Chuck E. Cheese

One of our favorite things to do is to go to Chuck E. Cheese. I think my kids are far too spoiled because growing up, I think I went once or twice and that was for friend's birthday parties. My kids and I used to go every Tuesday, but now we're trying to cut back so we only go every other week or once a month or so.
The one down here does lots of things to attract stay-at-home moms with little kids. They're brilliant because it's almost always crowded. They have all the little kiddie rides turned on from 11-3 so you don't need tokens to ride them. Plus on Tuesdays, if your kids are members of the kids club, they get free drinks and free tokens. So, it turns out to be a great deal. We love free stuff.
Some days, when it's particularly crowded, the manager will come out and just randomly throw tokens and all the kids scramble to pick them up. Our he'll throw out strings of tickets and kids will come away with hundreds. (Those are my favorite days) Unfortunately, my kids aren't quite old enough to really appreciate it and go after all the free stuff. They get one or two tokens off the ground, and they're completely happy, even though there's hundreds scattered around them. I guess I have to teach them better.
Each time we go, we end up getting a little prize like a sticker or a pack of smarties or some other thing that you could get 10 for a dollar at the dollar store. So, I got the bright idea of making my kids save up for something big since we go there often enough. We have our eye on the Imaginext Pirate Ship for the bargain price of 4000 tickets. I think it's going to take us quite a while especially since Haley never grabs her tickets after she plays a game and Britton loves the low yielding ticket games like Ski Ball. But, it still gives us something to work for and now we don't waste our hard-earned tickets on stuff that gets lost or broken in the car on the way home.