Worcester Red Sox job fair Feb 20 & 21 at woosox.com

The Worcester Red Sox are proud to present their first "Polar Park Job Fair," Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21, from noon to 4 p.m. each day. In partnership with MassHire Worcester Career Center, the WooSox will host the event on Premier Virtual, an online platform that allows candidates to browse the various positions, submit their resume, and chat with WooSox recruiters in real-time. These are part-time, seasonal positions, at an hourly wage (typically minimum wage except for some food preparation positions that require particular skill and experience).  

From Parking Attendants, Ushers, and Vendors to Ticket Sellers, Ticket Takers, and Merchandise Staff, to the Concessions Crew, Cleaning Crew, and Polar Park Ambassadors, this staff brings Worcester’s new ballpark to life. A staff comprising more than 300 part-time members is needed to operate the ballpark during the season. In addition to offering these fan-facing positions, the club will also be providing opportunities in facilities maintenance, videoboard and camera operations, and the actors who portray the club’s mascot. The Job Fair will provide more details about these areas of opportunity. To participate, prospective staff members can visit woosox.com to provide information and to then receive registration information. The club will also welcome emails sent to jobs@woosox.com to answer those with particular questions.

You are welcome to read in advance about the positions now on woosox.com. Those seeking positions can update their profile prior to the Job Fair, but cannot enter the “virtual booth” until noon on Saturday, February 20.  You may come and go as desired throughout the duration of the event. For additional questions, please email jobs@woosox.com.

NOTE: We are providing this information since we love the Red Sox and help to promote family friendly initiatives of the Boston Red Sox as well as the Worcester Red Sox (formerly known as the Pawtucket Red Sox/PawSox). From time to time we are offered to take in a game or experience to facilitate the review as part of the Red Sox Parents influencer initiative. No compensation was provided for this posting and all opinions are our own.

A fun new way to watch football thanks to NFL and Nickelodeon

There is a fun new way to watch football today during the Bears/As saints game starting today at 4p eastern! We will be watching!!

Here is the press release:

CBS Sports and Nickelodeon are getting kids and families into the game with a special slime-filled presentation of the National Football League’s Wild Card game on Sunday, Jan. 10, at 4:30 p.m. (ET). The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon will feature one-of-a-kind kid-focused content and Nick-themed elements throughout, including a special halftime presentation, guest reporters and original on-field graphics, virtual filters and more. The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon will air alongside CBS Sports’ broadcast of the game on The CBS Television Network. 

Play-by-play announcer Noah Eagle will be joined by CBS Sports’ analyst Nate Burleson and Nick star Gabrielle Nevaeh Green (All That, Nickelodeon’s Unfiltered) in the booth to call the NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon. Additionally, Nick star Lex Lumpkin (All That, Nickelodeon’s Unfiltered) ­­­will serve as a reporter during the game. Nickelodeon’s coverage begins with “The SpongeBob SportsPants Countdown Special,” a sports-themed compilation special at 4 p.m. (ET) hosted by the Denver Broncos’ Von Miller, highlighting SpongeBob’s best sports moments and featuring pre-kickoff appearances by CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, as well as Eagle, Burleson and Green.

The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon will also include a special halftime sneak peek of Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, which follows 10-year-old SpongeBob SquarePants and his pals as they spend their summer building underwater campfires, catching wild jellyfish, and swimming in Lake Yuckymuck at the craziest camp in the kelp forest, Kamp Koral. The series will debut in 2021 on ViacomCBS’s rebranded streaming service Paramount+ and then on Nickelodeon later in the year. 

“This is a first of its kind presentation for the NFL together with Nickelodeon, and we are very excited to create a unique telecast that will maximize the co-viewing appeal for kids and families, while maintaining the integrity of the game and its traditions,” said Sean McManus, Chairman, CBS Sports. “Partnering with Nickelodeon to showcase the NFL Playoffs is a great opportunity to highlight the power, depth and reach of ViacomCBS, as we continue to unlock the true potential of our merged company with the first of many opportunities between CBS Sports and our ViacomCBS family.”

“Our game plan is to make sure the NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon definitely lives up to its name by infusing the telecast with Nick’s sensibility of surprise and fun at almost every turn,” said Brian Robbins, President of ViacomCBS Kids & Family Entertainment. “We’re incredibly proud to team up with CBS Sports and the NFL to elevate the thrill of this game for kids and families to enjoy together.”

The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon will only be available to be streamed on mobile for free for all fans via the NFL App. The game airing on CBS will be streamed on CBS and NFL digital properties across devices, and on mobile via the participating teams’ mobile properties, and Yahoo Sports and other Verizon Media mobile properties.

NFLNickPlay.com will serve as the official online destination for the NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon, helping to educate kids on football basics and entertain them with a variety of NFL-themed content leading up to and during the Wild Card game. Kids will be able to engage with quizzes, polls, fun facts, info galleries, sports-themed short-form videos, Weekly Pick ‘Em printables and more, earning points and unlocking badges along the way. For three days leading up to the game and on game day, viewers can scan QR codes on-air, unlocking sports-themed SpongeBob SquarePants and The Loud House collectibles and participating with interactive content throughout the live game. Additionally, participants will be able to enter a sweepstakes for the chance to win an exclusive game ball signed by a Wild Card player, along with other exclusive prize packs.

The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon is produced by CBS Sports in association with Nickelodeon Productions. Sean McManus and Harold Bryant serve as Executive Producers of THE NFL ON CBS. CBS Sports’ Shawn Robbins is Coordinating Producer of the game along with Producer, Ken Mack and Director, Suzanne Smith. Production for Nickelodeon is overseen by Rob Bagshaw, Executive Vice President, Unscripted Content.

Nickelodeon, now in its 41st year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The brand includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, digital, location based experiences, publishing and feature films. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com.Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of ViacomCBS Inc. (Nasdaq: VIACA, VIAC).

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Keep the kids entertained with Carrera slot car toys!

Looking for a way to keep the kids engaged on something that doesn't have a screen? We got into slot car racing and the kids love it! I remember playing with a slot car set when I was a kid and don't know what happened to that set. Fast forward to 2020 when everyone is spending copious amounts of time at home, we decided to try slot car racing and it was so fun.

We got a set thanks to the great folks at Carrera Toys of America, which had cars that were modeled after two cars in Disney's movie Cars and of course my little guy wanted to be Lightning McQueen. It was so fun. 

We worked together to set the track up, which was a little more involved than I remember. The cool part about the track that we got is that it included a full loop-de-loop circle and also track raisers so that one piece of the track could go over another piece of track. We quickly learned that you have to install the track guides because if don't do that, the cars will most likely run right off of the track.

At the beginning of the pandemic in the US, the 55-year-old slot car company blew through its U.S. inventory in a month as families realized they could spend quality time building their track setup, learning how to use hand controllers to operate the miniature cars, mastering the art of taking the curves at top speed without losing the cars’ grip on the track’s guide-slots, and competing against each other for braggers’ rights.

If you've never played slot-car racing before, it's simple: you have to run your car around the track using a hand controller and be faster than your opponent without running the car off of the track! That is quite hard since the controllers are quite sensitive. Somehow my little guy was able to use the hand controller at full speed without running the car off of the track - something I was not able to do.

We played a lot with the set and one thing that my dad said would be a good thing to do would be to build the set on a piece of plywood so you don't need to keep assembling and disassembling it. We've played it a handful of times so far and it's a lot of fun - one thing to watch out for is that the track connections are very brittle and we've already broken a few of them.

If you're looking to spend some quality time with the family without being in front of any screens, we recommend that you check out slot car racing with sets from Carrera Toys of America!

NOTE: We were provided with a sample set to facilitate this review. No other compensation was provided and all opinions, as always, are our own.

Dinosaurs have arrived in Foxboro through September 27th!

Just in time for the 2020 season, dinosaurs have arrived at Gillette Stadium, the home of the 6x World Champion New England Patriots! 

The Jurassic Quest tour is here now through September 27th, featuring over 70 moving and life-like dinosaurs, as well as our 50 foot-long Megalodon that you can see all from the comfort of your car as you drive through the exhibit! If you're looking for something different to do this weekend, this is it.

We arrived around 6:30 pm as our tickets were good for any arrival between 6 and 7 pm and we pulled into the large parking lot off of Route 1 and were directed to the start of the exhibit. After checking in we downloaded the audio tour on our mobile device and started playing it through the car stereo. There were lots of cars ahead of us and it moved quite slowly, so it was great that we packed snacks as it took us around 10 minutes to get to the start of the exhibit.

For $49 per vehicle (up to 8 people and less than 10 feet tall and 25 feet long), your dino-adventure-seeking crew can enjoy about an hour-long ride back in time. Although we saw kids standing through the sunroof of cars, sitting on the roots and hanging out the windows - we decided to play it a little safer and checked out the dinosaurs through open windows.

One thing that was neat was the size of these animals in real life compared to things like our cars, rather than just reading about them in a text book or online.

At the end of the tour you can take a picture of the whole family inside the car, with a dinosaur in the background - by the time we took our picture it was so dark outside you could see us thanks to the flash photography but the dinosaur wasn't really in the photo... oh well!

Event: Jurassic Quest 

Place: Gillette Stadium (1 Patriot Pl, Foxborough, MA 02035) 

Date: Through September 27, 2020 (Closed Monday & Tuesday) 

Hours: 9 am - 8 pm daily 

Admission: Tickets available online at https://www.jurassicquest.com/events/drive-thru-boston

Cost for entry: $49 per vehicle.

NOTE: We were provided with passes to check out this awesome exhibit and be able to tell you all about it. No other compensation was provided. As always, all opinions are our own.

Trolls world tour is a great movie!

We watched Trolls World Tour on digital and absolutely loved it! The kids loved watching Poppy and Branch learning about the other kinds of music and troll tribes over different lands. It was great to see the trolls travel to different lands, meet other trolls and hear some great music.

This film was an industry first as it was released directly to digital since we were not going to the movie theater in times of Coronavirus.

We really enjoyed the plot, script and trip through music history in this colorful tale with Trolls World Tour!

NOTE: We were provided a copy of the movie in exchange for this review. All opinions are our own and no other compensation was provided.

Trolls World Tour is now yours to own on digital today and Blu-ray/DVD on July 7th!

Trolls World Tour is now yours to own on digital today and Blu-ray/DVD on July 7th! It includes two versions: the movie plus the exclusive Dance Party Edition and an original short, Tiny Diamond Goes Back to School. Dance. Sing. Play. Repeat. Keep the party going when you own the “pitch-perfect family film.”

You can download and print the Trolls World Tour activity packet for event DIY decorations, recipes, games, and more!  Roll out your own red carpet party at home as you watch Trolls World Tour! www.dreamworks.com/movies/trolls-world-tour#activity-sheets

NOTE: We are providing this information to you, our readers, since we thought you would find it useful! No compensation was provided and all opinions are our own.

Wears Woody: A local brand with Bold, Coastal Style and a great mission of giving back to drive over diabetes

When I attended the New England Boat show earlier this year, I had the opportunity to meet Mike Norwood, the founder of Wears Woody, a local Boston area clothing company with an awesome product and even greater mission of giving back to “drive over” diabetes. He started the company selling shirts out of his Jeep Wagoneer, Woody, and driving around selling his stock and giving back.

Wears Woody donates 7% of each sale to back to non-profits to help cure the disease. Such an amazing concept! You can choose which organization to give to (JDRF, Riding on Insulin, College Diabetes Network and T1D Exchange), or have it split evenly right at checkout.

Mike was a great host and took the time to explain their mission, products and we had a chance to check some of the new items they now have available in their online store.

Each article of American-made clothing is made in a local mill in Everett, Massachusetts, which produces their line of clothing for the mobile surf chalet as well as retailers and resorts around the east and west coast. I remembered the mobile surf chalet from seeing it parked near Boston’s South Station in Dewey Square - it is so cool that they can literally “set up shop” and provide an inviting retail experience anywhere!

Wears Woody has a new UPF line which is here this summer and has three different weights of clothing. I had the chance to try a few of their shirts and ended up getting their Solar Stretch Half-Zip in navy and it is SO comfortable and has UPF 50 sun protection in the fabric. New this summer, this line of clothing with embedded UPF protection has three weights and is perfect for the cooler temps that the evenings can bring.

The Anorak is one of their best-sellers and is perfect for colder times as well as wet or rainy situations. It has a pocket for your cell phone, too! I tried their t-shirts and other shirts and they are so soft and comfortable. It is great getting clothing that you can feel good about giving back to the community with.

Here's their founder, Mike, talking about Wears Woody:

NOTE: I was provided with the solar stretch half-zip shirt to facilitate this review. No other compensation was provided and all opinions, as always, are my own.