We had most of Sunday to keep them busy before we took them to the secret place for dinner.  I found a place I was sure they would love that we were going to take them to.  We had some time to kill before we left so they had a little quite time with their tablets

Quiet tablet time

And here I thought only cats liked empty boxes

I made them clean up the livingroom, pick up their dirty clothes and put away their toys.  What the heck, when you have cheap labor, you  gotta take advantage of it LOL.

We took the kids to the grocery store to restock the homestead and to kill some time before the we took them to the big secret place for dinner.  I pushed one cart to put the food in and Gary pushed the other cart to keep the kids corralled in

Fun times in the grocery cart

You gotta get them the free cookie at the grocery store, that goes without saying.  They were pretty good.  There wasn’t any “I want that” “Can we get this”.  It had been a long, long, long time since I took kids to the grocery store, especially when they fit a cart.  There was one little boy (luckily not one of ours), that was having a meltdown in one of the isles.  He wanted something and mom said no.  Such a fuss!  Then later, that same mom and her two kids were a few rows down from our check out cashier.  Again, he wanted something and mom said no.  A bigger melt down, screaming….yelling.  Both the mom and the cashier were trying all sorts of things to get him to chill out.  Holy Hoot!  I think he needs a good swat on that butt, but I am old school and I’d probably get arrested if I did that in public now a days, especially to a kid that wasn’t mine .   I looked at my two charges and they were a little angels compared to that kid.  Good job Mom and Dad!

The time finally came when we could take them to the secret place for dinner.  I told my daughter that we were going to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese on Sunday.  She said the oldest one would be so excited because he had asked several times if they could go there.  We took our kids to one a few times back in the day.  We even got a free pizza once when Gary sat in a chair and the leg broke.  If we were smart, we could of sued them and be living in Naples now LOL.

Anyway, we took the kids there.  As we drove up the older one said.  “Are we going here?”  I said “Yes!  Are you excited?”, he said “We can’t go here.”  “Why?” I asked, he said “Cause mom said we can’t come here till we are 10!”  Ah ha!  Caught you mom LOL.   He was very glad to know he didn’t have to wait till he was 10 in order to go in.

They do have a nice system there where they stamp your left had with an invisible number.  Each family member has the same number and then when you leave, they run a flashlight over your hand and make sure all the numbers matched.  That made me feel better to leave the older one run around on his own so I could walk around with the little guy.   Gary got off easy, he turned down his hearing aids and sat and held the table.

The Chuck E Cheese of today is far different from the Chuck E Cheese of our kids day.  Many more electronic games.  They still had the stage for the show but it was way in the back of the place and we couldn’t see it at all.  The way the games work is you buy a card that they load time on to, kind of like a credit card.  There is a machine where you can pause the time, check the time and add more time to the card.  With the card, you get unlimited access to ALL the games for the amount of time you have on the card.  You could tell the kids who had been there before.  They knew which machines gave out the most tickets and how to work them.   The ones that gave out tickets, some were based on skill and others were based on persistence.  This one kid I saw, I knew he was going to be a slot machine gambler when he grew up.  He had a huge pile of tickets at his feet, they were coming out of the machine and neatly folding themselves.  He had one hand on his card as he held it up against the area where you wave it to get your “free” game, and his other hand was pushing the button to make the game go.  It was one of those games where coins fell and were eventually pushed off a ledge and you’d get tickets for the amount of money that fell off the ledge.  He was going a good job.

Then there were the parents that figured out how to get the most bang for their buck and really use the cards.  Instead of buying a card for each kid, like we did, they bought one card, had their 5 kids stay in close proximity to him, and he wanded the card over whatever game the 5 kids were playing.  Man!  He knew how to work the system.

Finally we had pizza and chicken nuggets for dinner

Yummy Pizza

The chicken nuggets seemed like a rip to me but I guess they tasted good cause the big one gobbled them up without a complaint.  I must say the pizza was surprisingly taste.  Seeing as I was a responsible adult, I made the boys eat some dinner before they could go back and play.  Score another point for Mema.

The big one went around and played a bunch of games and collected his tickets

Skeet ball

I walked around with the little one and helped him play games.  We played wack-a-mole and he hurt his hand and started to cry.  I gave him the old kiss on the boo boo and he was fine, then I finished his game for him 😊.

They had a couple of rides that were like the pony rides that used to cost a quarter or maybe a nickel depending upon how old you were, that sat outside of the 5¢ and 10¢ store.  You remember those don’t ya?  Well the little one went on a car ride and a took a ride on Noah’s Ark.  Both times this cute little blond climbed up in the seat with him and got a free ride.  Of course the little one was more interested in the blonde then the ride.  I think he is going to be T-R-O-U-B-L-E when he gets older LOL 😉.

Toward the end of the day they both found these snowmobile rides.

Watch me go!

They were able to pick their guy, their snowmobile, the special effects of the snowmobile…..all this was accomplished by the continual hitting of buttons until the ride started.  The little one held on and went at full throttle throughout the entire game.  He took 1^st and 2^nd place a few times.  The older one drove carefully and slowly thru the course, till I told him to HIT IT!  Then he jumped, slammed, and flew over the course, he took 7^th place a few times.

7th Place winner!

Now for two kids that were just screwing around, they did dang good against more experienced and older riders who were able to put their names in the game.  Good job boys!

So at the end of the day we gathered up the tickets and took them to the ticket counting machine.  You insert your tickets and a piece of paper spits out telling you how many tickets they got.  683.  We went to the place where you can cash in your tickets for prizes.  What did they get? 3 tootsie rolls, 3 very small suckers and a couple of tattoos.  Oh well, they sure had fun.

Now we know the tricks of the trade so when the kids are 10 and we bring them back, we’ll know just what to do.

Our last night of watching the kids went well.  By the time we got home they were warn out and almost ready for bed.  I brushed their teeth again and even gave them a shower.  We said our prayers, I tucked them in and got that stupid night light with stars to go on.  Gary and I put our feet up and patted ourselves on the back for not losing anyone nor making a trip to the ER.  We decided we are glad we didn’t have any little ones anymore, they are just too exhausting LOL.