The kids are stir crazy

The day started with an irrationally frustrated John trying to buckle his seatbelt so that we could go out for breakfast at the Briar Rose, a local bakery renowned for its cinnamon rolls. I told him to relax, to which he replied angrily:

"I hate to relax! It's so boring!"

And in that one outburst, I think John pretty much summed up the difference between bring a kid and being a grown up.

We managed to get to Briar Rose, and look how cute it is!!

Orange rolls for John and Caroline and Daddy, and monkey bread for Mommy. The only mistake we made was letting them have chocolate milk with their breakfast:

They were absolutely bouncing off the WALLS by the time we got home. With the rain slash snow slash sleet falling outside, there was nowhere for them to go to run off the craziness, so we just had to alternate between letting them play together interspersed with lots of screaming about not-fairness and sending them to their rooms.

Not much of a fun spring break day, huh?

With no travel plans and lousy weather preventing outdoor playing, we felt a little badly that our kids weren't going to have much of a spring break. Of course, there are a million fun things to do in Fayetteville, so all we really had to do was think of one of them and get going...

Enter Arkadia Retrocade!! John would play video games 26 hours a day if we let him, and Caroline is generally up for anything new, so we told the kids we had a surprise, piled in the van, and headed out into the rain slash snow slash sleet.

The concept of this place is genius - all of these old video games from the '80s, from our childhood days. Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Pole Position, Centipede, Millipede, even air hockey and foosball. And the price is right, too - $5 gets you in the door, and it's unlimited play, no coins needed. I can see this becoming an all-afternoon hangout for the Tween set this summer in Fayetteville.

It was kind of hit or miss for what was working, but I figured we had to cut them a break. Some of those games were 30+ years old. John loved anything that involved shooting - go figure. Alllllll boy. I thought it was great that he gravitated to Galaxian - I had a miniature version of this game that I got for Christmas years ago, and I wore out some C batteries playing that thing!!

I think Caroline liked Ms. Pac Man the best, but I got all excited when I saw Burger Time... I remember playing this, but can't remember if it was an arcade game or someone's home Atari system. Either way, she and I took turns on this one. Totally fun.

Speaking of home Atari systems - that's right. They had an Atari 2600 with at least 30 games. Frogger! Super Breakout! Berzerk! Kaboom!

Since there were quite a few people there, we found ourselves waiting for the video games the kids wanted to play... so naturally, it was time for FOOSBALL!!!

We only spent about an hour there, as it turns out the kids aren't quite old enough to play many of the games, but it was an hour of entertainment, for sure. We might not have jetted off to a Florida beach house or taken a ski trip to Vail, but we managed to find some Spring Break fun right here in town.