Family Fun Time

Favorite Hangout

My wife and I decided to take our three youngest granddaughters into town, to have a fun Sunday afternoon out of the house.  No real special plan in mind, just a fun time on the town.  Our granddaughters are three, five and seven years of age, and are of brilliant minds.  They all have outgoing personalities.

Our typical outings are a visit to Toys R Us, Children’s Hands On Museum (we have a membership), playtime at the Park, a visit to one of our local restaurants, or a window shopping trip to the local mall (grandma gets carried away buying them clothes).  Today the decision was made by majority vote (100%) to go to Chuck E, Cheese.  My wife warn them that it would only be for a half hour.

The place was packed shoulder to shoulder, but as usual there was plenty of game machines, and rides to go around.  I had forgotten the feeling that prevails when you are placed in the middle of so much exploring possibilities.  The look on their little faces (as the credit card commercial states; Priceless).  With plenty of tokens to keep them entertained, they explore every corner of the place jumping form one machine to another, sometimes looking at the next one before finishing the one they are playing at.  My three year old granddaughter was being helped by my wife on to a machine where the objective is to jump and get the lights and sounds to react to the activity.  As the older granddaughters and I walked by she yelled repeatedly look at me, look at me jump, her voice full of excitement, and her little eyes gleaming equally with excitement.

If ever there was time and money well spent, this outing was it. When we first arrived we considered ordering some pizza and salads for the girls and ourselves but after checking at the counter we found out that the orders were taking up to a half hour and more due to the size of the crowd. We purchased drinks for the girls and told them we would have pizza after we were done with Chuck E. Cheese.

The old saying is that time fly’s when you are having fun, and fly it did.  By the time we spent all the tokens we had purchased we noticed that two hours had gone by.  To my surprise the girls agreed to leave willingly after purchasing some toys and lollipops they wanted.  It didn’t hurt that by now they were very hungry.  On the way to buy pizza the girls had a lively debate about whether we should have a sit down pizza meal or take the pizza home.

The youngest granddaughter fell asleep almost as quickly as the car started moving, so it helped us reach the conclusion that the pizza should go home. Since the granddaughters come from two different households, I purchased double orders of pizza and breadsticks and after calling their parents we dropped them off at their homes with their meals.

After a long day of church, and my favorite NFL team winning an exciting game (a record of 9 wins and 1 loss for the season) my wife and I were finally able to relax to some quiet time by ourselves in the family room.  I couldn’t help but quietly contemplate what a nice day I had just had.  I actually wasn’t at my best when the idea came up to take the girls into town, my back was a little sore from doing some landscaping earlier in the week, but looking back we made the best decision.  What might be trivial to adults, I can just imagine that my granddaughters fell asleep with a smile on their little faces, and probably replayed it in their dreams.  My seven year old granddaughter always says something that melts my heart, “You are the best grandpa ever!”  The best is yet to come….