Enjoy some Halloween fun anytime of the year with a Hotel Transylvania 2 Family Movie Night

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias and its advertiser.  All opinions are mine alone. #MakeItAMovieNight #CollectiveBias

Halloween is such a great time of the year with all its spooky fun and treats.  That fun doesn't have to be limited to October with the January 12, 2016 release of HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 on Blu-ray and DVD. Show your Halloween spirit anytime of the year by enjoying a Hotel Transylvania 2 Family Movie Night.

My kids just adored Hotel Transylvania 2 when we saw it last year at the movie theater so my wife and I didn't hesitate picking up the film as soon as it was available to add to our family's home entertainment video library.  With its cast of monsters that really are more silly and wacky than horrific and frightening making this a great family friendly comedy parents and kids can spend an evening howling in laughter at together.  We always like to have a special snack that ties into a movie we will be watching so we made our favorite Halloween treat, caramel apples, for our Hotel Transylvania 2 Family Movie Night.

We drove over to our local Walmart to purchase Hotel Transylvania 2.  Of course you need popcorn for any family movie night so we grabbed a six pack of Orville Redenbacher Movie Theater Popcorn.  I always enjoy drinking an ice cold refreshing Coca-Cola and munching on M&M'S® Chocolate Candies so we stocked up on them as well during our visit to Walmart.

Walmart has a nice deal that if you purchase one of each of the four products I just mentioned together in one purchase between now and 2/2/16 you can get a $10 Vudu movie code by email.* To redeem just snap a picture of your receipt with a smart phone and visit uploadreceipt.com/movienight to submit your photo by 2/9/16. To make sure you are purchasing the right items to qualify you for the Vudu deal CLICK HERE for a list of products along with their UPC numbers that you can print out and take along with you on your shopping trip. For more details on this offer visit http://cbi.as/1fihg

*While supplies last. Limit 1 per person

As I mentioned, in addition to snacking on Orville Redenbacher Movie Theater Popcorn during our Hotel Transylvania 2 family movie night we made ourselves some caramel apples.  They actually are pretty easy to make and here is a recipe so you can do it yourself too:

 A Geek Daddy's Awesomely Scrumptious Caramel Apples

Ingredients:

4 apples;
1 package of caramel bits (11 oz);
2 Tbsp of water;
4 wooden popsicle sticks;
 **Optional** Mars M&M'S® Chocolate Candies  3.4oz Theater Size Box

Directions:

Take the number of apples you want to candy and wash them. Then thoroughly dry them.  For our demonstration we took two large Red Delicious apples for my wife and I to eat and made two caramel apples out of smaller Granny Smith ones for our kids.

Insert wooden popsicle stick into the stem end  of each apple.  Cover a plate with waxed paper.  Spritz the wax paper with cooking spray to avoid the apples sticking to the plate when covered with caramel.

Place your caramel bits into a microwave safe bowl.  Add two tablespoons of water.  Place in microwave for 2 minutes on HIGH.  Remove the bowl from the microwave and stir until caramel bits are completely melted.

Alternatively, you can also place the caramel bits in a medium saucepan and use a stove instead.  Add the two tablespoons of water and place the saucepan on a burner set at medium-low heat for 3 minutes.  Stir the caramel bits constantly until they are completely melted.

Next before the caramel cools dip the apples into it.  Use a spoon to evenly coat the apples and make sure their entire surface is covered with caramel.  Allow excess caramel to drip off back into your bowl or saucepan. Handle with care as the caramel should be very hot.

 

To make your caramel apples extra special smash up some Mars Chocolate M&M'S® Chocolate Candies in a plastic sealable snack bag.

Spread the Mars M&M'S® Chocolate Candies on a plate and roll your apples while the caramel is hot across them.  This will coat your Caramel Apple with a delicious crunchy covering.

Place the caramel covered apples on your wax paper covered plate(s).  Refrigerate for at least one hour.  Remove your caramel apples from your refrigerator 15 minutes before serving.

Voila! there you have it a tasty Halloween themed treat to enjoy during your Hotel Transylvania 2 Family Movie Night.  Or as my kids would say mimicking me "Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah."  We grabbed a pop up bowl of Orville Redenbacher Movie Theater Popcorn and our caramel apples to snack on while we enjoyed our show.

My wife and kids stuck with the plain caramel apples while I scarfed down the one coated with M&M'S® Chocolate Candies and drank a bottle of Coca-Cola.  We had a very good time enjoying our snacks while watching Hotel Transylvania 2.

CLICK HERE to find more fun snack ideas for when you want to #MakeItAMovieNight

#HotelTransylvania2

Create the Ultimate Slurpee: Saturday, April 11 is BYO Cup Day @ 7-Eleven

Slurpee's from 7-Eleven are one of our family's favorite treats so you know if the convenience store is hosting a special event featuring these slushies we'll be there.  With that in mind, my kids and I are looking forward to this Saturday's "Bring Your Own Cup" Day event at 7-Eleven where you can bring the container of your choosing and  regardless of the size of the cup create your own ultimate Slurpee for a $1.49, the average national price of a medium Slurpee in the United States.  Be creative and have some fun when bringing your own cup.  Have a plastic party hat left over from St. Patrick's Day or New Year's Eve? or maybe a sand bucket from last year's beach vacation.  Bring in a tea pot or mixing bowl from the kitchen pantry.  Anything is on the table as long as it meets a few limited restrictions.

The "cup" most be able to must be able to fit upright through an in-store display with a 10-inch diameter hole so no filling up inflatable swimming pools or garbage cans to slurp out of.  If you are creative enough you could potentially get a gallon (128 oz) worth of Slurpee for what you would normally pay to get a 16 oz cup of this frosty delight.  A few other requirements include your "cup" must be clean, sanitary and food safe; it must be watertight and not leak; and just one cup per person for the day.

photo courtesy of 7-Eleven

With the #BYOCUPDAY rules in mind, my kids and I started rummaging through the house for the best containers to bring with us on Saturday, April 11th to get our #Slurpees in that we could squeeze through that 10-inch diameter hole.  I vetoed my son's Detroit Tigers batting helmet and my daughter's gold fish bowl so that left us with a batter mixer, water pitcher and my cherished pirate skeleton glass beer mug as some of our best options.

Search your house for your best cup to make your ultimate #Slurpee than stop by your local 7-Eleven from 11am to 7pm on Saturday, April 11, 2015 to filler up.  Sorry foreign readers this particular event is just in the USA this time though 7-Eleven has previously already held similar BYO Cup events in other countries in the past including Canada and Australia.  So what cup are you going to bring and more importantly what flavor or mix of flavors are you going to fill it up with?!  My favorite Slurpee flavor is Faygo Red Pop while my kids like to mix Coca-Cola with Fanta Wild Cherry.

Enjoy yourselves everyone and drink responsibly on Saturday...don't get brain freeze! So bring out those plastic party hats, cooking pots, hollow coconuts and whatever else you can find as 7-Eleven welcomes the return of warm weather and the beginning of Slurpee season with its Bring Your Own Cup Day promotion.

photo courtesy of 7-Eleven

Get a Dynamite Comic Book Deal on Groupees

I've been a fan of the offerings of comic book publisher Dynamite for a few years now because they take pulp fiction and retro stories like Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordan, The Green Hornet, John Carter: Warlord of Mars, The Lone Ranger, The Six Million Dollar Man and Sherlock Holmes portraying them in updated adventures for modern audiences to enjoy while maintaining many of their classic elements.  Dynamite is offering for a limited time a digital deal on the website Groupees that will allow purchasers to sample a large number of their comic book series while also supporting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund with a percentage of the proceeds.

The Groupees web site is an alternate service similar to the Humble Bundles I've posted about several times before.  Instead of choosing your price though, consumers select how much they want to spend from designated levels of benefits.  20% of the purchase price in this Dynamite deal goes to the Comic Book Defense Fund.  Spend a minimum of $1 and you'll receive 34 comic books that include selections from Project Superpowers, The Spider, Sherlock Holmes, and Red Sonja.  Spend $5 or more and you will receive a selection of comic books from additional series that include Games of Thrones, Army of Darkness, Dresden Files, the Green Hornet, and Django/Zorro.  $10 will get you a variety of issues from Dreadstar, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, and Legenderry plus the Dynamite Art of Alex Ross picture book. Alex Ross has really become recognized as one of the best artists in the comic book industry so that book in itself makes this package worthwhile.  Additionally, for every 1,000 purchases, an additional bonus item is added to everyone's package.  Since most of the titles in this deal are ones I actually haven't read yet, I spent $10 to check them out and to show some support for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.  My $10 purchased 101 digital comic book issues that normally cost from .99 cents to $3.99 each.  For example to demonstrate the savings, Kevin Smith's Green Hornet digital issues included in my Groupee deal on the Comixology website/app are priced at $1.99 each which would have cost me $20 just for those 10 issues if I bought them there.

Since 1986, when Michael Correa, the store manager for a Lansing, Illinois comic book shop called FRIENDLY FRANK'S was arrested for the possession and sale of comic books as obscene material, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) has provided legal assistance to protect the First Amendment rights of the readers, creators, retailers, publishers, and librarians of comic books, manga, and graphic novels.  Twenty-eight years later the CBLDF is still tackling censorship issues and standing up for First Amendment rights, including its recent efforts to have a Utah law that censored Internet speech and a California law that eliminated First Amendment protections for violent images declared unconstitutional by Federal Courts. In additional to legal advocacy, the CBLDF also provides educational outreach regarding citizens rights in regard to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. For more information about the COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND, visit www.cbldf.org

The digital comic books are stored on your Groupee website profile and can be downloaded from there to your PC in DRM-free files which means that you don't have to view them through a particular website or app like Comixology; but you'll need a good unzip program, like Express Reader, and a pdf reader compatible with your phone, tablet or whatever device you wish to read with to access and enjoy the comics. You can also use Torrents to access your digital files from Groupee.

Payments can be made with a Paypal account or you can use Paypal without an account to process a credit card payment.  Groupees also accepts payments via Amazon and Bitcoins.

Don't hesitate if you are interested in this comic book deal though because it will be gone in a week. For more information, visit Groupees.com

Star Wars Video Games are the Newest Humble Bundle Deal

The newest Humble Bundle deal is Star Wars video games you can play on your PC through the STEAM cloud-based gaming service.  Humble lets you pay what you want for the bundle and even gives a portion of the proceeds to a campaign's designated charity...in this case letting purchasers choose to support either UNICEF or the new Star Wars: Forces for Change charity that Disney has created and tied to the promotion of the brand's upcoming motion pictures.  Name your price: $1, $5, $12 and you get 3 classic video games for whatever you want to pay.  If you spend over the "average" amount people are spending on the Bundle you get 3 more games or if you just spend $12 you can get a total of 9 games.  Plus you never know throughout the games Humble may throw in some additional games into the package to up the ante! Right now the Humble Bundle is estimated to be worth $115 if you went out and bought these games from retailers right now.

The Name Your Price Games are:

Knights of the Old Republic

Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Star Wars Dark Forces

The Average Price Games are:

 Battle Front II

Knights of the Old Republic II

Star Wars Republic Commando

The $12 Bundle Games add:

Empire at War: Gold Pack

The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition

The Force Unleashed II

I remember enjoying many of these games on my original xbox gaming system so if you are a PC gamer and like Star Wars this seems like a great not to miss deal.  Don't wait though because this is a limited time offer and when its over the deal's gone.  Keep an eye out on the clock on the offer's web page that is running down how much time is left to make sure you don't miss out.

Remember too if you are in a generous mood some people pay more than they need to in order to support making donations to a campaign's charitable partners.  I'm sure UNICEF and Star Wars: Force For Change would appreciate your generosity and put donations to good use.

Help Your Child Explore Science & Technology With A Monthly Subscription To Space Scouts

Who doesn't like getting something delivered in the mail to their house? Admit it; there is a thrill to getting something delivered from your postal carrier that isn't a bill or junk mail but rather something fun or interesting you can enjoy...and when it comes to kids that thrill level of getting something special in the mail is escalated a thousand percent!  So if you are looking for something a little unique or different to give to a special child in your life you may want to check out a subscription service that recently caught my attention called SPACE SCOUTS that promotes creativity and imagination through sending space themed boxed filled with arts and crafts projects and other fun treats each month.

Join space scouts Roxy and Jett as they explore the galaxy engaging children with fun learning activities, hands-on discovery, and exciting challenges through this monthly subscription club.  Each month explores a new aspect of outer space -- astronomy, science and space exploration are just a few of the topics explored by the Space Scouts to help launch children's interest in science and technology.  A package will arrive each month filled with learning activities plus magnets, stickers, and toys to enjoy.

The subscription program is designed so that each month's package builds upon what you have already received in previous mailings.  Pricing starts out at $11.95 + $3 shipping per month with additional discounted plans for multi-month purchases.  SPACE SCOUTS is recommended for kids age 6+.

A GEEK DADDY blog readers receive a 20% discount on their initial purchase of any SPACE SCOUT subscription plan by using promo code USFAMILY20.

For more information, visit  www.atcssc.com/space-scouts

DISCLAIMER: A Geek Daddy Blog was introduced to this product through its participation in the US FAMILY GUIDE Blogger Program.  A Geek Daddy blog was not provided any financial compensation for this post but is being provided a complimentary two month subscription to the Space Scouts to review.  A positive review is not required of our blog to participate in this promotion.  A Geek Daddy blog had not received the product to review yet at the time this post was published.