It was a rainy Tuesday and Barrett was off for Veterans Day. Marines here in Okinawa automatically get the Tuesday of a long weekend off because they are deployed so often. It’s a nice little perk for families to have that extra time. Barrett’s idea for this day was to bike a few miles to Round One. What is Round One you ask? Seven floors of pure play magic! Bowling, roller-skating, archery, batting cages, kids area, tennis, Ping-Pong, driving range, arcade games, mini soccer field…and more! Here’s the deal, you pay a fee for three hours and then everything is FREE! Even the arcade games! We heard about this big kids paradise the second day we arrived on Okinawa, but had yet to experience it. We were informed of the sensory over load of the music, lights, and how PACKED it is with kids and adults so we put it off until we thought Annabelle could handle it. This became the day.
We parked our bikes outside and the doors opened… NOBODY was there! Being a weekday morning, we had the seven floors to ourselves! We kicked it off with a ride on the mechanical bull! Yes, they had a mechanical bull! Then roller skates, shooting nerf balls from air guns, going down slides on to a floor of plastic balls, then off to kick a soccer ball and try our hands at ping pong. Then we played arcade games before heading to the batting cages. Three hours of non-stop fun! Annabelle tried every sport! She could barely hold the golf club, but she gave it a go! Roller-skating was brief, but glorious! OK, we didn’t put her in the batting cage or let her into the archery lane, but she got to snack while we became Big Pappi and Robin Hood.
It came time to leave and we did with an exhausted, yet satisfied heart. We conquered Round One! But it was raining. So we headed over to the mall next door to get a snack for us big kids and let Annabelle take her shoes off to play in a ten foot by four foot padded play area in the mall with a little Japanese boy. What we thought would be a quick high five and walk on the mat, turned into over an hour of running, summersaults, jumping, laughing, and sweating from our little girl. We were amazed! She didn’t want to leave the joy of running on mats with a new friend! We waited for her friend to leave first and then headed back to our soaked bikes.
I warned her that her helmet was wet and her bum was going to be too. We sat on our soaked seats, donned our doused helmets and biked head first into the rain for a half hour. The entire time Annabelle was singing and laughing in her seat behind me. The seriousness of Round One Play was gone. She now squealed from simple delight.
Oh the joys of experiencing a new friend, a simple mat to share, and rain on your face. Her joy in simple things lightened my heart. There’s nothing wrong with roller skating, being thrown off a mechanical bull, or playing an arcade game, but I never want to miss out laughing in the rain and giving a new friend a fist bump. I praise the Lord for using our little girl to teach me big lessons.