Sudbury Colonial Faire

The Sudbury Militia will be hosting a Colonial Faire on the grounds of the historic Wayside Inn On Saturday September 29. The Faire runs from 10-4 and you can visit a colonial encampment, meet militia members, see period military, craft, and dancing demonstrations. The cost is $2 for adults and free to children under 12.

At noon watch a parade of the invitation only fife and drum corps followed by a friendly competition as each group is then invited to perform individually for the crowd.

I've brought several family members out to the event and the kids especially enjoy visiting the camps and asking questions from both sides. It's a great chance to see a bit of history off the pages and a fun event for the family.

For more information check here and here.

AAA Discount: The Butterfly Place

The Butterfly Place is rather self defining. If you want to go to a place and see the amazing world of butterflies Westford, Massachusetts is a good place to head for adults and children. You can find more information here.

Some things to consider when visiting, they keep the temperature quite high for the butterflies so expect to be warm. If it is cold outside, wear layers that can be removed. The gardens aren't huge, so if you want to avoid crowds off peak times are best for visits as the gardens can fill quickly. You might want to talk to the kids about butterflies landing on them if this might be an issue for them. It is most likely to happen to them.

This is a fairly low tech chance to experience nature. It is not a hands on experience like the Children's Discovery Museum, it is a chance to observe a wide variety of butterflies in a garden environment with a few additional exhibits. However, the main experience is watching and looking for butterflies. The people who leave disappointed often don't seem to have researched the venue before visiting. While this is an indoor garden, if your kids like to be outside and learn about nature they will likely enjoy the experience. If they get bored without lots of activities to do then this might not be the venue for your outing. You know your kids.

This has long been a favorite destination on DH's side of the family. While it may feel like Spring let alone summer may never arrive, I like to start looking at places where we might be able to bring together what is a rather large extended family for different kinds of activities that are active and fun. I also like to find ways to save money while at it. Using my AAA membership benefits is one way to do that.

In order to get your AAA discount you do need to order the tickets online here. The discount is a flat rate discount of $7.99 per ticket. Adult regular admission is $13, Seniors $11, and Children $9. There is a processing fee which as of this writing was $.99 per ticket. That pretty much washes out the savings on a child's ticket, but it might just be easier to have all the tickets preordered, that's a decision for each person to make. Just to be clear though this is not a show your card discount, this is a preorder discount where you have to get your tickets through AAA to get the discount.

For those of you who aren't AAA members or would prefer not to preorder your tickets, The Butterfly Place lists the other discounts they offer here.