Family Fun Night

We often do things as a family like going to the zoo once a year or going to ISU sporting events. The girls are at a fun age where they can enjoy activities and are easy to take out and about. We recently got a new bowling alley/arcade/pizza place in town which the girls and I had been to a couple times, but hubby hadn't had a chance to get there. A week or so ago we decided we would take the girls there Friday night for some bowling, pizza, and fun.

The girls had been bowling before a few months ago, but I couldn't tell you the last time I went bowling. Somewhere between my last year in high school (we would do bowling for gym class) and last night--probably closer to 1993. The alley we went to you can set up to have "bumpers" come up for individual bowlers, so of course Emma and Leah got bumpers. They also have a metal ramp to push the ball down, so Leah used that. Emma used it for a frame or two, otherwise she just used the "chuck the 6 lb bowling ball instead of rolling it" method. Any guesses on the family winner? If you said hubby, you would be right. He scored an amazing 106. Emma was next with 78, then Leah with 75, and me rounding out the pack with 74. I couldn't even break 100 or beat my 4 year old. And the bumpers may have malfunctioned and that included the advantage of one spare by bouncing the ball off the bumper. Wow, I suck.

Being the cheapskates fiscally responsible parents we are, we had a coupon for $12 of arcade games if we ordered pizza from the menu. This was all we put on the arcade card, but the girls still got to play plenty of games. The little kids games were only 19 cents, and the most expensive game Emma played was $1. Leah hit the jackpot on the 19 cent game, winning 50 tickets in one shot. Other times we came away with one or three tickets for our extreme efforts (by extreme, I mean swiping the card and pushing a button). With our 180 tickets we won combined with a few extra tickets left on the card from the last trip, Leah walked away happy with a new slap bracelet and a 8 pack of Tinkerbell crayons. Emma was thrilled with a small blue lizard and a whoopie cushion. The latter has provided them with as much entertainment as a rubber balloon can.

I told hubby I never got to do anything like that when I was a kid. The closest thing we had in town was Stanley's Pizza with a lone Pac Man game. There were kids running around last night with tons of tickets trailing behind them. Someone had left a receipt in the game card machine for the $50 they put on the card. Seriously? $50 worth of arcade games? I wonder how many parents drop their pre-teens off at the door and say "See you in a few hours!" Luckily my girls can be pleased with small plastic trinkets that are way over "priced" in ticket terms. I saw kids running around with Nintendo DS games that they had won. How much did that cost you? I can get the same thing at Target for $20 or so.

It was definitely a fun night. Now I just hope the girls don't expect to go there more than once a year. ;)