Price Chopper Facebook Coupons for School Snacks

This week, Price Chopper has two coupons available on Facebook that will help fill our kids' lunchboxes:

• Price Chopper String Cheese 12 ct 2/$3 (must buy 2)
• Price Chopper Granola Bars 8.9 oz 2/$3 (must buy 2) -- looks like the crunchy ones, not chewy -- will confirm after I purchase

Both of these coupons expire on 9/4/10.  Use these along with the coupon for a $1 bag of apples (3 lbs, exp. 8/29/10) that was on the web site, and you've got a great start to the school year!

Speaking of Price Chopper and back-to-school...they had a recent post about the different offers that you can participate in to benefit your local school.  Sign up for Tools for Schools and e-labels for easy ways to support your school!

Educators: Free Personalized Back-to-School Items from Tiny Prints

August means back-to-school time, and I am so excited to announce this special offer from Tiny Prints!  They have such wonderful designs - it almost makes me wish I was a teacher...I wonder if Higher Education professionals qualify?

I was one of those kids that just always loved school.  Call me crazy, but I just loved to learn new things - to explore the world around me - to take things apart and see how they worked - to challenge myself constantly.  Obnoxious, right?  I still try to learn something new everyday and create an environment for my kids so that they can also enjoy, create and discover the world around them.

Along the way, there were several teachers that encouraged me to do my best and to appreciate the diversity of ideas without losing my own voice.  Thanks to the teachers at the Newport Town School and North Country High School for your work as educators that have had such a positive impact on my life.

To honor teachers everywhere who are preparing for their school year, Tiny Prints has designed greeting cards to meet their needs. They can send each student a personalized welcome greeting card, connect with their student's parents with a thank you card and celebrate their students with award cards. In support of building a connection between teachers, students and parents, Tiny Prints is offering these personalized greeting cards for free starting Monday, August 2nd through October 31, 2010. Teachers will just need to apply the code: Apple2010 at checkout.

If you can make it, you can participate in a Tiny Prints Teacher Greeting Card Twitter Party with the tag #makeitpersonal hashtag this Wednesday (August 4th) from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. ET/1:00 to 2:00 p.m. PT.  Just search for #makeitpersonal on twitter to see the discussion!

Lastly, I wanted to be sure you knew that this Tiny Prints offer is valid for homeschoolers, child care providers and pre-school teachers as well!  All educators can take advantage of this great offer from Tiny Prints.  A fun way to add a smile to your classroom! 

Disclosure:  I learned about this great offer from the Global Influence Network, and will be entered into a drawing for a Tiny Prints gift card. 

Not Quite Ready: BlogHer or Bust

Not ready, originally uploaded by uppervalleymom.

Less than 24 hours before I am supposed to start my travels to the BlogHer 2010 conference, THIS is what my suitcase looks like.

Not cool.

And the heels are in there from the last time I used this suitcase! Ugh.

Wish me luck!

Up to 60% Off Tickets to WNBA Regular Season Games

Now that you've seen how much fun our family had at a recent Connecticut Sun WNBA game, you should consider attending a game in your own region!  I can share with you the following offer for discounted tickets -- up to 60% off in some cases -- what a great deal!  The WNBA has partnered with the One2One Network, and you can see the specific details for all WNBA teams at this link.  To get the special ticket deal, enter WNBABLOG at ticketmaster. 

One of the things I really appreciate about the WNBA is their commitment to creating programs that improve the quality of life for all people. That includes a special emphasis on programs that promote a healthy lifestyle and positive body image, increase breast and women's health awareness, support youth and family development, and focus on education.  From August 3 - 10th all teams will be hosting in-arena promotions and activities. 

Attend a Special Breast Health Awareness game in your are in August:

Atlanta - August 3

Chicago - August 7

Connecticut - August 8

Indiana - August 6

Los Angeles - August 10

Minnesota - July 27

New York - August 6

Phoenix - August 6 & 8

San Antonio - August 13

Seattle - August 4

Tulsa - July 30

Washington DC - August 1

Have some fun before the school year begins! If you don't live in a WNBA market, forward the ticket deal information to your friends and family who do.  Offers are good through the end of the regular season (August 22).  Go Connecticut Sun!

WNBA Family-Friendly Fun: Our Experience at a Connecticut Sun Basketball Game

As I've talked about many times here on the blog, I'm a sports fan.  Really, the whole family enjoys sports at all levels: youth, AAU, high school, and professional.  So, when the fabulous opportunity to attend a WNBA game was presented - I was thrilled.  Thanks to the Connecticut Sun organization, the WNBA and the One2One Network!  The Connecticut Sun was a team that we followed earlier in the year, as UVM women's basketball star May Kotsopolous was part of the team during training camp.  Unfortunately she wasn't picked up, but it was encouraging to see "local" stars stepping up their game to the next level.

This nearest WNBA team is a solid 3.5 hour drive from the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont, and we attended a Friday night game.  My husband and one son were not able to make the trip with us, so we invited my daughter's best friend to join us.  Road trip!

The Connecticut Sun home arena is located within the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT.  It's easy to find and parking is FREE and plentiful.  If you've been to other professional sporting events, you know that parking can easily add extra time and money into your event planning.  It was so convenient as a parent traveling alone with three kids 10 and under to have this option.  Once you enter the facility, it is easy to find where the arena is located by using the casino signage.  It was a little bit of a walk, and there are lots of (clean!) restrooms along the way.

We hadn't had time to stop for dinner, so we dropped some money on your typical concession stand faire - hot dogs, chips, popcorn, drinks, and candy.  I'm sure we could have made healthier choices, but we wanted to get to our seats!  We were happy to see that the seats had cupholders -- what a wonderful invention.  No more kicked over drinks to console your child about.

I took many photos during the game, which you can see below.  Once the slideshow begins, I would suggest clicking on "Show Info" so that you can see the captions.



The whole experience was wonderful.  Talented professional basketball players (Kara Lawson came back to play after dislocating her shoulder!), a competitive game (Sun extended their home win streak), and lots of ways to interact with the crowd.  In fact, I'd say that it was professional sports action with the community and fan experience that you would more likely see at the minor league or college sports level.  Check out all of these great ways that the Connecticut Sun enhance the fan experience.  It was something that we all througholy enjoyed, it we look forward to attending another game in the near future.  I'd encourage you to join us at a future Connecticut Sun game!

To help make this family-friendly event even more budget-friendly, the Connecticut Sun is offering a discount on tickets to all of my readers.  Yeah!  You can purchase tickets for $14 (box office regular price is $21) and even print out the tickets at home to save a step when you arrive at the arena.  To save 33% on your Connecticut Sun Tickets, click on this link and use special offer code:WNBABLOG

And last, but not least, I tried to capture some of the girls thoughts about the WNBA game experience as well.  Check out their Real Kid Review, although I am not sure why Sydney was using that voice!



Disclosure: The WNBA and Connecticut Sun (via the One2One Network) provided me with tickets and t-shirts.  All opinions are my own (or my family's).

Wordless Wednesday: CVS Shopping Results July 17th

It's still Wednesday on the West Coast!

Feel asleep waiting for Connor to arrive home from a birthday party, but wanted to share this shopping photo from my last minute CVS trip last Saturday night.  Really pleased, and so happy to have the CVS gift card to use (Thanks TwitterMoms and CVS!).

July 21 Chat with Selena Gomez and Joey King from Ramona and Beezus Movie

Thanks to Girl Scout of the USA, our daughters have the opportunity to chat with the stars of the upcoming Ramona and Beezus movie! 

The webcast will take place on Wednesday, July 21 at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (1 p.m. Central, 12 p.m. Mountain, 11 a.m. Pacific Time).

Find out more at the Girl Scouts of the USA blog.

Free Round of Mini-Golf at Fore-U (NH)

I just stumbled upon a great way to save some money on a fun family outing!  Fore-U Golf Center in West Lebanon, NH has a printable pdf coupon that you can use for a Buy One, Get One FREE:

• game of mini-golf
• round of batting
• bucket of golf balls

when you buy the first one at regular price!  No expiration date on the coupon, and heads up - it's a full page pdf that has color, so you might want to adjust your printer settings to draft mode.  If you need directions or the hours of operation, just check out their web site.  Have fun!

Now, if only the ice cream cones were included as well...

Mysterious Missing Posts...

LEGO Twitter Fail Whale, originally uploaded by tveskov.

Well, I knew last week was a busy one, but I was surprised to see the 3 posts I had scheduled for the week to be MIA. So sorry for falling off the radar. It looks like I will have to rewrite all three, so look forward to those plus this week's all new content!

Topics of last week's mysteriously missing posts include:

• Family Fun Report: WNBA Game, Discounted Tickets & T-Shirt Giveaway
• Wordless Wednesday: End of A Season
• Current Kids Meal Toys - As of June 25, 2010

And as always, please keep up with the shorter updates on Facebook. You can "like" us at http://www.facebook.com/kidsmealcrowd - and we are getting near our 100 fan giveaway, and I've got something special lined up. Please feel free to suggest Kids Meal Crowd to your friends as well.  Have a great week!

Celebrate the End of the School Year with Special Discounts & Offers

Today was the last day of school in our town, and I am so proud of my children for their hard work and desire to learn.  I can only hope that will continue into Middle School (for Sydney) and remaining time at our local Elementary School.  It's amazing to think that Starting on August 30th, I will only have SCHOOL-AGE children!  Wow.

There seems to be a number of companies that offer incentives for "good grades", for example see this list compiled by Saving Dollars and Sense.  I only wish there were more offers related to activities and not just food or clothes.  That seems to be less than ideal rewards; I thought that this incentive from the Ohio State Park Lodges was a better fit.  In their "Stays for A's" program, a family can receive $10 off a night's rate at one of their facilities.  Great idea! 


Are there other offers or incentives available to kids that you know about?