We had the most amazing experience yesterday!
With a very tight budget this summer, weeks of camp were out. Instead, I created “Camp Mom” to help us pass the long summer days with fun and adventure. Each week, I have planned one special outing or activity that we can do together. Just for fun, I invited our Webelos patrol to join us for all of the activities. We can work on requirements, belt loops, pins, electives, and still manage to have quality time together learning new things and making new discoveries. It’s a win-win situation!
This weeks’ adventure was an outing to Allen Family Bowl in Allen. We’ve been there several times and are impressed with their cleanliness, friendliness and professionalism. Come to find out, it’s owned by the family of one of our neighbors and yes, that’s her daughter’s picture on the website. She knew we were coming so she instructed her employees to give us the royal treatment…and they did.
I had called ahead to reserve lanes and ask about having one of the employees do a little talk with our boys regarding some of the requirements for their bowling belt loops. Once all the boys had arrived, Scott came over and gave us a lesson in scoring, common bowling terms, and bowling etiquette. He also provided the boys with a mini-lesson on proper bowling style.
The boys then had the opportunity to practice their skills by bowling a couple of games. They were all eager to see the scores and compare themselves to the other bowlers.
After bowling for awhile, we had worked up quite an appetite. So as part of our package, we were provided with snacks and drinks for all the children attending.
The maintenance employee, Tim, then came over and gave us the VIP tour. You know, the one you’ve secretly wanted all your life. We were able to go behind the scenes of the bowling alley to watch the resetting mechanism in action. Yes, we got to go through that little door in the back of the lanes that says “Employees only”. You know you’re jealous.
Tim talked with the boys about how it works and had a non-participant bowl to allow us to watch the resetting mechanism in action. The boys were mesmerized with the way it worked and didn’t even seem to mind how noisy and crowded it was back there.
We were even able to watch the ball return in action and see how that contraption worked. Tim even took the cover off the ball return at the lane entry so we could see it from both ends. The sounds of “ooh” and “aah” were matched with “AWESOME!” and “COOL!” as the boys saw for the first time what’s inside that neat gizmo. And of course there were gears and moving parts aplenty.
Even though no one broke 100 (including yours truly), we all felt like we’d scored well beyond that with all the extra attention and time the employees gave us. It was a great success and a super way to kick off Camp Mom!