Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Under The Boardwalk.......(sing with me)

This weekend we took a short trip to Fort Walton Beach, Florida to hangout with family. We went to the The Boardwalk in Fort Walton (http://www.theboardwalkoi.com/) to start the day with some beach volleyball. This place is really cool. Right on the beach, you can enjoy an entire day hanging out - with everything you need there at your convenience. Restaurants, souvenir shops, ice cream shop, arcade, a playground for the kids, adult beverages for the grown ups, beach volleyball courts, seating in the shade, & CLEAN bathrooms!

Some heavy competition was going on at the volleyball courts. Hubs & I enjoyed watching all that was happening ( we were having our ups & downs with the volleyball games - age up & skills down:) Meanwhile, my daughter found a friend her age to play in the surf and collect sea shells. My son found a friend about twice his age who was skim boarding. The guy was really kind to him and showed him how to use the board. (Mama is biting her tongue not sure what the fascination is with violently throwing yourself into the sand & surf. I watched through my fingers as he slowly got better about standing upright.) He also gave us some pointers on what kind of board we should get him and where we could pick it up locally. After hanging around The Boardwalk for several hours, we headed to find the surf shop to buy a skim board. (More watching through my fingers is on tap for me.)  :-D / :-[


Now it's back to the beach with a new skim board for the boy, a new boogie board for the girl, more family who just arrived in town, and hubs is going to try out his cousin's paddle board for the first time. We had a great time in Fort Walton Beach. The only problem with the visit was that it was too short but we are looking forward to heading back soon. Next trip will be to check out The Gulfarium, located right next to The Boardwalk! http://www.gulfarium.com/


Now I leave you with a video of hubs attempting to ride a paddle board. I can attest, they are not as easy to ride as it looks (thankfully my trip didn't get on video) These are his third and forth attempts at getting on the board. He's 6'6" and the board is not long enough. As you're about to see, in paddle boarding - size does matter. :)


Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Wanna "Play"?

Grown ups! We found the perfect place for you to play!

I came across www.iplaypensacola.com while looking for websites to add to www.thegulfcoastevents.com. (Shameless plug? Maybe so but it's my article;)

The description of the place as a "Barcade" works well. (insert screechy record noise here to stop the music) Yes, you read that right, bar + arcade = Barcade! Think of Dave & Busters but on a smaller, more neighborhood bar scale. They do not serve food but there is a hoppin' joint next-door called "HopJacks" that we plan to try next time out (good reviews on Google Places & the pun was intended:). http://hopjacks.com/

Any-who, our group of 7 grown ups (we all suffer from a little Peter Pan syndrome) headed to downtown Pensacola with a plastic bag full of quarters, dreams of high scores, and (let's be honest) thoughts of whose butts we were gonna whip at which games! You can sit there and pretend you're not competitive but WHAT-E-VER!

First let me say, props to the City of Pensacola because we were all VERY impressed by how clean the area was. There were also police officers around throughout the night. So, bravo Pensacola! We look forward to coming back.

Now, back to Play - there's no cover to get in. It is 21 & up and all the games run off quarters (if you don't have a plastic bag full like us, they have a change machine). The skee ball games were $0.50 and it seemed like most everything else was $1.00. (With our bag full of quarters we were having too much fun to focus on how much each game cost) We were like kids in a candy store.........uh.......or kids in an arcade! The staff was friendly, it wasn't too smokey, the music was fun, the other patrons were cool, and we really had a great time.


Our night included the boxing challenge, which the ladies rocked too. Mini skee ball tournaments (We don't know who won because my group wouldn't let me set up brackets. They were scared of me, I know it.), the guys had a fun but serious competition of foosball, dance revolution (video provided), and several rounds of pool.

Everyone had a blast at Play and, due to pictures & status updates posted on Facebook that night, we have other friends who want to join us the next time we go out there. I'd like to give a shout out to Brandy who works at Play. Very helpful and completely awesome. Thanks Brandy!

VIDEO POSTED BELOW!

**Please note that designated drivers were in place and we ask that you don't drink and drive. Fun is more fun when everyone stays safe. :)