Clover Autrey: family fun

Showing posts with label family fun. Show all posts

My First Escape Room

While I was in Utah a few weeks ago, I went to my first escape room with my sister Heather and her family. I had no idea what to expect really. We went to Alcatraz Escape Rooms and picked a Harry Potter themed room.

They put us and another group of 4 or 5 (total strangers to us--my first thought was that I would have to work and talk with people I didn't know) into a dark room the size of a small dining room. I'm looking around completely clueless about how to start while they went over the rules. Then we were off.

Everyone starts scrambling and I have no idea what to scramble for. I noticed that there were colored pennants on the wall. Most people were working on figuring out what the two foot columns were for when I called out that there were pennants on the wall. Someone who knew what they were doing decided to match the colors with the columns to get a combination. Okay then, I see how this works now.

There was a chest set with a clue to find the white queen's winning play with several examples of the game board. This is where I become both brilliant and a complete moron at the same time. Brilliant, because I know enought about chess that I immediately knew the correct sequence and loaded them on the board. A moron because as soon as I placed the final piece a trap door opened in the wall behind me and a wand popped out. I give the wand to my sister's daughter, but I did not get the connection that it came from the chess piece. I don't know how much more time I wasted trying to figure out that chess game that I had already solved.

It so it went. I had moments of brilliance and moments of being utterly clueless. It was really fun though, with lots of laughter and even working with strangers who were okay. It seems like we were smarter than we gave ourselves credit for because we kept second-guessing ourselves. We ended up escaping with five minutes to spare so Huzzah to us!

I highly recommend these as good family fun!

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Flying in Arizona.

Okay, maybe not flying flying, but as close as you can get besides free-falling from an airplane.
My big sis Bekie has been skydiving for 30 plus years and as been on all sorts of teams and traveled the world to join in skydiving competitions. That's her below, the farthest to the right.

She's so in to skydiving that she moved to Arizona to be near the biggest hub of skydiving (since AZ has the best year round weather for it). She works as a pediatric nurse in Phoenix where she owns a condo, and then she bought a house 5 minutes from the airport in Eloy.

I've visited her before and did the wind tunnel about two years ago. Let's just say I was not that coordinated and the instructor didn't dare let go of me cuz...well, hello Plexiglas wall.

I thought it would be something the boys would really enjoy for a mini affordable vacation, plus get to spend time with my sister, so off we drove to Eloy in the hottest time of the year for Arizona. Yeah, the time most residents are scrambling to leave on take a milder vacation someplace else. 111 degrees outside? I defy you. Okay, maybe not. It was hot. Not gonna lie.

But timing, ya know. June was the only time all our schedules converged to give us time off.

And the guys loved LOVED the wind tunnel.

The boys were naturals at it.

Even I was pretty good the second time around. I could stabilize myself this time and not wing off out of control so that's something.

And even Bekie took the opportunity to learn new tricks since she's not that great at flying on her back. This is her working on that skill below. 52 and looks great.

That's me above. I'm holding my own position without anyone holding me in place. I impressed myself.

Kyle above, twisting and turning as though he's been doing it for years. Show off. And Tate's below looking like he's about to sprout wings.

Anyway, if you're out in Arizona between Tucson and Phoenix stop in at the wind tunnel at SkyVentureArizona They were great.

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Pinewood Derby time

It only took us a decade and 4 cub scouts, but we finally managed to build a car that didn't come in dead last. Last year, our banana car actually popped its wheels mid-race. I swear we are the most pathetic racing family effeh...

But this year, our final year I might add, since our youngest has reached the age to move into Boy Scouts from Cub Scouts, we got it right. I believe the secret formula was this: Mom doesn't get to touch it. Yeah, 'nough said. T's car actually won most of its heats and just barely was scraped out of the winner's circle.