Rush Funplex

I made an attempt today to bribe the kids to do their chores. It worked. It took them until 7pm to get their rooms clean, but still, it worked, yay. While they had been dragging their feet all day, I checked out some of the entertainment options that are included in our Get Out Pass. I looked at hours and driving distances. The Rush Funplex was in Syracuse. I've never been to the Rush Funplex before, never heard of it, but let's see, it's toddler friendly, it's almost an hour away, and it was for a 2 hour pass. That would get little kids out of the house for probably atleast 4 hours. Corey might appreciate that so he can catch up on consulting hours, seeing as he spent a lot of time this week looking for a replacement for the van. So, with the rooms cleaned, we headed out to the great unknown in Davis County. I don't think I've ever been to Syracuse.

The kids were thrilled to take their first semi long drive in the new van. Time to watch a movie! Cause we never get to watch movies, right?! "We love this van!" So they watched and I listened to Megamind on the drive up. That one is a good one, very funny and clever. I like it when movies have lots of clever things that the grownups can appreciate. Really funny flick. So, we arrived at 8, redeemed our pass, and then tried to figure out where to go inside. I thought I'd take the boys to the bounce houses, but Owen saw the bumper cars on the way in and insisted Wesley take him there. Wes did. Owen tried to drive the car. He kept crashing into a wall. The Funplex attendant tried to help him. Owen didn't like that, and that was the end of their fun at the cars. I was over with Daniel, who liked the balls in the inflatable "connect four" game.

So he sat in the balls and played with the balls. Sure, Daniel, that can be a ball pit for you, whatever makes you happy. Luckily this was one of the least interesting attractions, so other funplex passerbys didn't mind this game being monopolized by my one year old.

Soon Natalie came and found us, and with her leading the way, Daniel followed her into a bounce house.

They could use better lighting here. The sun was barely setting so they hadn't turned on the night time party lights. I had to concentrate to not loose the kids. This was about when Wes brought Owen back from the bumper cars. Poor Owen was a little sad. He didn't want to do anything. He had tried to be confident and brave and try something new, and it failed. He wouldn't go in the bounce house. He just stayed close by my leg. It was 8:30 and he seemed ready to leave but I was going to try and stay the whole 2 hours. Hey, there are some fun lights over at the rollerstaking rink! Daniel ran over there, he thought it was a dance floor.

I was slightly concerned he'd get run over, but luckily it wasn't very crowded, so I just let him run around. Daniel led the way that time and Natalie joined him.

Ok, we're done with that, what else? Another bounce house, this one was a farm theme. They turned on the lights. They were red lights above this bounce house.

Then Daniel led us back to the connect four area. Three kids in a boat of big balls.

They had fun pushing the balls up the floating and having them roll back.

We went to check in on the other kids. Natalie climbed a ladder. I looked for the kids - they had been waiting in line for trapeze swing that lands in the foam pit.

Daniel and Owen looking at the fun the big kids are having. Yeah, you guys probably can't go in there, you'd sink in and get lost!

I told Natalie she could keep climbing the ladder rope thingy, Daniel was leaving for the dance floor again. I'll be right back... Owen went with him! Yay Owen!

Then back to the foam pit. We found Sophi, Lily, and Abi. They had a look of "uh oh" and "this is not good" on their faces. And Sophi didn't have her glasses on her face. I asked Sophi if her glasses were with her shoes. No. Then I could surmised what had happened. Yes, she lost her glasses in the foam pit. Someone coming off the trapeze swing hit her in the head and knocked them off. Oh drat. That was at 8:50.

Owen and Daniel were done with the bounce area and we were going to go buy a pizza or something to kill time while I waited for the second hour to finish up. I told them to try and find the glasses and I'd be back. The little boys got distracted by the arcade on our way to get pizza.

Lots of flashing lights and pretend cars and motorbikes to ride! A little boys dream land.

"Vroom vroom!"

After 20 minutes of pretend driving in the arcade, never putting in a coin mind you, we finally made it to the pizza parlor. I ordered a large cheese pizza. The kids came and said they couldn't find Sophi's glasses. Oh well. Then they said "The pizza's still not ready?!?!" Sorry, I just ordered it... the boys got side tracked by the arcade. Soon the piping hot pizza was done. The kids ate it up while I went to report Sophi's lost glasses to the lost and found. They clean out the foam pit in December, but kids find lost objects all the time, so I gave them my name and a description of Sophi's glasses and we'll see if they turn up. If they do get found I think there's a good chance they'll be bent or broken, esp since they got knocked off near where the trapeze rope riders land. After eating pizza, Natalie and Sophi pretended to play games in the arcade with the little boys.

There was a mom with her kids at the skee ball area and Daniel wanted their balls. I kept him away so they could finish. Then she swiped her card to play again. The balls didn't come, so I guess she thought it didn't work and her kids were off to another game anyway, so she left, then after a minute, all of a sudden, here came the balls! Sweet! What a tender mercy!

This could keep these little guys entertained for hours!

Yay, looks like I'm gonna make it unscathed until 10. I wasn't sure where the older kids had gone, but I had the little kids covered, so I trust we'll all find each other again. It was so fun to watch them. They weren't strong enough to roll the balls up the ramp, and they didn't know that that was what you're supposed to do anyway, so they just rolled the balls up the ball return the whole time, it was super funny. Here's what it looked like from Daniel's angle -

Isn't that funny? So cute. And then you can see Owen behind him, bending down and peeking up the hole -

Owen only had one ball, but it kept him quite entertained.

Natalie and Sophi playing a game. This one it looked like they were actually doing it, so I don't know how that worked since they didn't have any game tokens or credits.

Owen taking a break from his skee ball game to go pick up the Player 2 gun and join some guy who was shooting virtual buck deer.

The guy didn't give me a "Hey, get your kid away" look, he didn't look at me at all or seem to mind, so I didn't stop Owen from pretending he was participating. This game had a zombie option - you could shoot zombie deer and bears. Woway to go zombie culture, you guys are everywhere!

I made it past 10pm, and as I feared, the Rush employees didn't really check the wrist bands to see what time my kids were supposed to be done. I feared we might be there until 11, but at 10:20 the 3 older kids came back from the go karts. 

They didn't do the miniature golf, laser tag, or bowling, so I'm glad they were able to make it off without the little kids following for a little bit so they could enjoy some of the more advanced activities.

Ok - 10:30 pm and we headed home. This was a good activity. And it was a good deal with the Get out Pass - we redeemed seven 2 hour passes, normally $17 each, so that would have been $119, so with this one activity alone we've already gotten our money's worth for the month, yay, go team. (Well... not counting the $80+ it's going to cost to replace Sophi's lost glasses...) I guess we'll need to do a few more activities this month to break even. Still, I like the Get Out Pass, it's like a timeshare for family fun - we're already paying for it, so it makes me want to use it. I'd like to do a Saturday activity like this every weekend this year. That might be a little ambitious of me, but we'll see, maybe I can do it.