Our trip to Bullwinkle's was pretty fun. I was kicking myself all morning for not throwing some extra batteries into my purse (thanks to the Hupps for stocking me up with a gross of batteries). I tried and tried to get the camera to give me one more shot. It decided to work at lunch time so above is a picture of the kids drinking their sodas. It was an all-you-can-drink situation so with my advice to avoid certain sodas (can you imagine Scout & Sydney with a little Mountain Dew in them?!) they were able to go back and forth to the fountain as many times as they wanted. They reveled in their "mixed-drink" concoctions and felt super-independent when they were allowed to walk up the ramp all by themselves.
So that's the picture, and why there's only one. I tried to grab some pics with my phone but they ended up blurry and un-centered. Plus, I can't figure out how to get them off of the phone.
I had never been to Bullwinkle's before so I had to rely on Isaac's vast knowledge of where to go. He did pretty well except for the grown-up related things like where to buy tickets. :) We wandered around trying to find someone to ask for help. There was a group of kids from a day care all wearing yellow shirts standing around confusing issues but we found a girl behind the ticket redemption counter to help us. She whipped out a brochure and explained all the amazing wonders that Bullwinkle's held for us.
Since it was Spring Break they were hyper-vigilant with their wrist band checking so we bought tickets for Kidopolis (a tunnel playground thing like the ones they have at McDonald's playlands...but on steroids), tickets for the froghopper (free with the kidopolis bands), a baggy of game tokens, and lasertag tickets (the lady assured me that the little girls would love it...I'll cover that in detail later).
We headed off to Kidopolis where the kids went nuts. The daredevil boys climbed to the very top and would yell down to me. It always took me a while to find them and I think part of their tactics were to find the weirdest places to wave from. The little girls started out playing in a "tree house" on the ground. If you've been there before I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I had the camera all ready to snap the cutest picture and that's when I realized the camera wasn't going to work...rats.
We played there until 11:30. I finished my book and the kids were hungry. It was a great break time. We went over to the lunch area and got a giant pizza with sausage & pepperoni and two orders of greeezy tastey breadsticks. I already told you about the fabulous beverages so drinking sugar and gorging on grease while watching reruns of Rocky & Bullwinkle was definitely a highlight.
After that we went to the froghopper. Thank heavens those kids are still young. I don't know if my stomach could have handled that feast followed by the up & down jostle of a carnival ride. The froghopper is just a vertical up and down ride. It took them all the way up then sort of bounced up and down while they giggled. Even the cynical "I'm too old for this" Rand got into it.
We ran into Savannah playing in Kidopolis on her playdate and hung out with her until they left for lunch.
Then we went up to the Lasertag area...buh buh buh bummmmm. We stood in line for a long time waiting. Sydney was nervous and held my hand pretty tightly but I told her if she didn't want to do it she could just stand by me. When we got to the front they wanted to put us in with a group of grownups and pretty tall kids. I told them "No way Jose, we'll just wait for the next group." The young girl working there was kind of annoyed but I didn't really care...one of the benefits to being twice her age and more annoyed than her. :-P When our turn finally came, we walked into the room that had the little girls so nervous. Once they saw how the blacklight made everyone's clothes glow they forgot about nerves and went crazy. The guns were a little too heavy for the little girls but they were troopers. They stood right by the charging station (Isaac told us later that some of the big kids on their team were annoyed) and peeked from behind the barricade wielding the giant guns in true Sarah Connor style. I don't know if they ever figured out how to shoot the guns but the image of Scout standing there in her little blue skirt and glowing skinny white-tights-legs holding a futuristic laser weapon was unforgettable. The boys, needless to say, had the time of their lives. The rest of the day (and the next) was filled with laser fire sound effects as they relived their moments of glory.
After that we had to go home to pick up Savannah. I sent out a quick email, grabbed some more batteries and we headed back for Kidopolis fun and to spend the tokens I had gotten.
When we got there the place was CROWDED. The morning is definitely the time to hit Bullwinkle's. The kids didn't seem to mind and went off to Lord of the Flies' it up in the tubes. They were running and playing, laughing and yelling. I could hear all of them once in a while calling to each other and having a good time. I sat down and cracked open a brand new book (we stopped by the library on the way). I was just finishing up the 3 page prologue and getting out my camera to try to get some action shots when I saw Savannah just sitting there in a mesh tube. I went over and tried to yell up to her over the din. She was crying and had hurt her toe. Yelling back and forth, I couldn't convince her to come down. A worker from Bullwinkle's was there and offered to go get her. He went up after her and got her down. She had stubbed her toe on who knows what and was bleeding. It looked like she had bent her toenail back and the whole thing was swollen. I carried her down, we got a bandaid for it, and since it wasn't just something I could kiss and make better, I decided we needed to head home.
We had only been there for 15 minutes so the kids were confused and a little disappointed but when they saw that I had to carry Savannah they agreed that we should head back.
We were at home for about an hour when it was time for activity days for Savannah. She was able to put on sandals and wanted to go. I dropped her off and the rest of the kids and I headed out to the grocery store to pick up ice cream.
We made it home, picking up Savannah on the way, and all the kids went out back to play in the muddy grass while they ate their ice cream cones.
It was a wild and crazy, big food, big fun day.
