Lake Compounce provided us with free tickets to visit this month, but all opinions, statements, and photos are my own.

Here is the Top 10 List of reasons we had a great time at Lake Compounce:

1. Right in the middle of Connecticut, so it’s close to us and lots of other places.
2. Tons of rides in the kid section that everyone over age 2 could ride without grown-ups.
3. Super fun scary roller coasters for the grown-ups.
4. Wicked friendly employees.
5. Lots of shade and places to sit down when you’re tired.
6. Free fountain drinks all over the park so no one ever complained they were thirsty.
7. Stroller-friendly.
8. Nursing-friendly.
9. Parent-friendly (My husband changed all the diapers all day, because the men’s room had changing tables.)
10. Just the right size to spend the whole day.

E and I took Evan to Lake Compounce several years ago, back when he was Baby Evan, and had a great time then too. But I had a very tiny Baby Caroline and didn’t get to ride very many things myself, so I mostly remember just the toddler area. Since then, they’ve done a bunch of renovations, added new coasters and spruced things up so even though it’s the oldest amusement park in the country it’s beautiful and clean. Don’t worry, about the nostalgia though, because it’s still got plenty of that.

We got there at 11 am on a Sunday and the kids walked on to every ride until at least 1 pm. They’re the only ones on those drums!

The only photo of me from the day: Caroline LOVED this thing and was super mad she couldn’t go on the grown-up version.

We got free soda while we waited for E to ride Phobia. It took me several more hours to decide if I was also going to ride Phobia. I did. It was fun.

Praise hands for this Joovy stroller we still love. Finn was happy riding/sleeping/chilling in it all day, between rides in the Tula so I could nurse.

After Evan suddenly, drastically changed his mind about roller coasters (Saturday: “I WANT TO RIDE THEM ALL!” Sunday: Won’t even get on the kid-sized coaster Linc rode with his arms up) I wasn’t sure he would try any of the rides. But he loved the log flume.

Evan also loved the Ghost Hunt ride, probably because he likes shooting games. I did not partake, because haunted houses are not my thing. Caroline and Linc both rode, because they take after their father.

That is possibly the best picture I’ve ever taken.

I don’t remember the dinosaurs from the last time we visited, but the kids loved it.

Caroline clearly didn’t enjoy herself at all.

Despite Evan’s skeptical face, we rode Thunder Rapids twice in a row and got SOAKED. It was great.

The lake/waterpark opens this weekend. I promised the kids we could come back for it later this summer.

I bought extra clothes JUST IN CASE they got wet, which is why they’re in different clothes than the beginning of the day.

Goodbye Lake Compounce! See you again soon!

If you’re in the New England area, I would definitely recommend making the trip to Bristol to have your own super fun day. You can use this link/code to get a discount on your internet tickets:

Link: https://www.lakecompounce.com/blogreader?promocode=BeBehSBlog17

Promocode: BeBehSBlog17

Thank you again to Lake Compounce for providing us with the tickets (p.s. kids under 3 are free)!

You guys, Cirkopolis at Foxwoods was SO GOOD. We’ve seen Cirque Eloize several times now and this one was definitely the coolest. They did all my favorite stunts (the teeter board and the hoop) plus this super amazing hand-to-hand ballet where a girl did an entire dance without ever touching the floor. It was so beautiful. But I think my new favorite was the diablo, which the internet tells me might also be called a Chinese yo-yo. It was like watching a magic trick except nothing was hidden, the guy was just a gravity defying wizard.

We got into the theater to see the cast warm up with the lights on and the chance to get right up close and take some photos (and video, which is over on my Instagram!)

That thing above is a lousy picture of the diablo, but maybe now you know what I was talking about.

The show was packed and the audience was so into it, which made it more fun for everyone. Finnegan was a good baby and actually slept through the first 45 minutes. Lincoln was WORN OUT from a super busy weekend so he also took a little nap. But the big kids were both the very loudest laughers and applauders, and E and I kept looking at each other going “How is that even possible!?”

Cirque Eloize: Cirkopolis runs through April 15th at Foxwoods so get your tickets now and go see it!

After the show we promised the kids we could go to The Sugar Factory. The line for the actual restaurant looked pretty long and we had managed a zero breakdown family fun day up until that point, so we opted for some gelato from the candy store side. It was delicious.

There’s a bunch of other fun stuff going on the rest of this week and the beginning of next for Kids Week at Foxwoods, so we’ll be back for more fun (and more Sugar Factory).

Foxwoods provided me and my family tickets both to the pre-show event and the performance at no cost, but all photos and opinions are my own. And we paid for our own gelato. 

I’ve written before about how much we love living near Foxwoods, and that continues to hold true. We’ve been lucky enough to attend lots of cool events in the past couple of years (from beer to bowling to kids shows) but I think our Friday night trip to see Cirque Eloize Saloon was the best show we’ve ever seen.

From their press release:

This captivating and energetic show transports audiences to the height of the Wild Wild West era, telling the story of a piano tuner’s astonishing journey through a world filled with gold diggers, rail workers, chorus girls and cowboys. Mysterious and intriguing characters will light up the stage to explosive live music, resulting in a series of unexpected situations packed with rhythmic acrobatic prowess and original choreography. The series begins Friday, August 12 and runs through Sunday, August 21 for a total of 12 remarkable performances at a variety of family-family show times.

It was amaaaaazing. Caroline and Evan could barely stay in their seats, they were SO excited about all the tricks and acrobatics. It was lucky we were sitting with other bloggers and the Foxwoods people, because I would have been worried we were annoying regular show-watchers with all the audible gasping and “MOMMY DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!” Even Linc got super into the show, especially the hoop spinning thing (Cyr wheel, according to Google) and the singing, which he joined in enthusiastically. Like I said when I gushing over the show on Instagram, it’s like a musical combined with America’s Got Talent, two things our family loves. There was a part with a teeter-totter board that made me almost as annoying as the kids, cheering and clapping every time no one killed themselves (spoiler: no one killed themselves, they were all incredible).

Our 4th row seats were awesome

Enjoying chocolate strawberries at the reception, like a good blogger

Step and repeat expert

We borrowed a pen and the kids got their tickets signed. Everyone was SO nice.

Caroline: Are those REAL HORSES?! (No, but fake horses are still very exciting)

Our Friday before the show was an epic disaster. No less than a dozen things went wrong and around 6 pm we were debating whether or not we could pull ourselves together enough to even TRY to enjoy our evening. But the air conditioning plus the amazing show plus the chance to meet with the cast afterward was exactly what we needed to cheer ourselves up as a family and have a great time. If you’re suffering through this unbearable summer like we are, I cannot recommend a night out to see Cirque Eloize Saloon enough. Then you too can start to teach your kids hand-to-hand in the lake.

Video taken by the 7-year-old, but it’s still awesome.

Cirque Eloize Saloon is currently playing in the Fox Theater at Foxwoods. Shows are scheduled for: August 12, 7:30 PM  August 13, 4:00 PM  August 13, 8:00 PM  August 14, 2:00 PM  August 14, 7:00 PM  August 17, 7:30 PM  August 18, 7:30 PM  August 19, 8:00 PM  August 20, 4:00 PM  August 20, 8:00 PM  August 21, 2:00 PM  August 21, 7:00 PM

Tickets start at $35

We were invited to the opening night of previews of this show at Foxwoods because I’m on their press list and they’re super nice. No other compensation was provided and all opinions and photos are my own. 

During spring break this year, we – the whole circus that is my family – got to spend a super fun day at Foxwoods. They always do a ton of kid activities for spring vacation and this year I was lucky enough to be invited to a special blogger day that included visiting the Treehouse Arcade, seeing Clifford the Big Red Dog on stage and a delicious meal at California Pizza Kitchen. And there were cupcakes.

For children who only discovered video games 4 months ago and have only been to Chuck E Cheese twice in their life, my kids have an unnatural love of arcade games. They are terrible at them. Really, really bad. If E didn’t “help” a little, we would end up with a total of about 17 tickets which works out to three-fourths of a bouncy ball in the prize store. But armed with a loaded card and pointed towards the games, all three had a great time in the Treehouse Arcade.

Things I don’t love: shooting games. Things my husband and son LOOOOOOVE: shooting games.

Look, it’s Evan’s first swag bag! He was so excited they gave him a free bag he didn’t even look in it until we needed to find out cupcake coupons several hours later.

This game simulated being attacked by giant spiders. Linc did not love the spiders.

I also stick out my tongue while I am concentrating very hard.

After we turned in our (virtual) tickets for prizes (including plenty of snacks), we headed over to the Fox Theater for the Clifford Show. It was a musical, which all the kids loved, and had just enough audience participation that they stayed interested the whole time. Since the theater was full of parents with small children I didn’t even feel bad when Linc started screeching in joy when Clifford grew from a hand puppet to a giant two-person sized dog, or when he wouldn’t stay in his seat and bounced back and forth between E and I pointing frantically at the stage like, “GUYS DO YOU EVEN SEE THIS? THAT DOG IS HUGE!”

After the show, we got to meet a medium-sized Clifford at the step and repeat in the lobby. I’ll admit Evan and Caroline were a little bummed they didn’t get to meet giant Clifford, but they still enjoyed their hugs and autographed cast pictures.

Linc wasn’t quiiiiiiite sure about Clifford (although I am writing this with him sitting next to me and he’s SO EXCITED about this picture, obviously it’s a happy memory instead of a nightmare) but he didn’t completely freak out. That’s success when you’re talking about people dresses as character.

After the meet and greet, we went straight over to California Pizza Kitchen for some dinner. Back when we first moved to Connecticut, long before we had kids, E and I lived in the town right next to the casino and used to go to CPK for dinner alllllllll the time. Their hummus and warm pita is the best, the free table bread is amazing, and if we each ordered a personal pizza we had enough to take home for leftovers. But we’ve only been maybe once in the last seven years so it was a special treat to be back.

Evan and Linc ordered mac and cheese and Caroline ordered a kid pizza. Only Linc had leftovers, which we took home and Evan at for breakfast the next day (because carbs + dairy is always an appropriate breakfast). E got his favorite club pizza and I got the Thai chicken, which is the best kind. CPK was very family friendly and our waitress was quick to refill the chocolate milks, which is almost all it takes for us to enjoy a fairly peaceful meal.

After dinner we walked over to Cake by Franck to pick up our Clifford cupcakes. I could have spent much, much longer in that shop, looking at the desserts and making up reasons I definitely needed to buy ALL of them right at that moment, but the kids wanted to grab and go so we took our cake home. Well, Evan did, Caroline’s was gone by the time we hit the parking garage.

It was a lovely way to spend the day together as a family, I’m so glad E was able to come and enjoy it with us. Big thanks to the team at Foxwoods for their generosity and the invitation. When we get to do fun stuff like this I’m always super grateful that the internet is still a fun place to hang out and my blog has stayed alive for as long as it has.

Sometimes, just because I have this blog thing, really cool stuff happens. Last week, that cool stuff was a special press event at Foxwoods to help celebrate Oktoberfest.

Even better than being invited was getting to tell my husband that we were going to drink free beer all afternoon. Plus bowling! Because who doesn’t love bowling?!

There was a beer expert to tell us about what we were tasting. He said they went out of their way to find cool, rare and probably unheard of beers for us to taste. I have to say, they did a great job with “unusual”. There was one beer that they described as “sour”, which was the biggest understatement ever. It was like drinking pickle juice. Luckily, I’ve considered drinking pickle juice in the past so I mostly liked it? Mostly. The beer expert also told us it was made in a brewery that is literally never cleaned. Never. They don’t sweep or dust or shoo away the spiders, so you get all that great dirt and spider parts in your tasty sour beer.

Like I said, “unusual” = accomplished.

This one was extremely normal and fine and I liked it.

Gueuze was the sour pickle one

Social media-ers gotta soical media, even while eating pretzels

This one was FANTASTIC. It was beer mixed with cherry liquor and tasted exactly like a cherry coke.

I would like to state for the record I had nothing to do with that. Especially because 10 seconds later it fell over. Bloggers + 6 glasses of beer = poor choices.

After the drinking they encouraged us to “explore”, which to us obviously meant “play some blackjack”. We…did not win, but one of the other bloggers got $1,000 off a slot machine! Then we wandered around and checked out the updates. I hadn’t actually been to parts of Foxwoods in a couple years (Even though we saw the show a few weeks ago and I took the kids to the outlets earlier this month). It’s a HUGE place. They’ve updated the main shopping drag completely – it used to be very Vegasy with fake storefronts and cobblestones. Now it is all modern glass and wood and angles and soooooo fancy.

E and I walked over to Fox Tower to check out the new tattoo parlor, but before we made it he got a work call and stopped walking and talked about work stuff instead of paying attention to me. So I took his picture. This is his work call face.

And this is one of the views out the window. The leaves are about 2 weeks away from peak color right now, it’s going to be STUNNING.

Then we headed over to High Rollers, the bowling lanes. I knew in theory that they were there. I’ve definitely thought about going in the past. But for some reason we’ve never actually made it down there.

It is FANCY. I really really really wish there had been a place like this open pre-kids because I would have been a regular. It’s basically the opposite of every other bowling alley I’ve ever been in. It did not smell like smoke, it wasn’t dirty or old, the service was incredible. What kind of bowling alley has chandeliers, big screen tvs, and kale pancetta salads on their menu? High Rollers.

That is a TERRIBLE picture of me, but I felt I needed to include my squinty bowling face for accuracy. I am willing the pins to all fall over. AND IT WORKS – I won a prize for being the first person to roll a strike. BOOYAH.

After bowling, we went back to Cedar’s Steakhouse for our Oktoberfest-inspired dinner and deli meats. German food is meats, meats and more meats, so obviously our meal featured some classics. And more beer. Of course. (For the record, even though I was the invited media person – SO FANCY – and E was my +1, he did 90% of the drinking. Because I am a nice wife who knows he likes beer more than I do.)

I never get tired of being called “press”, not matter now untrue it is.

This was my favorite part. That mustard was on our pretzels during the beer tasting too, and it was SO good.

I love being reminded that Foxwoods is RIGHT THERE, 10 minutes from the house, and a great spot for date night. I love date night. I do not go on enough date nights and I think we should fix that. It helps that we found a great babysitter my kids love and who swears Lincoln wasn’t a disaster at all while we were gone. I think she’s lying but lying is almost as good as him not being a disaster, so…. See you again soon, Foxwoods!

Disclaimer: I was invited to this special press event at Foxwoods that included beer, bowling, food and a $50 gift card to do some shopping (I spent it at the toy store buying Legos for Evan and coloring books for Caroline, because even at a fancy press event I am still a mom). No other compensation was provided and no one told me I had to write this post. In fact, you can’t even go to Foxwoods and order that beer because it was just for our fancy thing, so I’m…not really sure why they invited me?! Hey, I’m not going to question it too much. It was super fun and I hope they invite me to more things.