If you’ve been following along on my Instagram lately, you may have notice a few of the delicious pictures I posted from Knott’s Boysenberry Festival.
I had the opportunity to spend a day in the Park, enjoying many of their boysenberry-inspired foods and drinks. I got so excited to see Ghost Town all decked out for the occasion!
Did you know that the boysenberry originated at Knott’s? Yep! The roots of Knott’s Berry Farm stretch back to the early 1930s when Walter Knott nurtured the only surviving boysenberry vines back to health and began selling the berries from his fruit stand on Beach Blvd. in Buena Park, California. 
The popular purple little boysenberry put Knott’s Berry Farm on the road to being America’s first theme park. The rest, as they say, is history. As the birthplace of the delectable boysenberry Knott’s Berry Farm.
Knott’s Boysenberry Festival runs from April 1-23 this year. During the festival, guests have the opportunity to enjoy boysenberry foods, both sweet and savory, and boysenberry-inspired craft beer and wine. Trust me when I say that you need to try all of the special boysenberry offerings during Knott;s Boysenberry Festival. One of the best ways to get a tasting of a variety of these foods is by purchasing a Festival Tasting Card. For just $25, you’ll get to sample 6 different items. As you can see, I started with one of the desserts, Boysenberry Panna Cotta! 
The Festival Tasting Card gives you quite a bit of food as you get samples of Boysenberry BBQ Meatballs, Boysenberry Fry Bread, Boysenberry Buffalo Wings, Boysenberry Ravioli, Boysenberry Panna Cotta, and Boysenberry Pizza!
I loved all of the items I got to try but I couldn’t stop there because there was still so much more boysenberry goodness to try! Some of the other boysenberry items you can find during the festival include:
- Ribs and grilled chicken smothered in Knott’s farm-made Berry Market Boysenberry BBQ sauce
- Corn on the Cob with Boysenberry Butter and Boysenberry Mayo
- Boysenberry Short Ribs over rice
- Deep Fried Alligator & Fries with Boysenberry Aioli
- Chocolate covered Boysenberry cheesecake on a stick
- Boysenberry Corn Dog
- Boysenberry & Apricot Pulled Pork Sandwich in a Boysenberry Bun Combo
- Boysenberry Nutella crepes
- Boysenberry Cookiewich Sandwich & Boysenberry Ice Cream Cone
- Boysenberry Flautas
- Boysenberry Cotton Candy
- Boysenberry ICEE floats, Boysenberry Cream Soda, and Boysenberry Lattes & Frappuccinos
- Fun Bun – Fried Cinnamon Roll with Boysenberry Cream Cheese Topping
Many of the special Knott’s brand jams, jellies, sauces, candies, and other boysenberry products are available year-round inside the park in General Store (located in Ghost Town) and outside the park at Berry Market (located in the California MarketPlace), as well as online. This is such great news for someone like me who is obsessed with all things boysenberry.
Aside from all of the boysenberry goodness at Knott’s Boysenberry Festival, there’s also a great lineup of entertainment for the whole family, you won’t want to miss including Snoopy’s Boysenberry Jamboree (on the Calico Mine Stage), Old Time Melodrama (Bird Cage Theater), The History of Boysenberry & Knott’s Berry Farm (in Town Hall), Cloud 9 Ballroom/Studio K Classic Dance Party (in the Boardwalk Ballroom), Wild West Stunt Show: Frontier Feats of Wonder! (in Wagon Camp Theater), and the fun Camptivities (in Camp Snoopy). Also stop by Calico Park for some fun, music & games and visit the animals Old MacDonald’s Farm (in Ghost Town).
Knott’s Boysenberry Festival is a must-do. Be sure to stop by before April 23rd! For more information, visit Knott’s Berry Farm’s site here.
Filled with creative LEGO® theming inside and out, the village-style vacation resort features brightly colored bungalows grouped into 13 horseshoe-shaped “coves” named after popular LEGO Minifigures. The fun begins almost immediately, thanks to a drive-through check-in process that will take you from your car to your cove in minutes. This speedy service makes staying at LEGOLAND Beach Retreat as carefree as a day at the beach.
Designed to look like larger-than-life LEGO sets, 83 bungalows offer 166 separate rooms that sleep up to five, including a cozy area just for kids with a bunk bed, trundle bed and privacy curtain.
They’re an ideal solution for families and groups traveling together, or for those seeking a fun new way to vacation at LEGOLAND Florida Resort. Each cove has its own outdoor play area within view of the bungalows’ shaded patios, where mom and dad can relax while kids romp and run.
Opening less than two years after the debut of the popular 152-room LEGOLAND Hotel, and with its own unique, outdoor-themed amenities, LEGOLAND Beach Retreat more than doubles accommodations at the Florida vacation destination. Along with picturesque lake views and a giant LEGO lighthouse featuring a real rotating beacon, highlights also include:
Located three-quarters of a mile from the theme park entrance on the tranquil shores of Lake Dexter in Winter Haven, Fla., LEGOLAND Beach Retreat represents the latest milestone in the largest period of growth and expansion in the five-year history of LEGOLAND Florida Resort, with theming and architecture unique among the eight LEGOLAND resorts worldwide.
The Florida site is the first LEGOLAND resort in North America to offer a second accommodation type for overnight and multi-day stays. Nightly room rates start at $135 (plus tax and resort fee) and vary by season, date and availability. Packages including theme park tickets also are available, and Awesomer and Awesomest Annual Pass Members receive a 10 percent discount year-round. To book a stay, visit 
I cannot wait for “The Book of Henry” to to hit theaters in select cities on June 16, 2017. Will you be heading out to see it?
Walk For Wishes is an amazing, annual event that’s always filled with incredible moments as “wish” children, families, volunteers and participants come together to celebrate and honor wish recipients of the past and present.
This year’s event is held on World Wish Day, Saturday, April 29 from 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.. at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine. World Wish Day is a celebration of the first wish ever granted to 7-year-old Chris Greicius who wished to be a police officer, and a celebration of all wishes past, present and future.
The event is open to the public and kicks off with a spirited, non-competitive walk at the Orange County Great Park. Guests will also be able to experience the World of Wishes festival with special booths dedicated to each of the four wish types: I wish to have, I wish to go, I wish to be and I wish to meet. Attendees will enjoy music, games, face painting, live entertainment and food from local vendors.
Registration is $25 and proceeds from the walk will go directly to granting the wishes of local children facing life-threatening medical conditions.
This year’s event is sponsored by Service Champions Heating & Air Conditioning and Toshiba with support from; Air 1, Hot 103.9, Parenting OC, Yelp and Manhattan Stitching Co.
To learn more about this incredible day celebrating “Wish Children” and their families, go 
Here are a few highlights about the show:
Family-friendly activities and competitions for Imaginology include:
The free family event will kick off with an Easter egg hunt at 12 noon, beginning in Kaleidoscope’s courtyard. Passport cards will be given out to the first 300 children, directing them to the participating shops and restaurants where they will receive candy-filled eggs and prizes. The completed passports can then be handed in for a chance to win a Grand Easter Basket. Children should bring their own baskets to collect eggs.
In addition, the Easter Garden Party will offer a complimentary photo opportunity with the Easter Bunny for guests who bring their own camera. The fun afternoon will also include free face painting, a balloon artist, and a petting zoo with bunnies, baby goats, chicks and ducklings. It’s going to be so much fun and a great family event! Hope to see you there!
Here’s how YOU can help support this great cause
Built on the simple idea that nothing else should matter when a family is focused on healing their child – not where they can afford to stay, where they will get their next meal, or where they will lay their head at night to rest – RMHCSC helps families with critically-ill children stay together, connecting them with others facing similar challenges through its six Ronald McDonald Houses in Bakersfield, Inland Empire (Loma Linda), Long Beach, Los Angeles, Orange and Pasadena, and two Ronald McDonald Family Rooms. The Chapter also operates the cost-free, medically supervised Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, helping ill children and their siblings rediscover childhood and develop the self-esteem and self-efficacy often lost as a result of the disease.
We recently had the opportunity to take a farm tour with some friends, to kick off Strawberry Season. The strawberry tour is a one-hour long, wagon ride around the 30 acre farm. As we sat in a wagon pulled by a tractor, our tour guide discussed the different farming methods used at Tanaka Farms, as well the history behind it.
Throughout the tour, we stopped to see where different fruits and vegetables were being grown and even got to sample many of the ones in season. It’s a great way to get your kid to eat their vegetables!
The last stop on our tour was the most exciting one for us. It was in the strawberry patch! Before getting out of our wagon, our guide gave us a mini lesson on how to properly pick the strawberries.
Next, we got to walk through the strawberry patch to pick our own strawberries and fill up our own one pound basket of strawberries to take home! If you take this tour, you’re also allowed to eat strawberries as you’re picking. They are so sweet and delicious this year! It was so much fun!
Tanaka Farms offers Strawberry Tours on Saturday and Sunday, every half hour, from 9:30-2:30. No reservations are required but a 20-30 minute arrival beforehand is recommended. They also offer tours Monday through Friday but reservations are required and can be made by calling (949) 653-2100 ext. 204 or email 
School and group tours are also offered and require a reservation. The cost for the farm tour is $18 for adults and children, with children 2 years of age and younger free.
Strawberry season at Tanaka Farms is such a fun time of year to visit. For more information about dates and times for the tours, go 
While you’re at Tanaka Farms, you’ll also want to stop in at their fresh produce stand to purchase the freshest, most beautiful fruits and vegetables around. They also offer a variety of other delicious products for purchase.
Connect with Tanaka Farms on