Thanks to Verizon for sponsoring this post about keeping the family connected during the holidays.
2020 its been some year… actually pretty crazy year for our family personally, lots of family moving to different states (most of it not because of the pandemic) but its been a year of differences. Like many families seeing family and friends have been challenging (if not completely nonexistent). Thankfully 2020 offers us a ton of technology to keep us connected.
Each of us has screen times issues these days but if thats the only way to stay social and connect outside of our homes, pods, inner circle friends. Marc has been on video games chatting away for hours with friends that he’s knows from school and some he’s met online playing the games (thats a much larger conversation for another time). Harper and Harlow facetime with family, and for Mother’s day we got the facebook portal and have been connecting with their GG (great grandmother – Ma) once a in a while to check-in.
All while we’re working remotely, learning remotely, and streaming the entire Netflix. HBO Max library… so having incredible internet speed is everything to us. I think my last count was 30 devices are usually connected to our wifi at any given time… being able to watch TV without buffering is a pretty important issue for the adults, and also a 5 year old who watches all of those Ryan’s surprise egg videos.
We’ve been a FiOS Home for years and we love it. We’ve really never had major outages (which is a major change from our last internet provider) and never impacted by the weather. This holiday season Verizon has you covered with some incredible deals. This holiday season the deals are better than ever, get rewarded when you combine your Verizon mobile and Fios Home Internet Plans. For new customers, save $30/month with select plans* when you get both within 30 days of each other. Plus, get $10/month** to put toward your next hone or tablet. Choose the plans that are right for you and get rewarded – today.
My Talking Tom Friends is officially available to download worldwide on Google Play and the App Store and, to celebrate, we have pulled together 5 handy tips & tricks you need to know, whilst exploring and finding fun.
Taking virtual pets to the next level, My Talking Tom Friends sees Talking Tom, Talking Angela, Talking Hank, Talking Becca (this is her mobile game debut!), Talking Ben, and Talking Ginger moving into one big house together for the first time.
Players can decorate the house, customize their characters’ outfits, take care of them, and put them to bed at the end of a busy day of non-stop fun. The new title brings all the Talking Tom and Friends characters together in a never-before-seen sandbox experience, where we can all play any way we want.
My Talking Tom Friends allows you to create your own unique stories, with 6 lovable characters who trust you to entertain them, feed them, learn with them and be there for them. Here are our top 5 tips and tricks you need to know for My Talking Tom Friends.
Unlock all six characters Players start the game with Tom and soon meet Angela in the tutorial. From there, other familiar faces can be unlocked and added to the group of friends. Over the course of the game, players welcome all six characters to the house, but don’t forget that they all have their favorite places to hang out! Look around the house to find where they might be hanging out!
Customize your characters Keeping your friends looking stylish is great fun! You can customize their looks as you play. The wardrobe is shared between characters, so anyone can wear whatever you want! It’s filled with lots of outfits, some which you can unlock as you go and others that you can get by catching the bus into town and going shopping! You can also get new things for the house while you’re at it.
Get tokens and take bus trips You can collect bus tokens through different gameplay activities found around the house, such as fulfilling wishes, progressing skills or playing mini-games. When you gather enough tokens, a bus takes characters to town, where they can get different rewards from one of the shops. Here you can collect a wide variety of rewards such as prop items, wardrobe items, furniture skins, food, medicine, seeds and coins.
Grow a variety of food There’s a great garden in the house and characters are able to use it to grow some unique plants. They can get seeds from the shops in town or you can get some when you enter the gardening scene. After planting the seeds, one of the many possible plants will grow – onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pineapple and…. Lollipops, cotton candy, and hot dogs? Nature can be weird sometimes. You can also use the water hose to speed up the plant-growing process. Or, if you can’t wait, you can also purchase a fertilizer to grow it instantly.
Play lots of mini-games Mini-games are a great way to earn tokens and other surprises. You can access them by taking a character to the TV in the living room, or by selecting the relevant prop and choosing the mini-game option. Mini-games reward you with tokens and items, so the more you play, the more options will become available. And skillful play also offers greater rewards, so if you score lots of shots in a row in a game of basketball, you’ll get more tokens!
As a family, we’ve played with Talking Tom for years. When the character was first introduced, he would simply mimic what you would say in a totally different voice. Over the past 10 years the character has evolved, just as our mobile phones and apps have evolved. Now there are six lovable characters in the award-winning Talking Tom and Friends franchise… And a whole new adventure to enjoy in the latest mobile game!
My Talking Tom Friends uses a ‘sandbox’ approach that allows the whole family to play any way they want. In this next-generation mobile pet simulation, you can take care of Talking Tom and Friends as they move in together – for the very first time!
The excitement begins when Talking Tom shows up at the new house with a box full of all his fun stuff and decides he wants to stay. As your adventure starts, even more characters arrive, each bringing their own unique brand of fun to the house! The characters love living together but – as we’ve found out while we played – they’re never happier than when we’re all playing together.
And there are countless ways to play! We get to care for their needs and wishes, helping them play together with cool gadgets and activities, and we really love the mini-games! You can do everything from skateboarding and karaoke, to growing food in the garden. For a change of scenery, you can take the bus into town to go shopping for new furniture for the house and clothes for the characters. There are so many things to do – it’s really up to you to explore and create your own unique stories.
Now you and your family can play this fun game together, too! My Talking Tom Friends is now available to download for free from the App Store and Google Play https://go.onelink.me/app/ef2af7f
I’ve partnered with TCL one of the largest TV and best-selling consumer electronics brands to kick off 7 days of giveaways leading up to national cut the cord day (July 7th). This Independence Week each day a new prize will be posted https://www.tclusa.com/7-days-of-cord-cutting along with a featured video to highlight how cord cutting is not just a way of the future but really can be made a reality today. Some of the videos will be focused on home makeovers, where TCL helps people cut the cord with specific gear fit for their homes and for their family’s TV watching preferences, while other videos will take a deeper dive into how cord cutters can get the most out of their TCL Roku TV.
Starting today, for “7 Days of Cord Cutting,” consumers who visit https://www.tclusa.com/7-days-of-cord-cutting can enter the giveaways. Winners of TCL’s National Cut the Cord Day giveaways will be selected the next day and receive the following prizes:
Day 1 – 49” 4-Series TCL Roku TV and Antenna (Mohu Blade Premium)
Day 2 – 50” 4-Series TCL Roku TV and DVR (Tablo DUAL LITE OTA DVR)
Day 3 – 55” 4-Series TCL Roku TV and Cable TV Replacement/Live TV (YouTubeTV via Google Play Gift Card)
Day 4 – 55” 4-Series TCL Roku TV and Movie Service Subscription (FandangoNow Gift Card)
Day 5 – 55” 5-Series TCL Roku TV and Premium Content Subscription (Showtime Gift Card)
Day 6 – 55” 6-Series TCL Roku TV and Audio Accessory (Alto 7+ Sound Bar)
Day 7 – 75” 6-Series TCL Roku TV and each of the items offered from previous days (Mohu Blade Premium, Tablo DUAL LITE OTA DVR, YouTubeTV via Google Play Gift Card, FandangoNow Gift Card, Showtime Gift Card, and Alto 7+ Sound Bar)
Additionally, on National Cut the Cord Day (July 7th) consumers can take advantage of specially-priced TCL products at amazon, best buy, walmart along with many others so keep your eyes out for these great deals. TCL televisions integrates the latest technology such as 4k UHD resolution, Dolby Vision with High Dynamic Range (HDR), and has such cool features as voice remotes and gives easy access to an endless library of streaming entertainment – more than 5,000 channels and 500,000+ movies and TV episodes – through the built-in Roku operating system.
Take me out to the ball game… buy me some, well actually buy me anything thanks to Peapod by Stop & Shop who is a proud partner of the New York Yankees for the 2019 season. I’m too thrilled announce an incredible Sweepstakes going on right now. Each time a New Yorker places an order with Peapod from now until June 30th, they will be automatically entered to win the Ultimate Fan Sweepstakes. A randomly selected winner will receive a VIP experience at Yankee Stadium. This includes FOUR Legends Suite tickets to be determined for a home game, a pre-game on -field experience, a pre-game dining experience with a former New York Yankees player, and four $100 gift cards to the Yankee Stadium Team Stores.
This was a no brainer partnered with Peapod since we’ve shopped at Stop & Shop for years the idea that we now can download an app and order sweet… score a pair of NY Yankees tickets as a giveaway (enter below using the widget) is totally a BONUS! Let’s be real, the days of waiting in line at the grocery store are no longer necessary with convenient services like Peapod. There’s no walking home trying to lug a heavy watermelon down the blocks. You get your delivery jump into your car and head to the game ready to tailgate with the best of them.
Not only does Peapod save time and energy but it also offers convenient features and shopping tools such as “Express Shop” (which helps quickly locate the ingredients in a recipe or meal plan). There’s also an Order Genius feature that will auto-fill the shopping cart with your most frequent purchases.
I had my entire order delivered to my door in NYC in less than 24 hrs. I will also mention my wife placed the order on a Sunday while I was driving the car and everything arrived seamlessly. Like a true New Yorker, I made sure to tip my delivery driver ahead of time on the app, so I didn’t even need to have cash in my pocket.
If you are in the New York / New Jersey area, or even planning to visit to the Hamptons or even Fire Island give Peapod a try for yourself! Use the coupon code NYY50 and receive $30 off your first order. Restrictions Apply. Minimum purchase required. See Peapod.com for details.
