The Summer Adventures series focuses on affordable summer fun for families in Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley. It’s all about exploring our own backyard and is the perfect resource for planning a killer staycation or finding something awesome to do this weekend. Interested in more local love? Head here.

This weekend we packed the girls up to head down to Brooklyn Heights to visit my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. They live within walking distance from Brooklyn Bridge Park and, let me tell you, we fell absolutely in love with the area. Samantha is still insisting that we need a summer home there. If a summer home in Brooklyn was the sort of thing we could afford, we would completely agree with her.

It’s not surprising that we love the area. We’re big fans of waterfront parks and Brooklyn Bridge Park is a tough one to beat. It’s huge and full of gorgeous gardens and greenery, lots of spaces for fun (like playgrounds and splash parks, volleyball courts, soccer fields and more), and absolutely unbeatable views of Manhattan.

I went to the circus for the first time ever a couple of weekends ago. It was definitely a lot of fun. But I learned a valuable lesson: I am absolutely not cut out for life in the circus.

As soon as we walked into the Big Top at Lincoln Center, my stomach fluttered with nervousness. The tent is tiny. We had seats in the third row, but even if we had been seated all the way against the back row we would have been impressively close to the action. The girls were ecstatic and full of This. is. awesoooooomes.

When Sam’s birthday rolled around last month, I decided we were way better off gifting her an experience than giving her more stuff. She’s got so much stuff. I knew that anything she wanted would come from family members and the friends who came to her birthday party, so we decided to plan a special family day instead of getting a ton of things for her to unwrap.

When my brother-in-law’s girlfriend mentioned a puppet show in Central Park, I knew I had to look into it. Samantha watched Labyrinth with my husband recently and loved all of the behind-the-scenes footage that showed how the puppeteers worked all of the puppets. Add that to the fact that a puppet show isn’t too old for a three year old to enjoy and I thought we might just be in business.

And I have to say, we had a pretty awesome day.