A Family Adventure at the Bowling Alley

After returning from a a business trip to Washington, DC Nate decided that we needed to do an extra special family activity tonight. Bowling! Abby's never been and it's been at least three or so years since Nate and I have gone so we figured we were all about the same skill level. :-) After getting our shoes, a special light-weight ball for Abby (which they apparently keep safe behind the counter), and an newfangled dragon ramp to help Abby bowl we were off to start our adventure.

The lane next to us had a local high school's bowling team practicing so I was a little concerned about keeping Abby to our area and not having her interfere with their concentration but I needn't have worried about that. They were professionals and never blinked an eye at Abby's antics. Instead I should have worried about the intense sprinting, stopping and spinning off in a new direction, and desire to run amok that Abby apparently had an interest in. Don't get me wrong she behaved herself very, very well. She just did it at full speed in all directions. She'd come back to us when we called and skipped right up to the ball return when it was her turn to bowl, but otherwise it was up and down and back and forth and Nate and I worked up a sweat at a bowling alley of all places trying to keep up with her! Abby was super cute in that she either wanted the dragon ramp for help or no dragon ramp at all and heaven help you if you got confused as to her desires. :-)

Her first at bowl (is it at bowl like you're at bat or something else?) you could see that she wasn't quite sure what was going on but was willing to give what Dad was telling her a try. Then she saw the pins fall down and she was hooked. We could have easily just had Abby bowl by herself and she would have happily done just that for an hour straight. Waiting for Mommy and Daddy to take their turns was all the patience she had before requiring it to be her turn again.

Abby's first bowl using the dragon ramp. She made the littlest push to get the ball rolling but when she saw the pins fall down her eyes lit up in excitement. She was hooked!

Other times she wanted to bowl like Mommy and Daddy and had a hard time understanding why she couldn't just chuck the ball to the ground ten feet from the lane. After the third ball drop I was worried someone would come over to talk to us about not damaging the floors, but Nate quickly figured out that if we walked the ball to the lane for her and then showed her where to put the ball on the floor and have her push it she was okay with that and didn't try to throw a tantrum.

An accurate portrait of her running fast as lightning in our area. 

Nate's idea of a little chocolate milk did get her to sit still for the few seconds she sipped at it.

After a few bowls we decided to try and have Abby carry her ball to the ramp and she did beautifully. No thrown balls at all! She'd put the ball on the ramp and give it her biggest push. Much better than the tiny pushes without the ramp where I'd hope and pray that the ball made it all the way down to the other end.

As we left the building, us adults sweating profusely from all the Abby chasing, we agreed that this was a super fun night of familiness. While both Nate and I felt that our non-bowling time was spent keeping after Abby, we recognized that she had a blast, we had fun doing something together instead of sitting in front of the TV, and that this family time should happen more frequently. We're now trying to figure out how to do something like this every week since Abby seems to now be old enough to actually do 'stuff' that's available to us in the community. Bring on the fun family times!

Our final scores. I bowled an 89, Abby a 72, and Nate had a 128. I was a little worried for a while that Abby with her ramp would surpass my score but a few spares brought me into second place, thankfully. :-)