Thursday, August 5, 2021

It was a good day -- #Blaugust2021 Day 5

Thank you everyone for your kind birthday wishes that you left me on Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and here on the good ol' blog. You're all wonderful friends, blog mates, followers, and family. 

So, since it's Blaugust and I've committed to writing everyday, I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about my family's fun day we had and share a few pictures.

We started the day off by catching a matinee of Snake Eyes at the Flix Brewhouse. My kids have absolutely no idea about GI Joe and how it was kind of a toy/cartoon sensation from my childhood. I wasn't a huge fan, but even I owned the Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow Ninja Action Figures. They were the coolest figures of the bunch anyway.

We were pretty nervous going into the movie that had some pretty mixed reviews, but you just need to go into it knowing it's an action movie that moves very quickly at the beginning, which means you really need to pay attention there at the first to keep up . . . after that, just enjoy the ride, which includes some epic motorcycle ninja chase scenes and giant anaconda goodness.

The theater was pretty void of people since it was a Wednesday Matinee showing, and my kids all liked the movie. My middle child was really inspired by the Tokyo Neon Battle Scene aesthetic in the movie. Right after the movie he started brainstorming how he could somehow take inspiration from Snake eyes and work it into one of his OC's for roleplaying. LOL. My kids are great.

Family in the photo spot at Flix

Flix is one of those eat food while you watch a movie establishments where they bring out your food during the movie. I had a salad. Pretty good actually. Unfortunately, the waiter accidentally dumped my kid's rootbeer and didn't realize some of the drink ended up on his chicken tenders and fries, so his food ended up a little soggy. It was a little distracting, but he was happy enough eating chips and popcorn after consuming the non-soggy bits of food.

Next up was an escape room visit to Escape Hour Austin for a family puzzle solving adventure through the Dead Man's Cove . . . a pirate-themed escape room that was pretty interesting. There were a few of the puzzles where we were way too clever for our own good and overthought them, but we ended up beating the escape room with 5 minutes left out of the allotted 70 minutes.

Arrr, the Pirate's Cove be walking OUR plank, mateys!

It was pretty cool actually, it featured shooting a ghost pirate and sinking a ghost ship. Our guide was a parrot animatronic controlled by the game master, so we could do the whole thing mask-free with just our family in the room. I really feel like conquering an escape room is a perfect birthday adventure for our family. Will do again 10/10.

We then ended up at an interactive art museum in Austin called Wonderspaces. This is a great Instagram photo shoot spot. There were about 14 installations there for you to explore and take selfies inside. The kids loved wandering through the large strands of lights, the VR experience, the plastic bag meditative space, the mirror hallway, and the wall of last words. It was all pretty interesting to be honest. We spent a little over an hour there exploring and having fun with the interactive exhibits. That's the perfect kind of art museum for my kids to be honest.

Movement made colors wash over the screen as my kids swirled around it

A stoic selfie moment inside the hallway of lights and mirrors 

Tickled pink at Wonderspaces.

The day finally wound down with a diabetic birthday cake and meal. My wife managed to put together a meal that simulated my old traditional love of Mizithra Cheese brown butter pasta by using spaghetti made out of chickpeas and a special cake, which I don't know what ingredients were in that, but besides being a little dense, it was actually pretty great! She went over all the nutritional values with me and to be honest, it was probably all way too salty and the carbs were pushing it, but it was my birthday after all.

I couldn't have asked for a better day. 

Happy Dueling!

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