Blog

n : a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies [syn: web log]

So how do you get featured in Food Network Magazine?

First, find a popular Christmas movie based on your hometown.

Next, create an exhibit around it.

Then, pick an iconic image from the movie and have a local bakery make a cookie of it.

Finally, let people decorate the cookie at your exhibit. That's how we did it!

Our Leg Lamp cookies were an "On the Road" feature in the December 2011 Food Network Magazine. The magazine was looking for interesting cookie decorating ideas on the internet, and found our exhibit's www.achristmasstorycomeshome.com website.

Thanks to Cakes by Karen bakery in Highland, IN, our annual "A Christmas Story" Comes Home exhibit is home to these delicious Leg Lamp cookies.

Sold for $2 in our gift shop, these cookies have become a popular project for families visiting the exhibit, pouring on the pink, green and yellow icing before they devour their artwork. (I know you can decorate one better than mine pictured here in pink and green).

The "A Christmas Story" Comes Home exhibit is open through January 8, 2012.  

Bring your family by to enjoy the 6 animatronic "A Christmas Story" scenes from the windows of Macy's Department Store in New York, photos with Santa on top of Santa's Mountain 11-2 Christmas Week, letters to Santa, small crafts for $1 and, of course, decorate your own leg lamp cookie!  

Find out more about the exhibit at www.achristmasstorycomeshome.com.

To celebrate all our fans, followers and visitors, we are doing a quick giveaway.  The first person to comment on this post will receive a Gary SouthShore RailCats pack including: voucher for 4 tickets to a RailCats game between Sun-Thurs, a XL t-shirt, batting helmet, rally towel, and wooden bat!

PLUS for the 1st person to comment AND the next 4 to comment, they will get a South Shore Passport of Savings! The book includes coupons for $2 off admisison at Bellaboo's, RailCats Box Seat and meal voucher for $12, buy one get one free afternoon wristband at Lake County Fair, ice cream at the Hammond Port Authority and Pratt's Ice Cream in Hobart, $5 off parking at Gary's South Shore Air Show and more!

Good luck!

*This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook or Twitter.

Entering the Challenger Learning Center of Northwest Indiana in Hammond, the first view is of the space exploration mural adorning the walls, honoring our nation's astronauts. The mood was set by one of the program directors informing us and a group of students how the facility came to be. The northwest Indiana center is one of 48 across the country entrusted to carry on the educational mission started by the Challenger Shuttle crew which included the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe.

The South Shore CVA staff was sent off to the briefing room to hear about our mission, set in the year 2076. Half the crew has manned Mars Control for 2 years. The other half, Mission Control, is on a 6 month voyage to Mars to relieve them.

I had the opportunity to be on team that started as Mission Control. We were taken through the "air lock system" and took our team posts on the ship. 

We monitored the crew's health, tested filters for radiation, gathered and tested samples while communicating our results to Mars Control. We watched the monitors as we traveled and listened to communications from Mars Control over the speakers. We had a few mishaps - the probe team blew something up in isolation and came out of their chamber with steam billowing into the room. And one of the air filters I was checking had extremely high radiation levels which added 3 months to the departing crew's trip back home. Luckily our team of "highly trained professional astronauts" were there to fix the problems.

Once our team arrived on Mars, we left our ship and entered Mars Control. Our task was then to monitor the takeoff of the departing crew. We were notified by Houston that a sand storm was approaching which can last a few hours to a few years. With food supplies low, they made if off Mars just in the nick of time.

The Challenger Learning Center has a wide variety of educational and entertaining programs. Many of the local schools take field trips to the center where students have a hands-on science experience with simulated missions, science activity labs and the micronauts programs. They also offer summer and weekend adventures with Indiana Space Adventure Camps and birthday parties; and for the whole family you can enjoy the family science, astronomy and planetarium nights.

The South Shore CVA staff had a great time experiencing first-hand what Challenger Learning Center of Northwest Indiana has to offer. For more photos of our mission, visit us on our facebook page.

For more on all the programs Challenger Learning Center has to offer, visit www.clcnwi.com or call 219-989-3250.

Going on a 1st grader's field trip to Taltree Arboretum and Gardens and Valparaiso University's Brauer Museum, who knew you could learn so much? 

Even in scattered rain, Taltree Arboretum is still an amazing place to visit. The 360-acre reserve includes gardens, wetlands, woodlands and prairies. Our tour guide led us along the spacious trails where we saw the beginnings of spring growth. Numerous bluebird houses, monitored and studied by the arboretum, were dotted along the trail.

The students were amazed at the giant oak tree which towered over their heads. We learned all about the restoration done by the founders and how this wonderful reserve came to be.

I hope to take the kids back in the late spring when the arboretum really comes to life and to see the incredible new Railway Garden which opens at the end of April. Learn more about Taltree at www.taltree.org.

Our second stop was to Valparaiso University's Brauer Museum of Art. Did you know they had more than 3,000 works of art in a rotating display there? The collection includes works from Frederic Edwin Church, Asher B. Durand and Georgia O'Keefe. It also includes a number of works by Frank V. Dudley.

The students learned Dudley's stunning paintings of the Indiana Dunes helped launch a movement to preserve the beauty of the dunes and to the creation of the state and national parks.

The museum is free to the pubic. Find out the Brauer Museum of Art's hours and current exhibits at www.valpo.edu/artmuseum.

Though we returned a little wet (and to the kids delight a little muddy), it was a trip which opened the students eyes to Northwest Indiana's natural beauty and the painted canvas.

You can be a local hero by bringing a regional, state or even national meeting here, to the South Shore.

Whether you belong to associations in your business or personal life, you have the opportunity to help bring people here and positively impact the local economy. We already live and work in northwest Indiana, and know that it is an affordable alternative to Chicago and Indianapolis. We have thousands of quality hotel rooms, hundreds of restaurant choices as well as casinos, family-friendly attractions and the beauty of Lake Michigan. This is your opportunity to showcase all of the South Shore while driving tourism to our corner of the state!

Dozens of residents of the South Shore have already brought meetings to their hometowns; varying from quilting and dancing conventions to corvette clubs and police conventions. Chances are you may belong to a group with an annual or quarterly get-together that we, at the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority, can help with. Welcome bags, hotel reservations, email communications as well as itineraries are all things our organization can offer.

Contact Kate Hurey today at khurey@southshorecva.com or 219-554-2227.

Thank you to our Hometown Heroes!