Day 80: Mulligan's Family Fun Center!

Well I promised my kids some family fun, and by god, it was time to deliver.  Our three day weekend has been fairly uneventful, so I promised them I would take them to Mulligan's with a friend today.  Beckett brought along Cooper, and Aidan had his buddy Zak to hang with, as Joni, Avery and Zak were meeting us there at 10 a.m.  Cooper did not meet the height requirement for the go karts, so I rode with him.  Since we got there so early, the place was near empty - no lines! It was my first experience go-karting.  Apart from the facefull-O fumes I was getting, it was a lot of fun!  It turns out, much to Cooper's delight I am a maniacal, cutthroat speed demon.  We zipped around that track fifteen or twenty times, gaining on Aidan, about to take him, but he managed to maintain his lead.  The kids played in the arcade, did the mini go- kart track, rock climbing, playground climbing, laser tag and mini golf.  I was so glad Joni was there to keep me company.  Joni and I bonded in Lamaze class over a knitted uterus our instructor made us pass around 12 years ago, and we have been tight ever since.  We hung out, chatting, doling out tokens, helping the kids cash in all of their "winning" tickets from the arcade so they could get the plastic spiders made in China.  Avery had a good half-hour's worth of entertainment from a gooey rubber spiked ball on a gooey string that you chuck up against the wall (or in your brother's hair).
The place got more and more crowded as the day wore on, and everyone started getting hungry.  We managed to talk the kids out of eating the greasy offerings at Mulligan's and go somewhere with edible food, so we googled restaurants in Torrance and I came up with an Italian sub place that sounded decent.  Joni and the gang followed us there in their car, and we wound up in a mini-mall on PCH at a really good, fresh deli.  Everyone loved his/her sub.  We had to check out "Sprouts," a healthy market that was sort of a cross between Whole Foods offerings at Trader Joe's prices.  So lunch and dinner were covered, I had a car full of happy kids, and the day was a success.  And we managed to get out of there in under 3 hours - bonus!