Create, Explore, Eat, Repeat!

Amore Learning, Georgetown Events, and Happyly join forces for a four-week series designed to inspire beautiful memories for your family!

Tag your highlights on Instagram @gethappyly and watch out for our amazing giveaway this weekend to celebrate the final week of the series.

Explore with Happyly:

Start your day with a hike on Little Falls Stream Valley Park Trail. Park at Westmoreland Hills Local Park and hike as far as you are comfortable, taking in the natural beauty of the area.  Once you've worked up an appetite, head over to Millie's Restaurant, just five minutes away in Spring Valley. Call to order a Taco Box ahead of time and bring your takeout over to Friendship “Turtle” Park just over half a mile down Massachusetts Avenue for a family picnic.

The park is a gem, and it is situated across Van Ness from a community garden where you can take your little ones for a stroll to look for fruit or veggie ideas so they can begin to visualize their menus for their creative Amore Learning inspired project, designing their own restaurant! Swing back by Millie’s for a cone from the ice cream window before heading home for an afternoon of fun!

Create with Amore Learning & Millie’s Restaurant:

Everyone loves a good meal, raise your hand if you are with us!  This week we are getting creative in the kitchen by planning a restaurant & designing the menu! Plus we’ve included an easy & fun recipe by Chef David Scribner of this week’s featured Georgetown Events restaurant, Millie’s Spring Valley.

All you will need for this activity is our restaurant menu worksheet (a free, printable download), colored pencils or crayons and your imagination! If you'd also like to print the one page PDF of this activity to have on your adventure you can access it here.

Week 4 Printable Restaurant Worksheet

Let your kids have fun coming up with crazy food combinations. There is no right or wrong way to create a menu! If your child does not write yet or prefers drawing, have them draw their menu. The point is to let them have fun with it and create their “perfect” food situation. Do you think any child will include spinach or broccoli?! We can’t wait to find out! Tag us on instagram @gethappyly. 

Questions to ask before they get started:

What would you name your restaurant? Why?

What’s your favorite food?

What foods will be on your menu? 

Can you have dessert before dinner  or are there any rules at your restaurant?

What is your favorite dessert - will it be on your menu?

Would your restaurant serve appetizers? 

Encourage the kids to finish their menu by adding prices, it’s a great way to tie in basic math. They can also draw pictures of the outside and inside of their restaurant to serve as the front and back covers of the menu. Make the extra effort to have it laminated and it will become a wonderful keepsake of a fun and memorable day!!

After designing their restaurant, they can join you for some quality time in the kitchen!

Family Recipe by Chef Scribner

We are so excited because Chef Scribner of the amazing Millie's Restaurant (and father of five) created a fun and easy family recipe to make at home. Maybe your kids will even want to add these to their menus! These have been happyly tested and we approve (big time)!! 

Lemony Chicken Tenders 

10 pieces chicken tenders - preferably organic

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 lemons

2 tbsp. canola oil

1/2 stick butter

Salt and pepper

3 cloves fresh garlic

• Dredge chicken tenders in flour.
• Heat half of the butter and 2 tablespoons of canola oil in sauté pan until butter begins to brown.
• Carefully place floured chicken tenders in the pan being careful not to overcrowd them.
• Leave to cook on medium heat on one side without moving them around so they can brown.
• Turn them over and add sliced fresh garlic cloves and the rest of the butter. 
• Let the chicken brown on the flipped side while the garlic gently caramelizes.
• When both sides are browned and chicken is cooked through, squeeze juice of one or 2 lemons (depending on size). Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Cook together until the butter and lemon form a glaze that sticks to the chicken.
• The chicken is ready to serve with the extra sauce in the pan drizzled on top!

As you may have seen on social media, we’ve created a printable PDF of this activity for your convenience!

Please tag your family's highlights on Instagram @gethappyly, @amorelearning, @georgetownevents, @milliesdc and #gethappyly! We love hearing from you! 

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Amore Learning is a boutique education business offering creative enrichment programs, personalized tutoring, and consulting. Founded by fourth-generation Washingtonian Chloe Kaplan, the Amore team continues to grow and is now made up of fourteen teachers and curriculum coaches, and participates in over a dozen DC schools - half public and half private. In addition, Amore recently launched a non-profit component, A4A (Amore For All), which serves children who are distance learning from Title I schools.

From its humble beginnings, Georgetown Events was built from the ground up, and has blossomed over the years with the help of the local community. Each establishment, with its unrivaled charm, captivates city natives and travelers alike with local cuisine and welcoming faces. No matter the destination, guests escape to a place where the drinks are cold, the food is fresh and new friends become family. While these flavors, faces and places may take you away in the moment, they will always bring you back.