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🧔🏽♂️ Dad Thoughts: What You Get From Me
The Last Dance is one of my favorite things I’ve ever watched. In one of the more emotional episodes, Kobe talks about the comparisons to Jordan and sums it up in one line: “What you get from me is from him.”
What our children get from us, they give to theirs. If we react to every spill and every mistake like it’s a disaster, that’s what they’ll learn. If we stay calm when things go sideways, they’ll learn that instead.
We can give them every tool we can find. The right books, the right classes, the right advice. But the thing they’ll actually carry with them is who we are on our best days and our worst.
Kobe studied Jordan’s every move. My kids are studying mine. I don’t always give them good tape.
But I’m trying to be a Jordan worth copying.
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🚗 FAMILY FUN FIELD TRIPS
Dad-approved outings.
This Weekend → 👻 Oyster Bay Halloween Ghost Walk & Dance Party
Raynham Hall’s lantern-lit costume parade through downtown Oyster Bay, led by giant ghost puppets, ending in a DJ dance party at the Townsend Park bandstand. Bring lanterns and noisemakers. Food trucks line the route.
💰 Free
📅 Fri Oct 30, 6–8:30 PM, parade starts at Oyster Bay High School
🔗 raynhamhallmuseum
🎃 1880s Haunted Halloween at Old Bethpage Village Restoration
Trick-or-treating through a historic 19th-century village, a children's costume parade and contest, and a Sleepy Hollow marionette show. A perfectly spooky-not-scary Halloween outing for younger kids.
💰 $17 adults / $14 kids ages 5+
📅 Sat Oct 31–Sun Nov 1, 10 AM–4 PM
🔗 oldbethpagevillagerestoration
🚀 STEM•X Festival at the Cradle of Aviation Museum
Two days of hands-on STEM inside the museum: robotics, coding, VR, drones and more. A perfect post-Halloween sugar-crash Sunday.
💰 Free, advance registration required
📅 Sat Oct 31–Sun Nov 1, 10 AM–3 PM
🔗 cradleofaviation
Next Weekend → 🎩 Family Saturday at the Nassau County Museum of Art
Explore the galleries, then make a Gilded Age hat in the art studio, inspired by the museum’s Tiffany exhibit. Hands-on, low-key, and over in about 45 minutes, with a reading lab to wind down after. Pre-registration required.
💰 $20 adults / $10 kids (includes museum admission); members free
📅 Sat Nov 7, drop in 12–3 PM
🔗 nassaumuseum
💥 The Great Pumpkin Smash at the Science Museum of LI
Bring your leftover Halloween pumpkins and destroy them for science: slingshots, launchers, bats, and pumpkin cornhole bowling. Kids get to smash things on purpose, and the proceeds fund summer camp scholarships. The best way to say goodbye to October.
💰 $25 adults / $10 kids / free 3 and under
📅 Sun Nov 8, 12–5 PM
🔗 smli
🎃 OCTOBER LAST CALL!
For when the weekend plan falls through.
🍂 Hicks Nurseries Fall Festival
The easy, free, any-day fall outing. Otto the Ghost's animated walkthrough and the indoor Skeleton Estate Garden are spooky-cute, not scary, and on weekends the wristband activities and hay maze turn a pumpkin run into a real morning out.
💰 Free admission and parking; hay maze $8; activity wristband $25 online / $30 in store
📅 Daily through Nov 1; wristband activities weekends and holidays, 10 AM–5 PM
🔗 hicksnurseries
🌽 Heritage Farm & Garden Fall Festival
A true farm-style fall festival without leaving Nassau: a corn maze, hayrides, a pumpkin patch, farm animals, a kids' village, and live music on weekends. Everything you want from a farm day, minus the drive east.
💰 $25 weekend package / $15 weekdays; crafts $5 each
📅 Daily through Nov 1, 10 AM–4:30 PM
🔗 heritagefarmandgarden
🎨 Scarecrow Garden at Old Westbury Gardens
A gentle Halloween stroll through one of Long Island's prettiest estates, lined with community-built scarecrows that run from charming to wonderfully weird.
💰 Included with admission: $22 adults / $12 ages 7–17 / free 6 and under
📅 Daily through Oct 31 (closed Tuesdays), 10 AM–6 PM
🔗 oldwestburygardens
🕯️ RISE of the Jack O'Lanterns (Suffolk)
More than 7,000 hand-carved jack o'lanterns lining a wooded trail just over the Nassau line. The region's big pumpkin-art night walk, stroller-friendly but hilly. Online tickets only, so book early.
💰 Varies by time slot
📅 Select nights through Nov 1
🔗 jackolanterns
✏️ PENCIL IT IN
Future you will be glad you read this.
✨ LuminoCity Holiday Lights at Eisenhower Park
The LuminoCity Festival Lights comes to Nassau for the holidays. Super early bird 25% off running now.
💰 Adults $36, Children $28
📅 Wed Nov 11–Sun Jan 3
🔗 luminocityfestival
🚗 Nassau County Holiday Light Show at Nassau Coliseum
A drive-through light show with tunnels of lights synced to holiday music. Pajamas encouraged, nobody has to get out of the car.
💰 $35 per carload / $55 flex pass
📅 Select nights Nov 20–Dec 31
🔗 holidaylightshow
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See you next Thursday,
Akash