As I mentioned last night, yesterday one of Hayley’s friends had her birthday party at an indoor amusement center. I had never been there before but heard good things about it. It was no lie – the place was amazing! Unlike a lot of similar places, parents are encouraged to go ahead and join the kids, so I did. In the end I got more exercise in three and a half hours than I do in a full week I think.

They have a small section for kids three and under so at first Breanna started off there. They had a ball pit, little slide, foam blocks and whatnot, and a trampoline, which she loved.

But then I decided, after about 15 minutes or so, that I would show her the rest of the play structure. When she realized that she was allowed to go play with the big kids, she never looked back. They have a triple slide which is pretty high, about one full floor up from the ground floor. Hayley wasn’t too keen on it, but Breanna was curious. I held her in my lap the first time; the second time she went on the slide beside mine and held my hand; after that I was no longer allowed to touch her. In fact, I was lucky if I could catch up to her long enough to even slide with her at all. That child is pretty damn fearless. Once Hayley saw Breanna on the slides she decided she might try it after all and she loved it. I must confess: I loved it too, proven by the fact that I can not tell you how many times I went on them but it was definitely more than 25 times.

Don’t mind my crazy hair. Also? Those people coming down behind us totally got in trouble with the monitor for not waiting for us to get to the bottom and clear the landing pad before sliding down. Ha!

Another very cool thing at the center is their nerf pit. They have about two dozen air “guns” that you can load with the – literally – thousands of nerf balls so that you can shoot at each other. I got one full-on in the face, it totally doesn’t hurt anyone. Hayley got hurt only because she was rushing so much to load her gun that she banged her head on it. I felt her pain – in my hurry to get down to the floor to collect more balls, I dove down a slide and conked my head on the rim at the bottom. Ow.

They also have huge cannon type of things on the ground which you can load up with up to a hundred balls at a time, then you press the button and it sprays the balls all over everyone. It.is.AWESOME.

I had one mini war with a boy who looked to be ten and he was faster than me and had a larger stash (they have all kinds of fabric bags lying around which you can use to collect the nerf balls) and he totally kicked my ass. I made myself feel better shortly after that because I accidentally got some dad right off the top of his head and when he retaliated I used my higher vantage point to my advantage and slammed him with nerf balls.

It was kind of fun. Just a little. They may have had to twist my arm to get me to leave to go eat supper in the birthday party room.

(Seriously, it’s like paintball for kids!)

They had nuggets and fries for the kids, pizza for the parents, and a fun animator who kept the kids entertained. He was great – I really don’t think I could do his job. They played some games, had birthday cake, and then everyone went back out for another hour and a half.

There was only one slide that neither of the girls liked. It was about two stories high and spiraled down to the ground. I went with Hayley and she didn’t like it because her shirt rode up in back and she got that plastic burn many a kid has suffered at parks and the like. She also didn’t like not being able to see where she was going. I convinced Breanna to try it but Miss Fearless was so eager that instead of waiting to go down it WITH me, she ran ahead and pretty much threw herself into it, landed on her butt and took off like a shot. I raced down after her, and there was no screaming or crying, but when I reached the bottom she stood there wide-eyed and very soberly told me, “that slide too scary. I go on the other ones now.”

I went back up all by myself with my camera just for a 365 Days photo op, because I am a DORK.

We’ve already decided that we’re going to go back as a family some day (possibly with others as well) on a ped day just for fun. The kids really had a good time, and uh, so did I. We’ll go around 4 pm since it quiets down a bit by then compared to earlier in the day, we’ll have supper there, and let them go crazy until it closes at 9 pm if they want. It’s decently priced and it’s a fun way for them to burn off energy, especially with the colder weather approaching.

It was definitely a big hit and I’m looking forward to going back!

(Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo, my month of posting in November. However, Holidailies sign-ups start tomorrow, so I’ll still be a posting fool. Or just a fool, your mileage may vary!)