Friday Night Puzzling! 6-18-2021

Happy Friday, friends! I’ve been feeling overdue for a good Friday night puzzle session so let’s remedy that situation, shall we? I’ve recently acquired a couple of new puzzles and I’m excited to start one of them tonight. With the heat wave that’s penetrating much of the country right now, I thought we could all do with a cold treat so let’s bust into this yummy ice cream bar puzzle.

Puzzle: White Mountain Ice Cream Bars 🧩

A few years back, one of our best friends gave us a 1980’s-themed White Mountain puzzle and we’ve been in love with the brand ever since. We especially love the many collage-style puzzles they have. Many of them have old school advertisements and product packaging and we get a kick out of the nostalgic vibes. We especially love the collage puzzles created by the talented artist Charlie Girard and have several of them.

White Mountain Puzzles began as a poster company in 1978 in a small New Hampshire town in the White Mountain National Forest (hence their name). The company is still located in the same small NH town and is still family-owned, now operated by the sons of the original two founders. Their products are very high quality, manufactured in America, and their 1000-piece puzzles are the largest in the industry. I can vouch for that: whenever we start a 1000-piecer of theirs and have the pieces spread out on our large 4′ X 4′ breakfast nook table, it almost fills the entire space!

Find it here:

Ice Cream Bars puzzle from White Mountain Puzzles

Album: Van Halen Van Halen (self-titled debut album) 🎵

I love cranking up some Van Halen on a Friday so when my husband thought of playing ‘Ice Cream Man’ to go with our puzzle, I was all too pleased to oblige. The song appears as the second-to-last track on side two of the band’s self-titled debut album. And what an album it is! Every song is a powerhouse and it could easily be a greatest hits volume one. The album, released in 1978, comes screaming in with the opening siren of ‘Runnin’ With the Devil’ and keeps rocking hard the whole way through.

The photos used for the album cover were taken at Hollywood’s famous Whisky a Go Go club, where the band frequently played in their early days. The picture of the late, great Eddie Van Halen features him holding one of his prized homemade ‘Frankenstrats.’

Listen to it here:

Van Halen’s debut album ‘Van Halen’ – full album on YouTube

Van Halen’s debut album ‘Van Halen’ – full album on Spotify

Candle: Voluspa Rose Petal Ice Cream 🕯

I have the perfect candle this time around: Voluspa’s lovely Rose Petal Ice Cream. They really captured the EXACT essence of ice cream in this candle. It has a delicious, creamy milkiness to it that blends perfectly with the other notes. The full list of notes is as follows: vanilla bean ice cream, tart raspberry ribbon, marshmallow vanilla crème, and sugared rose petals.

Voluspa is one of my very favorite candle brands. They have an incredible selection of sophisticated and creative fragrances, come in various sizes, and the price points are very reasonable. The candles are made of a coconut wax blend which allows them to burn cleaner and to maintain their scent integrity throughout the life of the candle. The beautiful, high quality containers that encase the candles are meant to be reused and make wonderful containers for jewelry, succulents, or gift packaging, to name just a couple of ideas for reuse.

Find it here:

Voluspa Rose Petal Ice Cream candles in various sizes (at Voluspa’s Amazon store)

Beer: Rainy Daze Tay, Need More Cowbell Milk Stout 🍺

To go along with our fun ice cream theme, we’re serving up delicious stout floats tonight, YUM! The stout I’ve chosen is Rainy Daze’s ‘Tay, Need More Cowbell’ milk stout. Rainy Daze is based out of Poulsbo, WA and prides themselves on their unique ‘mad scientist’-esque brews.

This beer is delightfully creamy and delicious! The combo of its cocoa nib/vanilla bean/lactose flavors perfectly compliment the delicious boozy vanilla bean bourbon ice cream we chose to create our float with. The yummy ice cream, created by Tipsy Scoop, is the perfect summertime grown-up indulgence. For our New York friends, they appear to have several ice cream ‘barlour’ locations in your vicinity.

Also, since we’re talking ice cream tonight, I gotta throw in a quick shout out to these delicious cookie sandwiches we recently discovered. They are INCREDIBLE but my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach when we purchased these and there’s no way I can take down both a stout float and one of these bad boys in one night! 😂

Find it here:

Rainy Daze Brewery – Poulsbo, WA

Tay, Need More Cowbell Milk Stout currently available locally at Peaks and Pints – Tacoma, WA

Tipsy Scoop Vanilla Bean Bourbon Ice Cream currently available locally at Metropolitan Market – various Western WA locations

Cream’wich Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich currently available locally at Metropolitan Market – various Western WA locations

The Beer That Got Away: Equilibrium Rocky Road Trip 😭

When we were picking out our beer, we happened to see this beaut. Guys, I wanted to try this one SO bad! I mean, JUST LOOK AT THAT LABEL! It’s perfect for my theme tonight. But $35.99 a piece??!! Ack. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe I’ll regret it. But I doubt it as we found 6 totally amazing other artisan beers and all 6 of them were about the same price vs. just that one beer, lol

What are your Friday night plans? Now that things are starting to open up again, is anyone heading out for the night? Or have you become a hermited homebody like me? 😄

Have a great weekend, everyone!! 🍻

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