Bumper Bowling

Addie had her first experience at a bowling alley yesterday.

Except she almost didn't have it because I thought the party started at 2. Actually it ended at 2. I am sure I join a vast group of parents who have made that mistake. Usually I am more on top of it though. What can I blame it on... my pregnancy? our chickenpox case? some school stuff that has been on my mind? the fact that I was making a fairly time-consuming and specific triple layer coconut cake plus an entree for bookclub (which was originally supposed to be at my house but relocated due to the pox)? All those things might have played a small part, but really I was just not on top of planning for it like I should have been. We bought the present a week ago, which was good. But I knew Matt would be taking Addie, not me, since I would be busy in the kitchen. And I guess I was not as concerned about timing and driving directions as I would have been had I been the driver.

Speaking of driving directions, last week there was a field trip downtown for Addie's class. It fell on my work day so I got to go. The class took the city bus. I opted to take the car. Both because Addie got a bit queezy on the last bus-trip downtown and had to get off early with her teacher so she did not puke. And because I get queezy on bus trips. So I drove. But I spent what was probably a laughable amount of time on the computer planning out the best place to park. Parking garages were like $16 for 2-3 hours. No way was I going to pay that. There was some street parking, but how much circling would I have to do to find a legal spot? Matt reminded me of a good place to find metered parking. So I had my driving directions, my parking plan, and my walking route - I was set! But then I made the mistake of under-paying the meter and realizing that it printed a slip for 1 hour and we needed more like 2 - 2 1/2. But since they are not coin meters, there is no way to add time on. So I had to swipe my credit card again and start over (since it is not like I could leave the kids in 1 hour to go back and start a new slip).  So I did not pay the $16 I was trying to avoid, but I did pay more than I needed to due to a silly mistake. But we got there in time and had fun.

Just like Addie had fun yesterday (even if she was not exactly on time).

I guess afterwords she saw the attached store that sold shoes and such and was curious about bowling and had questions such as:
-do people bowl at their houses? (because why else would they buy their own shoes and ball?)
-is there a bowling class? (where people can go & bowl the whole time?)

She even got a cool personalized bowling birthday party t-shirt!