a haunt for some good quality blocks.
Did we find any? Oh yes we did! But half of them were scribbled on with markers (womp womp!). I contemplated and stared at it for a minute if it was worth buying and then a light bulb came on, We can dye them! Make Rainbow blocks out of them since we don’t have any and who doesn’t love rainbows.
We took them home and searched online ways to dye wooden blocks. I decided the easiest way for the kids to do it themselves and make an activity out of it was to paint them. We wiped each block down with disinfectant wipes and went to town with painting them with watercolor paint. We waited 24 hours for them to dry, some dried faster than others and some needed more coats because of the scribbles on them.
They turned out vibrant like we wanted and turned out even more fun than we expected! Activity and play all in one.
Tribe.Adventures 