Bounce City and the Cleveland Browns.

Yesterday, Saturday, Maddux had another promotional test to advance to the next stage in his karate training. He had to show the skills that he has developed over the last couple of months to see if he was ready to advance. He did an amazing job and was rewarded for his hard work. He maintains the same blue striped belt but gets another stripe across it. His next step will be the yellow striped belt. He has really progressed with his karate and enjoys going on a weekly basis. His Shehan did mention that he thinks Maddux should move up to the advanced class. There are times when Maddux drifts off as he becomes bored and loses interest while the others do a lot of the stuff that he already knows. I am not sure how he will react to the advance class. There are a lot of people who are 3 and 4 belts above him and he would be the youngest by far. I think the youngest kid in that class right now is 8 or 9 and Maddux will turn 5 in a month and a half. There are also some adults in the class so I am skeptical about that. The teacher would also be different and he likes to yell loud so that could also affect him. I do think that it will be good for his progression and will help him develop a lot quicker than he would were he is at. I am suppose to talk to his current teacher, Shehan, next week and we will see. Maddux is excited about it now but I think once he gets in the class it could be different. Who knows, maybe I am wrong and he will love it. I guess there is only one way to find out.

After his karate we decided to try out a new place that had just opened for kids to go play. It is called Bounce City and I guess they have them around the US but nothing around here. It is a giant indoor play land with lots of inflatable slides and bouncers for the kids to play on. They also have an arcade inside with many different games. The have a similar type place in the city next to us that the kids love so we figured we would try this one out. The one that we went to yesterday is about three times the size of the other one and has many more things to do. It is owned by two players from the Cleveland Browns, Josh Cribbs and Darnell Dinkins. It was kind of cool because with it being the grand opening yesterday they had a bunch of their teammates come and help support them.

Here are the older kids with Darnell Dinkins who is a tight end for the Browns and one of the owners. It is amazing to see these athletes in real life as they are a lot bigger in person. I think it was very cool of them to hang out all day and have their teammates come out to sign autographs. The down side was the number of people that showed up just for autographs. There were a bunch of collectors who were just there to collect autographs and really clogged the place up. I am sure that they were taking all those items to sell on ebay and used the store to get their free autographs.

Here is Josh Cribbs taking some time out to sing autographs and take pictures for people. He is one of the premier return men in the NFL and the co-owner of the place. I know he had to have a long day as he was there the whole time. The other players would come for a little while, sign autographs and then leave. He seemed super nice and was willing to talk with people and probably signed hundreds of autographs. I did get a chance to meet him and talk with him a little bit about the place and he seemed really nice. A lot of athletes wouldn't do that and don't want to be bothered, which I can understand given all the attention they get when out, but he was not like that and was very down to earth.

Andre Davis and Steve Heiden also showed up to support their teammate. They are 2 of the better players for the Browns and big in the city of Cleveland. Steve was very nice and didn't mind talking to all the fans. Andre however spent most of the time on his cell phone. And that was funny because he actually had one of the bodyguards hold the phone to his ear while he signed with the other hand. He didn't do a lot of talking to the fans and didn't seem like he really cared about being there. I would thing that he could turn off the phone for the 15 minutes he was there and acknowledge his fans but that was not to be. Maybe it is just me but I think it is kind of sad that you show up to sing autographs and spend the majority of the time on your cell phone. I know that Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow also showed up but from what I heard they showed up pretty early and only stayed for a couple of minutes. They are probably the two biggest known Browns after Brady Quinn.

The rest of the pictures are of the kids playing on the various set ups.

First up we have Maddux on the rope ladder. The object is to keep your weight balanced and try to make it all the way to the top. It may look easy but anyone who has tried this knows it is anything but. Maddux and Cannon both tried it numerous times and made it to the last rung but fell off before touching the end. There were not many kids who actually made it without falling. It is funny to watch them get so close only to lose their balance and fall off.

Next we have Brooklyn and Addysen jousting it out in the octagon. They had a huge blowup octagon that two people could go into and joust with each other. They would give the kids padded helmets and padded jousts and then let them go at each other for 3 minutes. Then you just went at it and tried to knock each other down. It got pretty intense but no one got hurt and the kids had a lot of fun. Brooklyn ended up taking the brunt of the blows and just wasn't quite as aggressive as Addysen was but still had fun doing it. I think she wanted to be on the other end of the beating so she took Brynnley in later on. I did not witness any of this one but I hear that Brooklyn won that match up.

Next was Maddux and Cannon's turn. This was a little funner to watch as Cannon had his way with Maddux. Maddux would get knocked down and then would get whopped when he got back up and tried looking for Cannon. As you can see from this picture he did get a couple of good shots in but also took the majority of them and I don't think he even cared. He just liked being in there with his cousin fighting.

Here he is getting ready to take a shot to the face. He ended up taking a couple of these during the match. You could see them start to wear down a little towards the end. It is funny because they come out throwing and swinging all over the place and once their arms start to tire a little bit it is more about trying to move away and have the other person chase you. I think that if they would have had another five minutes Cannon would have wore himself out and Maddux may have had a chance.

They also had an arcade with lots of games for the kids to play. They had skeet ball, which I think is the kids favorite, as well as basketball, football, dancing, and an arm wrestling game. I think Nolan's favorites were the arm wrestling and the dancing. He didn't get to actually play either but every time I went back in there to find him, that is where he was.

The nice thing about this place was that they had a couple of things for the smaller kids to play on. The other ones where so crowed with bigger kids that Nolan and Mckenzie would have been stomped. They had one in particular that had a bunch of different safety vehicles that they could climb on and play with. They also had a bouncer filled with balls but the kids mainly played in the first one. They did manage to go down some of the bigger slides with the older kids and really liked those. It just took them awhile to climb up and I think the older kids just wanted to go and go and the younger ones where holding them back a little. The younger kids only stayed about 2 hours as they were in need of a nap and were getting a little out of control. The other kids got a good 4 hours of playing around and I know that my kids were wore out as they were in bed pretty early.


Here are Mckenzie and Nolan going down the slide headfirst. Of course as soon as Nolan did it Mckenzie had to follow. I don't think they were really suppose to do it but the kid watching didn't seem to care and didn't say anything. They probably did this continually for about 15 minutes before they lost interest and wanted to move on to something new.



Another one of Nolan going down headfirst with a great big smile on his face. Pay no attention to the gesture he is giving with his left hand. The little kids had so much fun, at least for the first hour, and had smiles on their faces the whole time.















Here is Brooklyn going thru the maze on one of the slides.





Here are the kids climbing up the ladder to get to the big slide. This is the one that they took the little kids up but lost interest and patience after a couple trips up. Nolan and Mckenzie did love the slide down so I do appreciate their willingness to help them up a couple of times. It was funny because the first time that Nolan went down he leaned forward a little to much and ended up somersaulting the whole way down.

We were grateful that Addysen, Cannon, Brynnley, and Mckenzie could come and hang out with their cousins. While I am sure that Tacie enjoyed not having them for a little bit I think Brooklyn, Maddux, and Nolan enjoyed being able to play with them more. I know they love it when they can play with their cousins and we are lucky that they are so close.