This Friday night September 30, please join me and an array of Washington, DC moms for the Runway Moms for a Cause at the Embassy of Nigeria. This event is an accessibly-priced but extravagant gala night out in which proceeds will go to fighting poverty and illiteracy through education and social welfare programs in Nigeria.
The night’s philanthropy is the United for Kids Foundation (UKF) – a 501c3 organization committed to improving the lives of mothers and children in Nigeria. Runway Moms for the Cause is recognized by the Embassy of Nigeria as a prelude to the Nigerian Independence Day celebrations.
The event will feature hardworking moms from the DC area showcasing the incredible fashions of L~Shandi Designs by Lara Akinsanya. Lara is a Nigerian-born American mother of two-year-old twins who was inspired to provide ready-to-wear garments that are made with fabrics from Africa appealing to women from all nationalities.
Lara was also inspired to organize this global goodwill event with the Embassy of Nigeria and local businesses in order to help improve the lives of mothers and children in Africa. Her vision of a night of glamourous goodwill is not to be be missed! Her designs use traditional African fabrics with Western cuts to provide a unique and timeless look.
Guests at the event will partake in a silent auction featuring original artwork, sent from Nigeria, by the benefitting orphans depicting their life goals and dreams. The event will be hosted by Maureen Umeh of Fox 5 DC and Lara’s designs will be showcased on the runway by myself and other women in the community such as Kelly Collis of the Tommy Show on Fresh 94.7 and City Shop Girl; Rebecca Cooper of WJLA Channel 7; Aba Kwawu, Founder, The Aba Agency; Maggy Francois, Fashion Educator, West Potomac Academy; Tanya Dallas-Lewis, Musician and Journalist; Christine Brooks-Cropper, President, Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce; Chichi Emeson, Executive Director, Miss Nigeria in America, Inc.; Natalie Jobity, President, Élan Image Management; Mia Redrick, Owner, Finding Definitions; Kristie Hale, CEO, Impulse Design Group, Inc.; Susi DuPuis, Personal Assistant to CEO & CFO of BP Alternative Energy North America; Monique Lighart, Realtor, Long and Foster; Neneh Diallo, Director of Communications, Millennium Challenge Corporation; Christhel Barron, PR & Events coordinator at LJ Bamboo; Doyin Daramola-Boatin, Doctor of Pharmacy, Dekalb Medical Hospital and the designer herself.
Fire Station 1 Restaurant and Brewing Co. is one of family’s and my favorite restaurants. It strikes the perfect balance of cool brewery restaurant for adults, and fireman rescue hero dream for the kids.
Mom and Dad get low-priced, quality beer on tap like Hook & Ladder, some of the best crab cakes and french fries in the DC area (from the Examiner’s restaurant review, “Is there a such thing as a perfect french fry? This one is up there…”) and $8 lunch specials.
The restaurant is also a built-in history lesson for the children. Right across the street from the B&O train station and the current, modern fire station facility, the restaurant is housed in the historic Silver Spring National Guard Armory. The Armory was converted to the first Silver Spring fire house in 1919 and the firehouse themed restaurant is even owned by a retired Montgomery County firefighter. Inside, the official fire station decor, as well as the coloring pages and Wikki Stix that the servers will bring your kids, will keep them happily entertained until their food arrives.
The Jr. Firefighters menu is also well-priced and, if you can believe it, healthy. All items are freshly made, as far as I can tell (we’ve had almost all the items on the kids menu over the course of our visits). The default side order to your little one’s handmade mac-n-cheese or 4 oz. (non-frozen) angus burger is steamed broccoli “trees”, although you can instead request those perfect french fries for your little Master or Miss Potato Head.
My kids cheer when we take them here for dinner or a weekend lunch. And I will confess: we eat out a lot and they have become restaurant snobs. They find this place super entertaining and clean their plates, and Chris and I love that the kids are entertained by history rather than video games or other kid restaurant cheesiness.
For fun date nights: If you’re a poker person, there’s free Texas Hold’em every Monday, and trivia nights are on Wednesdays. Happy Hour is Monday-Friday from 3-7pm, with $3 Drafts, $5 Martinis, 1/2 Price J Lohr Wines and 50-cent wings.
Disclosure: Plum District is an advertising partner of A Parent in Silver Spring and they have gifted me this deal for my family. However, I agreed to this sponsored post because we have patronized this restaurant several times on our own dime and thus all opinions expressed are my own.
Want to go see the Blue Man GroupTHIS Wednesday night March 23rd at 7:30pm at the Warner Theatre in downtown DC? Because I have TWO sets of 2 tickets for two lucky couples/friends.
You’ll be there on opening night!
UPDATE: Megan H. and Judi R. are the randomly-drawn winners!
The show is suitable for ages 10 and up. I think it will be an awesome (and if you’re lucky – FREE) girls’ night out, special big kid and parent outing or a date night.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Blue Man Group is best known for their wildly popular theatrical shows and concerts which combine music, comedy and multimedia theatrics to produce a totally unique form of entertainment. Although it is impossible to describe, people of all ages agree that Blue Man Group’s show is an intensely exciting and wildly outrageous experience that leaves the entire audience in a blissful, euphoric state.
With no spoken language, Blue Man Group is perfect for people of all ages, languages, and cultures. Blue Man Group is coming to DC and playing at The Warner Theatre March 23-April 3. This unique theatrical experience is a form of entertainment like nothing else, guaranteed to be an outing you will never forget!
Wed, March 23 at 7:30pm
Thurs, March 24 at 8:00pm
Fri, March 25 at 8:00pm
Sat, March 26 at 1:00pm, 5:00pm, & 9:00pm
Sun, March 27 at 1:00pm & 5:00pm
Wed, March 30 at 7:30pm
Thurs, March 31 at 8:00pm
Fri, April 1 at 8:00pm
Sat, April 2 at 1:00pm, 5:00pm, & 9:00pm
Sun, April 3 at 1:00pm & 5:00pm
Ticket Prices
Gold Circle: $92.00
Orchestra: $82.00
Mid-Balcony and Upper Balcony : $72.00
Last 4 Rows: $32.00
TO WIN THIS GIVEAWAY:
TWO lucky readers will each win two tickets that must be used for the Wednesday March 23rd show. Bring ID, because your name will be awaiting at the Will Call window. The tickets are non-transferable.
You can get your name tossed in the virtual hat by
Leaving a comment on this post – either leave your email address or login via Facebook so I can contact you if you win. If you don’t want to leave your straight-up email addy and for fear of being spammed by the bots (sounds like a science fiction movie, I know), do some fancy typing like Hottie [dot] McPhee [at] gmail and I’ll totally get it.
Share this link on Facebook or Twitter for additional entries. Leave a comment here if you FBed or Tweeted, and friend me and follow me so I can see your lovely sharing and follow your feeds too.
I will randomly draw the two winners on MONDAY night at 9pm. Winners will be contacted directly and then posted here as well.
UPDATE: The randomly-drawn winner is Junga K.! Thanks everyone!
We all know that OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) poignantly soundtracked Andie and Blane’s star-crossed love in Pretty in Pink while Duckie sadly watched in the corner with his scuffed steel-toed shoes until Kristi Swanson soundlessly indicated she’d make out with him.
However, some kids in the ’80s and ’90s took their OMD love even further, obtaining every tape, and then CD, of the Brit new wave synth pop band. They daydreamed to “Dreaming” and sang in their hairbrushes to “Enola Gay” and choreographed dance routines to “Tesla Girls”.
These kids also tended to adore the Pet Shop Boys and New Order and Depeche Mode and Erasure and Echo and the Bunnymen, and if they were very innocent teenage girls, they may have had no idea that the tunes they were blasting in their pink and purple bedrooms while thinking about boys were being danced to by boys in grown-up dance clubs who were also thinking about boys. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it would have helped explaining why the hotties with all the hairspray and polka-dotted rayon shirts that they adored were usually only just good friends. Sigh.)
And then those kids all grew up and now nostalgically download those same OMD tunes onto their iPods and dance around their kitchens while sweeping up the Goldfish crumbs. They book babysitters to go dancing with their friends for retro synth pop nights. Their children grow up warbling in the backseat with faint British accents and dancing in their Pull-Ups with club kid aplomb.
And when OMD comes into town, these grown-ups jump up and down with their pregnant bellies bouncing obscenely and tell the 9:30 Club promoters that their mom blog NEEDS TO COVER THIS INCREDIBLE EVENT.
And the 9:30 Club peeps smile their oh-so-cool-indie-chic smiles and blessedly say “Sure!” and give me tickets for myself and best bloggy IRL BFF Tech Savvy Mama for a girls’ night out and two more tickets for the readers of A Parent in Silver Spring.
So, do you want ‘em?
Here’s how to win!
Leave a comment here with your email address or Facebook so I can contact you if you win. Because this is a giveaway for a show this week, please only comment/enter if you are free and can make it!
Change your Facebook status update/post on Twitter: “A Parent in Silver Spring is giving away two tickets to OMD in concert & I want to win! http://bit.ly/fQ2AZY“
I’ll draw the winners of the two tickets to OMD on Monday night at midnight.
If you don’t win, I still hope you’ll join me and Tech Savvy Mama for a Britishifically, poptastically, syntheriffic night out.
I wonder if my old Liberator t-shirt will still fit?
And for those of you who loved Pretty in Pink, here’s a dramatic interpretation by Meg Cabot, starring a Mattel’s Ken and a member of Strawberry Shortcake’s posse:
Disclosure: I get two tickets, you get two tickets. Nothing else changed hands. I would’ve bought my own tickets, but this way you get some too. Fair? I think so!
You’ve gotten down to Rock Lobster at countless bar mitzvahs, weddings, frat parties and seedy bar dancefloors.
Maybe you saw them live in concert during the ’80s or ’90s.
And I’m now going to be personally responsible for you having Rooooammmm if you want to! Rooooam around the worrrrrld in your head for the rest of the day. (without anything but the love we feeeeeelll).
Or you can take a ride on the roulette and try to WIN TWO FREE TICKETS here on A Parent in Silver Spring (a $90 value!).
To enter, just leave a comment with your favorite B-52′s lyric. (Tip: cutting and pasting mine from above doesn’t count.) Be sure to log in via Facebook or leave your email addy so I can contact you if you’re the winn-a!
You can also gain additional entries by
Posting this to your Facebook status “I’m hoping to win free tickets to see The B-52′s from A Parent in Silver Spring! http://bit.ly/eOzNZh”
You can also post that phrase and link to Twitter for another entry!
