Bowling with Brandy and a belly shot to boot!

After reading about our annual bowling fiasco, Brandy said she wanted in on some Kellogg family bowling action so we set up a date and, miraculously, made it to Stoneleigh Lanes twice in one year! Our timing was pretty rad because early last week they sent out another Groupon which we promptly scooped up. Who doesn't love half-price shoe rentals, lane rentals, and bowling alley pizza?

We started our morning at the BSO family concert. This one was Musical Roots: From Africa to America and featured an awesome percussion performance by the OrchKids and a few seriously amazing and super fun performances by local beat boxer, Shodekeh. I loved this song best and am thinking I need to order it from iTunes.

We went straight from the concert to the bowling alley (getting ourselves dressed that morning for those two back-to-back activities was a bit of a conundrum) to meet Brandy and Tim, sling some duckpins, and eat some pizza.

For those of you who have been harrassing me because I have posted very few belly shots (ahem, Autumn!) check out this pic in which my super huge belly dwarfs the miniscule little duckpin ball. I'm pretty sure I'd dwarf ten pin ball as well.

The adult-to-child ratio on this particular bowling fiasco was 4 to 1 which meant that the adults actually played a full game. I don't know the last time I played a whole game...it's been years for sure. Unfortunately, we had no idea how to keep beyond simply marking down the number of pins that we knocked over with each turn so my two spares were ignored. I mention this because I think that should we have been able to calculate in what to do with spares, I might not have come in dead last....

Eric came in at the opposite end of the score card befuddling us native Marylanders and putting us to shame. I grew up lobbing the occasional duckpin with my dad and so did Brandy and Tim, but Eric had never even heard of duckpin until he married me let alone lobbed one down a lane. In spite of being humbled by my Michigander husband, it was a super fun game and a super fun day in general.

We even ended up with a family picture, courtesy of Brandy! That makes two very rare shots in this one short post. Thanks B!

Photo courtesy of Brandy Washington

Annual Bowling Fiasco!

It seems like in the colder months, there'd be plenty of Saturdays for lobbing duckpin balls down an alley, but the reality is that it ends up happening once a year.

Like last year, a group of us bought the Living Social deal to Stoneleigh Lanes when it came out a few months ago and then coordinated schedules until we came up with a date we could all manage. Sadly, Atticus came down with a fever the day before said Annual Bowling Fiasco and was unable to join us this year. This might mean that we make it more than once since they will undoubtedly want to use their deal...

We met Jess and Todd and Erin, Ryan, Brody, and Addison at the lanes at 11:00 and after shoe-ing up, the kids got down to business. After a few hundred gutter balls, someone had the bright idea to put up the rails. That's all it took for Hannah to start rolling her balls straight down the center. Her and Addy rolled simultaneously down one lane (in spite of numerous adults repeatedly reminding them to wait until one ball hits the pins before rolling another).

The girls picked up this arms-crossed-while-observing-the-path-of-the-rolled-ball stance.

 

Since the girls stuck primarily to the lane on the left, Brody enjoyed having the next lane over mostly to himself.

His ball-watching stance was more of a self huddle.

Pizza time for the kids meant the adults got to sneak in a few rolls without pins being unexpectedly reset right at the exact moment that the ball was about to leave the hand. It also meant that the adult-rolled ball made a solo journey to the pins and did not have to share the lane with a wayward kid ball that was lobbed before anyone could yell, "wait!"

Post-pizza time inspired more Ring Around the Rosie than bowling--an interesting choice for bowling alley games.

It also inspired snuggle time with daddy-o. Since Hannah was snuggling, Addy wanted in on the action too. This is a thing with them (maybe with all kids???): a few weeks ago at Brody's birthday party, Addy ran up and gave her uncle a huge hug, and as soon as he had put her feet back on the floor, Hannah was jumping into his arms for a snuggle of her own. Yeah, we hang out with them a decent amount, but I'm pretty sure Hannah has exchanged few if any words with Addy's uncle. I find this let's-go-hug-someone bandwagon highly entertaining. It's also really nice, but dwelling on that puts me uncomfortably close to being cheesy so we'll leave it at entertaining.

And then our hour was up, and although I thought an hour wouldn't be enough time (pretty sure we were there closer to 2 hours last year), it was actually perfect this year. The kids had lost interest in bowling and had taken to raiding all adult pockets of quarters and dollar bills to pump into the game machines, and the grown-ups were going broke and growing weary trying to keep them wrangled and deny their repeated requests for ice cream and more money.

I snapped my Annual Bowling Fiasco group kid shot and then we suited up and hit the road.

Okay, fine. I also snapped a shot of us girls (women????). I was thinking I would not broadcast this one to the worldwide web because I'm feeling terribly blah-zay and unattractive in it, but Jess and Erin look great so I'm going to suck it up and deal. Anyway, I pride myself on not being one of those people that freaks out about looking bad in a pic and insists that it be erased from existence. And also, I have been terrible about posting belly shots during this pregnancy, so here's an idea of how large and in charge I am if any of you are wondering.

Hannah and friends do a little duckpin bowling

We managed to gather a good-sized group of friends at the duckpin bowling alley on Saturday, and we only had to plan it 2 months in advance!  We showed up first so Hannah had a chance to perfect her roll, and I had a chance to partake in a Hannah-centric photo shoot, which is good because when everyone else got there, it turned into an immediate mad house.

These next two photos show her doing her post-roll happy dance which she did shortly after the ball left her hands for the first 50 or so rolls. Someone made a comment about getting those fancy fast feet into a tap dancing class. Don't give me any ideas! I've already been wondering how early is too early to get her into a dance class...So many hobbies, so little time...and money.

Jess and Todd showed up shortly after us, and then Erin and Ryan with Brody and Addison in tow, and after them, Shannon and Atticus with Demetrios coming along not much later. We had two lanes, with me naively thinking the kids would play on one lane and the adults would take turns on the other. Yeah, right! There were only four kids, but it was seriously insane for a good half hour. The kids took up both lanes and kept trying to expand out to our neighbor's lanes. It took all eight of us adults to keep them corralled. Atticus liked to pick up the balls and drop them where he was standing. Brody started off trying to roll the balls from where he picked them up rather than walking up to the line. All of them took to running off to other people's ball shoots anytime their own was empty. That first half hour was totally nuts, in a totally fun way, of course. All the same, I was relieved when a bit of the novelty wore off and a few went to explore the quarter machines.

I'm bummed because I didn't get many pics of the mad house, and those I did get are pretty blurry since no one was standing still. I was hoping this would not be such a Hannah-centric post, but I'm failing. Maybe some of the other parents have some pics I can steal.

In the meantime, here's what I've got: Addy (and daddy) sporting super cute glasses and a necklace that Hannah made for her.

Here's one of the kiddos being relatively tame.

Then we decided we need a group shot of the kids so we stood them all in front of the lane and then snapped like mad in the hopes that someone would get a good one. This first one is my favorite because they're all being such individuals in it. If I ever get around to framing pics, I'm framing this one for her room.

Being the youngest, Atticus had the hardest time with the concept of standing still and posing; he kept toddling off. The older kids have had enough practice by this point, and if you need evidence, check out Brody and Hannah in this one.  These two are true professionals and busted out a serious prom pic pose.   The cameras were shaking from all the laughter.

Hannah included Addison in the love fest in this next one.  Maybe next time Atticus will snuggle in there too.

I seriously love bowling, especially duckpins since they're so much more manageable. I remember there being a place in Hagerstown where you could bowl duckpins upstairs and big balls down, and my dad used to take my brother and me there sometimes.  So fun, and an awesome activity for a freezing cold, super windy winter day like Saturday was.