Dayngrous Discourse

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Exclusive Parent Blogger Roundtable in Miami

Hey there friends, fans and fellow South Floridians! GMC and SafeKids have partnered to host a series of activities in Miami the first week of December focused on family safety – particularly child/teen road safety, and timely toy safety reminders.

I've been invited by GMC to attend this intimate round-table Q&A session where we’ll hear from key safety experts from SafeKids who’ll provide us with the latest data and tips on child/teen road safety and answer all our burning questions and perhaps even dispel a few myths. After the Q&A, we’ll get a chance to take a test-drive in the new GMC Terrain! I hear they'll be giving us a unique peek into the passion and innovation behind its family-friendly design. Additionally, SafeKids will be providing hands-on vehicle-safety demos - always a plus!

As part of the event, GMC has partnered with local charity Miami’s Voices for Children Foundation (voted the Best Charity of 2009 by Miami New Times) serving the social, education and medical needs of Miami-Dade’s abused, abandoned and neglected children.

Here's where you come in:

If you’d like to participate,
bring a toy or two for their annual toy drive as we'll be filling up one (or more!) GMC Terrains with donated items to be delivered to the Voices for Children headquarters right here in Miami. You'll even have an opportunity to chat with the experts if you'd like. So cool!

When:

Wednesday, December 2
11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

Where:

Brickell Motors
665 SW 8th Street
Miami, FL 33130
(786) 245-4889


Want In?

If you're interested in being a part of the round-table event, please contact
me ASAP (it's tomorrow after all) for the details!

See you there!

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Saturday, November 28, 2009

Grand Re-Opening of Hialeah Park

A little bit of history returns to Hialeah. Today Hialeah Park, its most famous attraction, returns to all its glory with a grand re-opening at 11:00 and the first race at 1:05 PM!

I'm heading over and taking the Dayngrous Duo and with any luck I'll have wonderful things to report back along with some great photos.

The History

No one says it better than the Hialeah Park's website:

It all started in 1920 when Missouri cattleman James Bright and aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis began to develop Hialeah by donating land for community use while helping to acquire funds for construction of public buildings, facilities, and, yes, a racetrack.

Thirteen miles were incorporated as a town in 1921. Bright and Curtis supplied water and electricity. In 1922, the first pari-mutuel greyhound track in America opened at Hialeah under the Miami Kennel Club. But in 1924, Bright, Curtis and financier Joseph Smoot established the Miami Jockey Club.

On Jan. 15 of 1925, Hialeah Park opened for thoroughbred racing. Not only did Hialeah include a one-mile dirt track, clubhouse, administration building and 21 stables, but nearby was a jai alai fronton (the first in the U.S.), a dance hall and roller coaster. Oh, and a snake catcher. Because Hialeah was on the edge of the Everglades, it wasn’t unheard of to catch a couple dozen snakes a day near the infield lake. So a snake catcher was hired full time, showing Bright and Curtis left nothing to chance.

The track suffered damages in the Great Hurricane of 1926, but it didn’t stop Joseph Widener from purchasing the track in 1930. Widener, the heir to a streetcar fortune and whose family had been involved in racing since 1890, and partner Col. Edward R. Bradley would invest millions in renovating the track.

Widener took architect Lester Geisler on a tour of tracks in Europe and North America to glean ideas on how to redesign Hialeah, and those ideas can still be seen today.

The tree-lined paths and sweeping staircases were designed after Ascot and Deauville. The lines of the administration building were taken from a chateau in France. The walking ring from Longchamp, the tunnel leading to the track from Epsom Downs and the terraces and balustrades from a casino the two visited in Monte Carlo.

On Jan. 14 of 1932, the new Hialeah opened to rave reviews. It wasn’t long after that Hialeah opened the first turf course in the U.S., and installed the first totalisator system. In 1934, Widener imported 20 flamingos from Cuba to reside in the infield lake. He’d import another 100 in 1947. By that time, Hialeah had more than 10,000 palm trees on her property and more than 100,000 small shrubs and plants.

Not only was Hialeah the world’s most beautiful racetrack, but it was becoming the place for the rich-and-famous to winter. Not only did the greatest horses come to Hialeah, but the greatest personalities.

Truman, Churchill, Kennedy and Nixon wheeled through the turnstiles and remarked on Hialeah’s incredible beauty. Joining them was Sinatra, Crosby, Jolson, Durante, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Glenn Ford, George Raft, Angie Dickinson, John Philip Sousa and Will Rogers. Amelia Earhart said her farewell to the continental U.S., from Hialeah before her ill-fated flight around the world in 1937.

Through the 1950s, 60s and 70s, a stop at Hialeah seemed a prerequisite for any horse or human seeking greatness on the track or a place in the National Museum of Racing. Trainer Woody Stephens was a fixture at ‘Barn M’ each winter for 50 years. Ben and Jimmy Jones began the careers of champions at Hialeah.

It was the perfect place to start a champion or stamp a horse as a great one. The list is endless of those great horses that trained and raced across Hialeah’s hallowed ground. Seabiscuit, Citation, Forego, Bold Ruler, Spectacular Bid, Gen. Duke, Northern Dancer, John Henry, “The track itself is very kind to horse’s legs”, Jimmy Jones once said. “You could bring cripples here and get them sound.”

Hialeah continued to grow and flourish throughout the 50s and 60s after Eugene Mori purchased the track. Mori had the brilliant Flamingo Fountain built and, in 1961, added the Flamingo Pavilion. He brought in an aviary, an aquarium and the Flamingo Terrace in ’64.

The buzz was never greater, however, than when the Citation statue was revealed in 1965. Executed in Florence, Italy by sculptor Thomas Famiglietti, the statue, still proud and glistening, is a 5,955-pound bronze statue mounted on a base of marble

You may remember this historic park if you saw the 1978, Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-award winning film ‘The Champ’ because it was filmed at Hialeah Park.

Did You Know?

Hialeah has some pretty famous flamingos!

Since their introduction to Hialeah Park in 1933, these exotic, colorful birds have become a widely recognized trademark of Hialeah Park and South Florida. In fact, when the Florida Lottery was started in 1986, lottery officials used the iconic Hialeah flamingo as part of their official logo in the hopes of providing Floridians with a familiar image they could tie to gambling. The Flamingos were also frequently used as the backdrop for major feature films and television shows, including the opening of the hit show “Miami Vice” and the feature films “The Champ” and the hit “Let It Ride”. As much a Hialeah staple now as they were then, the Flamingos will once again take to the air in a breathtaking spectacle known as “The Flight of the Flamingos” when live racing returns to Hialeah Park on November 28th.

The flamingo colony itself was hatched and raised all at the race track. In fact, Hialeah Park is the only place the species has been successfully reproduced outside its wild state. For that reason, the infield area of the racetrack was deemed a National Audubon Sanctuary. Related to the heron family, the flamingo is a wading bird, preferring to live in shallow marshlands. Each spring, the birds nest on volcano-shaped mounds of clay built in a shallow pool on their infield lake. The female flamingo lays one egg a year and both parents take turns tending to the nest during the incubation period, which is usually about 30 days. When the small, greyish-white baby bird is hatched, it will eat its shell as a first meal.

The colony itself has been used as a way of spreading Flamingos throughout North America, with birds donated to zoos in Miami and St Louis, as well as to Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood, California.

Hialeah Park Today

Today, Hialeah Park is opening and I'm looking forward to sharing memories with my children inside this amazing park as my parents did with me. Tradition in the making? Perhaps. We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully, the photos we take today will be the snapshots they share with their children in years to come when they return together and make memories of their own.

Wish us luck!

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(If you'd like to learn more about Hialeah Park, visit their website at Hialeah Park Racing. All photos are copyright Hialeah Park. Excepts and some content used here was taken from the Hialeah Park website to provide the history for this post.)

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Friday, November 27, 2009

Happy Day After Thanksgiving

I hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving! The Dayngrous Duo and I sure did. We had a lovely little dinner and best of all, they tried everything on their plates.

I have to say, once the turkey is taken care of it's a breeze. I'm a no stress holiday kinda girl these days. Freaking out and trying to make everything perfect really ruins the day so I've learned to be a little more laid back.

We had a roasted honey baked turkey, cranberry orange relish, potatoes Au gratin, broccoli rice and cheese casserole, marshmallow delight, green bean casserole, cinnamon apples and biscuits. Dessert was a choice of ice cream cake, sugar cookies or chocolate cream pie. Yummy!

Oh and that picture, yeah, so not mine. But in my head that's what our Thanksgiving table looked like.

Reality, on the other hand, is a different story. Since our table is so small, I knew I wouldn't be able to put all the food on the table is an amazing Thanksgiving display - and I'm ok with that - finally. What I had growing up isn't what my kids have and that's ok. We're making new traditions with our smaller more intimate family. With that said, here are a few photos of our small Thanksgiving Day feast.











What did you have for Thanksgiving? What are some of your traditions? I'd love to hear since we're starting from scratch making our own!

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My Pumpkin's Pumpkin

Hers on the left. His on the right.

Back in October, my little girl went to a pumpkin patch on her very first school field trip (as did her brother). There, she got to pick a little pumpkin to bring home. What's cute about this photo to me is that before the trip, big brother announced he was going to pick the biggest pumpkin he could find!

Once at the pumpkin patch, their class got to choose one big pumpkin for their classroom. The next day they were able to help their teacher clean out the class pumpkin to prepare it for its transformation into a jack-o-lantern. Students dried the seeds to prepare them for planting later.

The photo above shows the progress of her seedlings. How cute is it that my pumpkin planted pumpkin seeds and now they're growing with her tender loving care?

She tells me she can't wait to make pumpkin pie with me. I love that she believes I can make pumpkin pie.

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Thursday, November 26, 2009

Field Trip to the Pumkin Patch

The Dayngrous Duo went on their 1st field trip to a pumpkin patch. They were so excited to ride the big white bus and have a picnic lunch. They each got to pick a pumpkin of their own to take home.


They had a great day!

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

10 Years in 7 Minutes

As we near ever so close to the end of the year here's an interesting and creative look back at the last 10 years in just 7 minutes. Enjoy!




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Thought for the Day

This one goes out to someone I know receives my blog posts by email...

"I am worthy of attracting unlimited abundance and prosperity into my life, regardless of what life experiences have gone before me. I only reinforce and contemplate images that are in harmony with this vision." -- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

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Saturday, November 21, 2009

Thought for the Day

"Happiness is never stopping to think if you are" - Palmer Sondreal




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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Honoring Our Veterans on Veterans Day


Illustration by Jeff Koterba, Omaha World Herald, NE


I could not resist sharing this with you. It seemed so perfect in today's day and age with social media as it is. Enjoy and remember to celebrate and honor our Veterans today and everyday. We owe them so much.

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Would you take a moment to nominate me (@Dayngr) for Best Social Media Maven to Follow?




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Dayngr, Best Social Media Maven to Follow

You know how much I love new media and social networking! Now you have a chance to help me get nominated as the Best Social Media Maven to Follow, though I prefer the term New Media Darling. I'd really appreciate your support!




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