11Dec2008: Day 199: Monkey Bizz

Today we went to a play area of sorts called Monkey Bizz. It has jungle gyms that kids can climb in and around with ball pools and slides and things to climb in and through. There were other various toys and areas were broken up by ages. Since it was mostly little kids, we were able to take the girls into the older kids areas. In the bigger kids areas, they had these puffy, rubber
steps, for lack of a better way to explain it, that Makenna actually got the hang of. This video, which I can't turn the correct way - sorry, shows the steps I was talking about and Makenna used it as a slide. Usually, she would go up them and it would lead her up to many different areas and we would eventually get to this really big slide. I went down with her the first couple of times, but then the next couple of times, she went down next to me and she would end up flipping around and being on her stomach and backwards, but she still loved it.

There was also this other part after we climbed up and were trying to get to the slide, that has two rollers that we had to squish through. Imagine an old crank hand washer with the rollers. Makenna was trying to climb under the bottom roller and I physically showed her that she had to squish through the rollers. I didn't realize that she was going through the same time I was and as I was grunting from being squished to what seemed like a pancake, she came shooting through and we were both on the other side laughing. We went through this a couple of more times and each time, I'd be groaning and grunting and we'd come through laughing.

The only thing that drove me crazy is that she would ask to go in the pool of balls and not even two seconds later she'd say, "done, done." She did this repeatedly. I finally got in one time with her and that kept her in longer. Here she is with Hannah and her little baby sister Bethany I also am including a picture of Bethany here as it was just too cute not to post. You can see they'll have another red head on their hands. You'll also notice that the baby has on two different socks. As weird as this may seem, I think it's a good idea. Their mom is known for putting them in any two mismatched socks she can find. That would certainly make taking care of laundry much easier and solve the the issue of socks that go missing. It would just be no big deal. When it got to lunch time, the girls got very hungry so we all headed home.

Tonight, Chris had a Christmas party for work so we took Makenna over to Hannah's while we went to the dinner. It was in downtown Maidstone (the city we first lived in when we moved here). It was a Chinese restaurant and I have to say that I was actually really happy with the meal. I have found the Chinese food here to be very disappointing but this actually had flavor to it. The problem was that it took too long to be seated, even though they were expecting a party, and then the food took too long. We got there about 7:45pm and got the first appetizer about 8:45pm. They put it on a Lazy Susan which we could then spin around and sample the different foods. It was supposedly all you could eat but they didn't really seem to be filling up the dishes after the food was gone. I suppose if we asked, but I was afraid it would take to long.

It was still nice to meet some more people that Chris works with - even a lot from the states. Chris was shocked that there was so many from the plant back in the states that were here at the party. We also got in on a tradition that they have which is called "crackers". It is like a wrapped gift that you hold onto and cross hand over hand so you're holding on to one of yours and one of someone next to you, and then you both pull and it makes this snapping noise and out pops a goofy tissue paper hat and a little toy. The one guy I was sitting next to said how they think nothing of it to sit around the table with these silly hats and eat dinner.

I finally convinced Chris we had to go as it was about 20 of eleven and we had told our babysitters that we should be back around 10pm. Well, we were about an hour and fifteen minutes late. I texted them to let them know that dinner was running late and then later on, that we were on our way. When we go to their house, Makenna was still up. She didn't want to go to bed at their house. So she was up watching Mickey Mouse movie. We're very grateful to Madonna and her household for watching Makenna for us so we could enjoy an adult night out.