Rebel Playgroup: Friday, March 13

Location: Debbie Howard's Gym.

Cost: 5 bucks per kid, parents free.

Appropriate ages: Kids 14 months and up--basically they need to be walkers to enjoy this.

Kids nap factor for after activity: Extremly high, most didn't make it from the parking lot before they were snoozing in thier car seat.

This was a great idea for a rebel group and one we might want to do again in the future. Basically, it's a gymnastics place that holds an open gym decently often. They had most of the gymnastic equipment you would expect (pommel horse, bars, etc) but also a ton of stuff just for kids. For the record: the iron cross is not humanly possible by a man who has two kids. The pommel horse though seems to be a great alternitive to a vascetomy.

There were all kinds of vehicles and balls that the kids could play around in. I taught my son how to dunk a basketball, hang from the rim, and then scream in triumph. And of course, a ton of slops, hills balance beams to climb. Even my 1 year old son, who never seems to leave my side, ditched me after about 10 minutes. There was a huge monkey climb thing that was about 2 stories high that the older kids could climb in and out of. We were taking bets and which father would get stuck up there first.

But the best attraction by far was the 20 yard trampoline run that ended in a big pit of foam. Every kid of every age loved the hell out of this and spent most other their time running down the trampoline runway to launch themselves without abandon into the unknown pit. An important note here: the foam pit is great for 4 year olds weighing under 50 pounds. However, 200 pound fathers find it very, very hard to climb out of this pit and I am sure there are wallets and car keys scattered on the bottom. One of our fathers termed it going "ass over head" as the best way to get out. He landed on his back and I cracked a rib laughing so hard. He just laid there a minute until his 1 year old son came to check on him. That should tell you something about this place: when your child has to check to see if you are hurt.

I think we had 4 members and 6 kids that showed up, not bad for a rebel. Staff was nice, facility was nice and the fact that one of our kids actually ASKED to take a nap at the end of the day, that was just icing on the cake.