What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Yes, there is a hell on earth--and it's called Chuck E Cheese on a Sunday afternoon!!! Brad and Chely had the great idea to take the kids to the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield and then out to Chuck E Cheese for food and fun. This would have been great to do say on a weekday but no they choose to do it on Sunday, when everybody else has the same idea. And to top it off they decided on the way to Springfield to flip flop the schedule--eat first, then go to the zoo. That puts us walking into Chuck E's at 12:30--I've never seen soooo many tables "reserved". So we ended up with part of the group in a booth by the window and the rest of us halfway across the room in another booth. Since this was for Patrick's 4th birthday he opened presents, then the kids ate some pizza, then it was off to the games. Honestly I think Brad played more games than the kids, but boy did they have the tickets to cash in!!! So after about 1 1/2 hours of this we finally got the kids up to the "prize" counter to claim their loot. Zoe and Emily ended up with some tattoos and some Hannah Montana paraphernalia. Next up--Patrick--he's got 100 points to "spend" what does he pick out? Five (yes 5) dumdum suckers. I get a bag of 360 dumdums at Sam's for under $10 and have almost a full bag in my cabinet right now because Patrick loves them so much. I guess I just never knew how much he loves them until I watched him scan the cases of trinkets at Chuck E's and all his eyes could see were the dumdums!!! By the way--I skipped the zoo, I didn't feel like being out in the wind (or maybe I just needed a little retail therapy after the trauma of that big grey mouse?).