Laser Quest!

For Owen's 11th Birthday we decided to do something fun with just a few friends. I ended up finding a great deal on Groupon. I bought 4 Groupon's for $10 each. Each of those Groupon's were good for two people to play 1 game of Laser Tag at Laser Quest. Owen had 2 friends from school come...Mikah & Jordan. The other 3 kids were Jackson and friends Andrew and Josiah. Micah...Andrew & Josiah's Dad also got to play as did Michael. Michael also got $20 in quarters so the kids could play arcade games. Of course they had a blast and of course Michael forgot to take one picture of them at Laser Quest! 

While the kids were playing Laser Tag Kim (Andrew & Josiah's mom), Michelle (Jordan's mom) and I came back to the house to bake the pizzas. Earlier in the day Kim had emailed me an amazing coupon for Papa Murphy's. It was 50% off....so for 3 family size pizzas I only paid $25! 

Once the kids got home they started eating pizza and then they wanted to watch a movie. 

They watched Captain Underpants and of course loved it! 

Present time!! 

Owen had asked Ms. Kim to get him a Minecraft LEGO set and she did not disappoint! 

Jordan got Owen this cool LEGO Star Wars set and...

a Zoom Boom rocket. It is so cool! You throw it up in the air and it has these caps you put in it and then when it falls back down it makes this loud crack sound from the cap breaking. The higher you throw it the loud the crack. 

 Owen's friend Mikah got him another Star Wars LEGO set...it's the Transport ship from The Last Jedi 

For his birthday party Owen wanted a Funfetti cake. I'm horrible with remembering to buy birthday candles. Poor kid only had 3 candles!!! 

I also forgot about the ice cream until Owen remembered we bought it. Better late than never I guess! 

Owen had a wonderful time celebrating with friends! 

Round Two!

Last Thursday we decided to use the other two Groupons we purchased for the Family Fun Center. This time Michael left work a little early so he got to have fun too! 

The first thing we did was let the kids play on the playground inside. It's called Kidopolis...it's like a McDonald's playground on steroids. I knew the older kids would have fun, but it was so big I wasn't sure if Zeke would even play. He gets intimidated by other big kids when playing in these types of areas. He also needed to go potty so I took him potty and then we came back to sit with Daddy while the kids played. He started to seem a little interested so I asked the attendant if we could see if he'd play and then I'd pay the points for him. She asked how old he was and I said 3 and then she said...we'll just pretend he's 2! So he got to go have fun and we didn't even have to use any points for him. He LOVED it! He's never had that much fun playing in one of these things. 

It was hard to get a picture of the structure because it was so massive and there were other rides in front of it. It was great fun though and I think we might just come and pay to play on it sometime this fall when it's all rainy and yucky out! 

The second thing that we wanted to do was go on the go carts, but there were a couple hiccups. The fun center actually has two different kinds of go carts...regular fast ones and then littler ones called Traffic School. We figured that the 3 younger ones would go to Traffic School and then Michael and Owen would go on the bigger go carts. The first hiccup was the fact that the fun center has a 10 inch gap in height where if you fall in that gap you can't drive anything. Traffic School goes up to 48 inches, but then you can't drive the big go carts until you are 58 inches. Silly I know! So Owen was going to have to be a passenger with Michael and as you can imagine he was not happy about that at all. The other hiccup was that Traffic School was hilarious! The cars were SOOOOO slow. I mean super slow...slower than the kids power wheels on the slow setting. That just seemed like a waste of points to me so then we thought that Michael would take all 3 bigger kids on the big go carts. I figured since they let me ride on the carousal the week before without using points...since the kids were too small to go by themselves...I thought that they might not charge Michael to drive the go cart 3 times. I figured they would charge him once though. Nope...they would have to charge him all 3 times so just for him to go it was going to be 90 points and then another 12 points per kid on top of that. Nevermind then! 

So we headed over to the bumper boats instead! 

We were going to stay and watch Owen and Jack have fun, but then I thought I would take Ella and Zeke over to Kid Town so they could each go on a ride and then we'd meet back up with the bigger boys. 

Zeke wanted to go on the planes again. 

At first he said he wanted a blue plane, but then he changed his mind to green. While he was riding around and around I happened to read the requirements for the ride and noticed that you have to 40 inches tall to ride this ride alone! I guess they don't really worry about that since Zeke isn't even tall enough to go into the IKEA smalland yet and you only have to be 37 inches to go in there. 

Ella wanted to try something new...she was the only kid on the swings! 

Of course I asked Zeke if he wanted to go on the swings with Ella, but he chose the planes instead...then of course when he saw her on the swings he wanted to go. 

Once we were finished we went back over to meet up with the boys. Owen had said he wanted to go on the screamin' swing with Daddy. 

I think he's nuts, but at the same time I'm happy he's up for doing this stuff at such a young age. There is NO way I would do that ride now let alone at 8 years old! 

Off they go! 

This is fun! 

Getting higher! 

This was about the height where Owen's face changed and I honestly thought dinner was on it's way up. I was laughing so hard thinking Michael was going to get sprayed in the face! 

Thankfully he held it together and when it was over he said something along the lines of...That was totally awesome!!! 

The week before when we came Jack really wanted to play mini golf with me, but no one else did! So...I told him that we'd play together just him and I when we came the next time. There are two different courses to take...we chose the arctic one. 

My sweet boy who LOVES alone time with Mommy! 

I tried to teach Jack the proper stance and how to just move your arms and not your legs, but it was not working. He just has his own style...think Happy Gilmore! It was tons of fun though! 

When we were done we joined the other kids again at Kidopolis and let them all play for a good long while. Then we had enough points for them to each do one last ride together. 

The kids really wanted to do the Frog Hopper. It was right outside of Kidopolis and Michael and I had seen it run many times and it seriously looked painful. Up, down, up down....all jerky like, but the kids wanted to ride it! On the way up Michael said to the kids....It's been nice knowing you! The kids thought that Daddy was so funny! 

Most of pictures looks just like this one since it was so jerky! The funniest thing was Zeke is such a shorty his head almost hit the bar that comes down to hold them in every time...thankfully it was padded! 

They loved every bit of it...laughing and smiling the whole time! The best part was the guy running the ride asked if they wanted to go again and of course they said yes....so he started the ride over for them! So much fun! This time around it cost us $36, but we had over 2 hours of fun together as a family so it was absolutely worth it! 

Free Groupon! - Part 1 Of What You Can Do In 24 Hours!

Last week my friend Christina sent me a message saying that she had a Groupon she wasn't going to be able to use. It was for Bullwinkles Family Fun Center. We have 4 children and we have never gone! The biggest reason is probably money so this was a perfect excuse to get to go. I did go on Groupon to see if they still had the same coupon and they did so I decided to buy a second one for us just in case the first wouldn't be enough. It was only $18 so that wasn't all that bad. I knew that I didn't want to actually spend any money while we were there so I made pizza for dinner and talked with the kids about not getting any food while we were there. Michael was supposed to come with us, but he ended up having to work overtime due to a service that needed fixing. 

We got to the fun center around 6pm and went right to the front desk to get our Groupon. I just redeemed Christina's Groupon since I wasn't sure I'd want to use both all by myself. Each Groupon gave us 150 points to use on rides. 

 One other thing I talked with the kids about was being patient since they weren't all going to be able to ride on everything. 

The first ride the bigger boys chose was the Bumper Boats.

The night we went on was Thursday night and it was super slow....it was awesome!

Owen and Jack were the only ones in the pool for the bumper boats. It was nice since it was their first time. They just had to worry about each other and not getting soaked by a bunch of strangers! 

I wasn't sure how the boys would do with driving the boats, but they did great. I had actually forgotten about the sprayers...I just thought you ran into each other like regular bumper boats. 

Ella, Zeke and I went over to the spectator area to watch....it was a bit bright! 

Ella Bean would live in this tank top if I let her! 

Owen was really good at using the sprayer and was just pelting Jack! 

Barely a drop of water on this guy! 

Soaking wet!!! At least he wasn't mad about it! 

I love that they are getting older so they can do this stuff! 

Next we went over to Kid Town. They don't have the scanners to scan the card they give you with your points on it so we had to go to the ticket booth and "purchase" two red tickets using our card. She just deducted 12 points per ticket from our card. 

Ella and Zeke both wanted to ride the carousel. 

Zeke hasn't really been crazy about rides so I wasn't sure he'd even want to go, but he was all for it! 

Ella had her horse all picked out before we even got on the ride. She loved the yellow hair! 

Precious boy! 

While I rode on the carousal with Ella and Zeke, Jack and Owen sat on a bench right next to the ride so I could see them. Every time we went around Jack would smile and wave to us....it was so cute! 

The next thing the boys wanted to do was jump on the big trampolines. While we were standing in line I saw that the minimum weight was 40lbs and they weight EVERY rider. I was super worried that Owen wouldn't make it! That kid is skinny! At the Dr's he's weighed in at 47lbs, but this wasn't a Dr scale so I had no idea how accurate it would be. 

All strapped in! 

Jack's strap kept falling down and it was worrying me, but then once they get ready to let the kids jump they actually pull the straps so they are more taunt. 

Trying so hard to flip over! Neither of them were able to flip over. I remember trying to flip when I jumped on these many moons ago, but I couldn't flip over either! 

Jumping up and down and up and down and up and down....

will make you really hot, sweaty and thirsty!!! 

For Ella and Zeke's next ride they wanted to go on the airplanes they saw in Kid Town. Back to the ticket booth we went to get 2 more red tickets. I asked if they had a drinking fountain inside and she said we could get free ice water. She did mention that Kid Town would be closing in a few minutes so we should do the ride first. I was so happy she mentioned that...Ella and Zeke would have been so disappointed if they had missed out! 

Cute little aviator!!

Since it was right before closing they were the only ones on the ride. 

I don't know if the workers give the kids extra time if they are the only ones riding and no one else is in line, but it did seem like the guy gave them a good amount of time. 

After the planes we went in and got ice water. We only had 2 points left on our card and I really wanted Michael to be able to come have fun with us so I decided to not use our second Groupon. The kids and I walked around the inside of the building to see what they would like to go on the next time we came. Even though they each only got to go on 2 rides they didn't complain. I had talked with them about how we will come back again and it's fun to have things that we haven't done so we'll have new stuff to do the next time. All in all we didn't spend any money and we had about a hour and a half of fun! The next day I decided to buy another Groupon so went we go with Michael we'll have 300 points. We even got a point list so we know how many points each ride is so we have our rides all planned out the next time we go. 

Thank you Christina... for giving us a fun free family night. After Mount Rainier we definitely needed a positive family experience!!!