Posts Tagged ‘beer’

Oktoberfest Fun at Foxwoods (Date Night!!)

Thursday, October 22nd, 2015

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.

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

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Gueuze was the sour pickle one

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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

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

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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. 

My Week(214) in iPhone Photos

Sunday, December 7th, 2014

We played a little hooky this week. Since E is on actual non-working vacation for the first time in three years I’ve declared December the DON’T CARE month and we’re doing as many fun things as possible, even if it means skipping school. The kids are 5 and 3, I’m pretty sure they won’t be educationally handicapped for life just because they missed a few days. Especially considering last week was half-days and Evan spent them watching movies. They’re probably better off with us in Ohio, learning useful game-playing skills like Battleship and Hand & Foot.

Sunday:

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No no, no pictures please

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My extremely fancy and professional set up for Christmas card photos

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I COULD have gone to the grocery store alone, but then who would have said hello to all the lobsters??

Monday:

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The pretty sky makes this house look extra creepy

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MOMMY TAKE A PICTURE

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Magic garden of the future!! Caroline tried the parsley. Said it tastes like parsley.

Tuesday:

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Abominable snowman ring pop was an excellent choice

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

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Look Ma, found my foot

Wednesday:

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Internet, meet my new baby, Laptop, meet the internet.

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5 pm teacher conference might as well be the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

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She made up a song about his feety-feet and sings it all the time

Thursday:

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Abandoned gas stations make surprisingly good places to stop on long trips

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She’s the Queen of Burgers

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“Mom, did we trash the place?” “Yes honey, you trashed the place.”

Friday:

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Teaching Evan about targets… “And that’s why Daddy works on submarines!”

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A quick wrap job so I had my hands free…

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…for the important stuff.

Saturday:

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Why yes you may go outside and play in the freezing cold if you want.

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Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

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Linc and I went for a freezing cold walk to look at lights. He lasted 2 minutes before he fell asleep – and stayed asleep – for almost 2 hours.

I can’t believe it is already the second week of December. TOO FAST TOO FAST. I need more time to do all the holiday stuff. Plus I haven’t even MAILED Caroline’s birthday invites. If I hadn’t ordered them already I’d be tempted to just make a Facebook event and send it to my entire friends list and just hope a few people show up. I can’t imaging why I feel so rushed and disorganized this year. Maybe I’m not drinking enough Diet Coke. That MUST be it.

Breakthrough

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Last night I sent the following tweet:

The picture is of a delicious Blue Moon complete with orange slice. And nowhere near that beer was a baby. In fact, there were ZERO babies in the whole bar. Instead, five other mamas and I ate nachos and onion straws and buffalo wings and chips and spinach artichoke dip and did I mention the BEER? And the mojitos? And the margarita? It was a momentous occasion. (Actual conversation as I was leaving – Me: “This was AMAZING!” Amy: “You should blog about it.” Me: “OH I TOTALLY WILL.”) It may have only lasted an hour and a half and I may have left early because E had to go back into work but that didn’t stop me from wearing a REAL BRA AND DANGLY EARRINGS. Do you know how long it’s been since I could wear dangly earrings without worrying about having my earlobe torn in two by sticky, grabby, baby hands? I’m only sad I didn’t stay long enough to order a giant chocolate dessert and eat it all by myself.

It’s just so amazing to have girlfriends. Women friends. Mom friends who understand what it’s like to never sleep through the night and talk about poop without wincing and break out their phones to show off baby photos faster than you can say “stretch marks”. I actually feel sort of sorry for E because although he gets to go to work every day and spend baby-free time with grown ups he can’t be having nearly as much fun as I had in that 90 minutes last night. I need to work on getting some of these moms together as couples so maybe he can meet some dad friends. Although I doubt they’ll talk about poop quite as much.

Since I already had knitting group on Wednesday night this was actually the second time in a week I left E to deal with bedtime. It’s a good time of day to put him in charge since E’s always done bathtime, pajamas and rocked Baby Evan to sleep. The only thing I miss is the last bedtime feeding, which Baby Evan usually makes up for around midnight. E doesn’t seem to mind being left alone since he can play all the computer games he wants without a wife looking over his shoulder or trying to talk about her day or her feelings or some other crap like that. The next step will be hiring someone to come over at 7 pm and sit on our couch to watch TV while Baby Evan sleeps and BOTH of us get to go to a bar. It’s taken almost 10 months but I finally feel ready. Amen.

Weekend Fun Photos

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

As I may have mentioned a bazillion or so times, we went down to Pennsylvania to visit my best friend Erin and her husband Mitch for their son Reid’s christening last weekend. And what goes better with infants and church than a beer factory tour? Yuengling is E’s OMG SO GOOD THE BEST EVER FAVORITE beer and they don’t sell it in Connecticut. Sadly, due to family/baby/timing issues we missed the free sample at the end of the tour. E swears he’s been scarred for life and may never recover, but I think the 3 4 5 many bottles he drank Saturday night definitely helped.

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They still make beer here during the week but since it was the weekend we didn't get to see any actual production.

The gift shop was oddly lacking in any Yuengling brand baby items.

The gift shop was oddly lacking in any Yuengling brand baby items.

This is definitely what we're doing to our tree this year.

This is definitely what we're doing to our tree this year.

Some father-son bonding in the bottling building.

Some father-son bonding in the bottling building.

The stained glass window cuts down on the sun's reflection off the giant shiny tanks.

The stained glass window cuts down on the sun's reflection off the giant shiny tanks. And is also very pretty.

Erin and her very cooperative Baby Reid, who slept through the whole tour. The blur in the background is Mitch trying to ruin the picture.

Erin and her very cooperative Baby Reid, who slept through the whole tour. The blur in the background is Mitch.

My favorite part of the tour: During prohibition, the feds came and built up a brick wall to close off the beer caves. Luckily, they were still allowed to make a limited amount of beer which was available by doctor's prescription. For who you may ask? Pregnant women and nursing mothers.

My favorite part of the tour: During prohibition, the feds came and built up a brick wall to close off the beer caves. Luckily, Yuengling was still allowed to make a limited amount of beer which was available by doctor's prescription. For who you may ask? Pregnant women and nursing mothers. BREASTFEEDING FTW!

Doesn't he look excited to have TWO babies? At lease Reid and Evan are adorable.

Doesn't E look excited to have TWO babies? At lease Reid and Evan are adorable.

My attempt to pose Baby Evan in his adorable church sweater. This whole mobility thing is severely damaging my picture taking ability.

My attempt to pose Baby Evan in his adorable church sweater. This whole mobility thing is severely damaging my picture taking ability.

Ok, good enough.

Ok, good enough.