Chocolate Factory Tours!

Did you ever watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and wish you could go on a crazy chocolate tour (minus kidnapping squirrels and being turned into a blueberry). There is a chocolate factory in Salt Lake that lets your tour the facility for $1. The tour includes samples (of course!!!) and you get to see how they make their sugary goodness. Link to their website here.

Upgrade to an Experience:

Watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after the tour
Try your hand at making your own candy
Make your own Chocolate Tasting

Soap Factory

I love Color Me Mine, but it is little pricey. The Soap Factory is a similar set up. Come in and create your own soap. Choose from scents and ingredients to make your perfect blend. And it’s only 5$. Pay for an experience and a product. The perfect combo! Get directions and more details here. 

$5 for lab fees per person

Ingredients $0.05/ gram

Upgrade to an Experience:
Hand Massages
Create a theme of "clean" and buy groceries  at a farmers market for a "clean meal"
Add to the soap theme and blow bubbles

Foot Painting

So this is one of my personal favorites -slash- my go to when I need an adventure idea on the fly. Foot painting. Whenever I tell people this is the activity we are going to do they always assume that we are going to use our toes to paint. This is an option, but I think it is more challenging, and therefore more fun, to use your toes to hold a brush and paint with that.
So for this activity you need paper, paint, paint brushes and water. Use water color paint, acrylics, crayola, it doesn't really matter. Place newspaper all around your painting floor space and put a piece regular paper or water color paper on top. Pick up your paint brush with your toes and paint away!

To add to this activity:

• It is fun to print our a picture that everyone is trying to paint. Each picture turns out so differently its sometimes hard to tell you were all painting the same object...
• Foot painting sometimes turns into painting feet, do what you want.
• Use a sheet and secure it down, put paint on your feet and dance to your favorite song and see what it looks like in color. 

Movies that compliment this activity

• Footloose
• Happy Feet
•  Cinderella
• Little Mermaid

Hot Chocolate Tasting

Outside activities excursions are getting tricky now that the weather is getting colder. To compensate, lets rock some indoor adventures! One idea I got from drinking AMAZING hot chocolate from work is a tasting date. To explain the idea I am going to use hot chocolate, but you could use it with any food: eggnog, ice cream, cheese... whatever you feel like. 

So this is how it goes. You go from generic to specialty. So for hot chocolate you by some store brand packets, some nestle mix, Swiss mix, maybe some Abuelita or Stophers and then like maybe melt some Belgium chocolate bars in milk. Then you pour some shots, add whipped cream to each, and top off with  cinnamon or chocolate shavings. Label the brand of each chocolate shot with tape on the  bottom of the glass (you should probably do this before you pour the hot chocolate). Then have your partner mix up the glasses and take turns drinking from your shot set and guessing which hot chocolate is which. Who knows, maybe your favorite hot chocolate is the generic stuff!

To add to this activity...

• You can add an extra level. Once you find out which hot chocolate mix is your favorite, figure out what your favorite toppings are, cream, half and half, cinnamon, nutmeg, hazelnut and so on. You could make shots for days!!
• Or put different ice cream in your shots and see what flavoring you like
• Look up a recipe for legit Belgium hot chocolate and make the real thing at home!
• Choose different flavors of hot chocolate and drink shots blindly to figure out what your favorite really is.
• Play Beer pong with hot chocolate shots, using marshmallows as the ping pongs

A Date Around the World!

Have a traveling bug? Let’s take a trip around the world… in Provo.
There are places in and around Provo that have a unique culture or ethnicity. Put a few ideas together and take a date around the world.

For more fun, make a passport and get a stamp for each place you visit!

Or give your date a packing list of as many items as they can find.

 Examples would be

• France: berets, mustaches, striped shirts, 
• India: white shirts and sashes
• Tropics: sarong and sandals

Let the fun begin!!

Ever seen Stonehenge? 

Orem has it’s very own Stonehenge! Slightly smaller, and more intact then the original, Orem Stonehenge sits on the grass of a local business. Bring Hot Chocolate and gaze at the stars or try to remake the stone formations with your bodies.

Location: 435 W Center St, Orem, UT 84057

Price: free

Indoor Tropical Island resort? 

There is such a thing in Germany, the worlds largest indoor water park. Recreate this experience by going to the Old Mill pool, it is a tropical island inside the complex. Complete with palm trees, sand, and water. Just make sure you have a way in, because it is locked half the time.

location:724 W 1720 N, Provo, UT 84604

Price: Free

Prauge Bakery

Eat some traditional Czech Kolaches.

Location:  434 W Center St Provo Utah, 84606

Price: Around $3

Love Lock Bridge Paris. 

There is a bridge in Paris where you place a lock on the chain of a bridge and throw the key into the water. Buy a lock and key and find a bridge to keep your heart’s secrets.

Location: Find a bridge

Price: $3 for a lock

Sushi in Japan

Try any sushi bar in Provo

Location: Google it

Price: Varies

India

The Hari Krishna Temple is a Indian architectural marvel on Utah Soil. Take pictures and pet the llamas

Location: 311 W 8500 S, Spanish Fork, UT 84660 

Price: Free

The Alps of Switzerland.

Go to Sundance and ride the lift and pretend you are in the alps of Switzerland and Germany. I guess you could also go skiing and it would be European too.  

Location: 8841 N. Alpine Loop Road, Sundance, Utah 84504

Price : $25 for 2 people

Waterfalls of Europe

Iceland and Switzerland are renowned for thier beautiful waterfalls. Provo conveniently also has many waterfalls too. Print out a flag and take pictures, or have a cheese picnic near a waterfall

Location: Waterfall

Price: Free

Gelato in Italy

Gloria's Little Italy has the best gelato in Provo. A classic Italian treat, in an Italian themed restaurant

Location:1 E Center St, Provo, UT 84606

Price: About $3 a scoop

Chocolate of the World

Pop and Sweets has an assortment of European chocolate. Grab some foreign sweetness to eat on your trip.

Location:42 E 1230 N St, Provo, UT 84604

Price: $3 per candy

Mexican Craters

Swim in  tropical waters of the Homestead Crater and pretend you are in the jungles of South America.

Location: 700 Homestead Dr, Midway, UT 84049

Price: $15 per person (try to find a group on)

Foreign Cinema

Check out local screenings of foreign films, like BYU, or you could just Netflix it

Location: depends

Price: Free

Halloween Series Take 6: Destroy Your Pumpkins...In a Fun Way

Halloween is coming up fast! And what are you going to do with the pumpkins you have rotting on your front porch? Why not smash them like you've been wanting to do all October! Cornbelleys has an event the Saturday after Halloween (which is this Saturday if you didn't realize). Bring your pumpkins and watch them get destroyed. Bring your friends or a date to enjoy the fun.

To add to this activity:

• On the way to Cornbelleys, stop at every sign that advertises pumpkin flavored food. 
• Have a pumpkin seed spitting contest while you wait to mash your pumpkins.
• Dress up in your Halloween Costumes, or make some Thanksgiving costumes to celebrate the upcoming holiday
• Have a surprise food fight with pumpkin pie and whipped cream. Destroy your pumpkin- destroy your date!
• All of the Cornbelly activities will still be going, so you can explore and have fun after the smashing.

Halloween Series Part 5: Provo Library Clue

Another unique Halloween Date. Dress up as the characters from  Agatha Christie 
Arthur Conan Doyle, orDashiell Hammett  books and play a Who Done It murder mystery at the Provo Library. Play at your own pace, clue style. Search the library from room to room finding clues to solve the mystery! Go to the website to fill out a request form to play.
Free!

Provo Library Website

        

To add to this activity:
Dress up as characters from the book
Walk or ride bikes to the Provo Library
Watch a mystery movie afterward- The authors represented in the Who Done It murder mystery have created famous detectives. Keep the theme going and watch one of the represented detectives in a movie.

1. Agatha Christe- Hercule Poirot
2. Arthur Conan Doyle- Sherlock Holmes
3. Dashiell Hammett- Sam Spade 

Halloween Series Part 4: Cycling Ghost Tours

You love Halloween? Do you like spooky things? Do you like riding bikes? Then here is your soul adventure - Cycling Ghost Tours! Ride your bike around the spooky sections of Provo and hear stories about why they are so spooky. The tour lasts between an hour and an hour and a half is only conducted on Saturdays. 

To add to this activity:

• Meet up with your date or group before the ride and deck your bikes out in glow sticks. 
• Rent a tandem bike for the bike tour.
• Afterward get hot chocolate and recount the ghost stories you just heard.
• Watch a scary movie.
• Have each couple, or in small groups go back to the tour stops by themselves to take a picture.

To find out more about the Cycling Ghost Tours look at their website here. 

Prices:
$8 per person
$12 for a group of two
$5 per person for groups with 3 people or more 

Win Free Things for Carving Pumpkins!

The Provo Events department is having a Pumpkin Carving Contest! And all you have to do is take a picture. We all carve pumpkins on dates, or with our roommates or with our families, so why not win some free stuff while we are having fun? Take a picture of your carved pumpkin and post it to one of three sites.

1. Instagram and tag @provorecreation
2. Post it to Facebook with the same hashtag
3. Post it in the comments of their Blog

Post by October 31st and the winner receives 4 skating passes to the Peaks Ice Arena, and 4 certificates to yougurtland, that's a double date just waiting to happen!

Check out the Provo Events blog site here for more details, or look at the Provo Events Pinterest page here for ideas on cool pumpkins to carve.

Good luck!

Neon Trees-This Weekend

This is big news. You should pretty much cancel everything and make it to this concert. It's Neon Trees, and its free! There's not really anything else you could ask for. Downtown Provo is closing off center street and the local Provo band is performing in front of NuSkin. It's going to be EPIC! So you should go. I almost didn't post this because I didn't want tons of people showing up and ruin my chances of getting good seats, but I figured that cant be helped, so everyone should just come party.