May 10, 2011: Chuck E Cheese

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We have been so blessed with our community of friends at Jericho Ridge and, my fun on this particular day, was made possible by two friends I met through church - Ali and Jamie. We met the Unraus and Koogers a few years ago when they started attending Jericho Ridge at about the same time as us and we were all joined up in a home group. We immediately hit it off with both couples, as well as a number of other couples that joined our home group and it has been great journeying through life with these fabulous people! Back then none of us had kids and, since then, there have been 7 boys born into families from that home group: Benjamin, Holden, Caden, Jonah, Jacob, Ethan & Cole. Kind of seems even more amazing when I list off their names like that. Each one of those little boys is an incredible little person and I've had so much fun getting to know each of them and will look forward to getting to know the three newest babies, including our own little Jacob, as time goes on.

I'm also constantly reminded, by days like these, of the awesome blessing it is to have other friends who are off on leave at the same time as me and to be able to spend my days hanging out, chatting about life and letting our boys play together. It certainly makes the days much more enjoyable and helps me to remember what an incredible gift it is to be given this time off of teaching to do a different kind of 'teaching' at home.

I hadn't been to Chuck E Cheese in years and it was so much fun to watch Ben & his little buddies enjoying all it has to offer. Ben caught on pretty quickly to the idea of putting tokens in the various games and, we all realized that bowling (which was one of my personal favorites as a kid) might be a bit tricky for 22 - 30 month olds! Here are some pics from our day o' fun!



Beyond the fact that Chuck E Cheese looked a lot smaller than I seem to remember it, I was a bit disappointed that tickets didn't spew out of the machines the way I remember it happening when I was a kid. We used to go to a place called 'Easy Street' in Calgary with my dad and brother and my dad, being the biggest kid of us all, would often be caught saying, 'Just a few more tokens,' to which we never seemed to object :) I love that aspect of my dad and hope that I can also enjoy just being a big kid with Ben and seeing our daily adventures through his eyes and with his excitement.



I love this sequence of photos of our boys. They're finally just getting to the stage where putting them all on the same side of the table without adult supervision (for a short period of time) is not utter mayhem! They ate their snacks (& each others' snacks) and enjoyed a little rest after a good bout of playing. They are all such awesome boys and, I can speak for myself and probably Jamie and Ali, when I say that they are so much more fun to parent when they're happily entertained with their surroundings. It's good for them and SOOOO good for us!



After a great morning of play-time for all we headed out to grab some sushi nearby. With Ali and I pushing our little ones in the strollers, Jamie was helping me out with Ben. As we were walking up the sidewalk along 200th street, I had to laugh as I watched Ben & Holden, holding hands with each other and Jamie, walk ahead of us while Ali and I strolled along with our double strollers. It was a bit of a gong show but such a fun moment!



We had an awesome lunch (with only a few time outs for Ben), some actual eating being done by the kids, food being consumed by us moms, chop sticks being used as drum sticks, soothers constantly being stuck back in babies mouths and a ton of rice left on the ground when we left but our stomachs were full, we had passed the morning with great company and our boys were most likely going to nap when they went home. All in all, such a success and such a great way to spend our day! Thanks Ali and Jamie for making this whole 'mothering' thing that much more enjoyable because we can do it together. I love that we can share in the fun times and the frustrating times and that, hanging out together even makes the frustrating times kind of fun!