Gatti Town

January 9, 2009---Anna Catherine received her report card on Thursday and had wonderful grades. She has mastered everything she needs to know in kindergarten thus far (except tying her shoes, which is our fault--slip on shoes are so much easier). She is also in the highest reading group for her class and is in the highest reading level for kindergarten. Anna Catherine also had excellent comments about her behavior at school. Jackson has received a stamp/sticker on his had every day of preschool since the end of November. We wanted to reward them for their achievements so we took them to Gatti Town.

This was our first visit to Gatti Town. It is a chain restaurant similar to Chuck E. Cheese because it has pizza, games, tickets, and prizes. (http://www.gattispizza.com/) Gatti Town's layout is different though. The buffet, three eating areas, and birthday room are completely separate from the play area. When you enter the building you are in line to pay for the buffet. Even if you don't want to eat, you have to pay to get in. The prices were very reasonable (ages 3 and under are free so we only had to pay for three people). There is a very large buffet with a salad bar, soup, baked potatoes, bread sticks, cheese sticks, spaghetti, alfredo, mac-n-cheese, at least ten different kinds of pizza, brownies, banana pudding, three types of dessert pizza, various fountain drinks, water, and tea. Quite a selection for $7 per adult and $4 for AC.

We also purchased Anna Catherine and Jackson a game card. I like keeping up with the card much better than the tokens and Chuck E. Cheese (C.E.C.). You select the amount of money you wish to put on the card. Game prices ranged from $0.25 to $2.00. You swipe your card at each game and the amount is deducted from your card. Most of the games gave out tickets based on your scores (same as C.E.C.). You did have to hold onto your winnings until you wanted to take them to the "ticket eater machine". You feed your tickets into the machine and it counts them. After you've fed in all of your tickets, you swipe your card and your number of tickets is saved onto the card. You card in multifunctional. It holds the monetary amount that you load onto the card and it keeps track of your total number of tickets. You can add more money to the cards anytime you wish. This system allows you to make several trips to Gatti Town, rack up a lot of points, and maybe, just maybe, you'll eventually have enough ticket points to get a decent prize. I now have two Gatti Town cards in my wallet to use whenever we get the urge.

Anna Catherine made a mask in art class and insisted on wearing it for dinner. You should have seen the stares, glares, ans gasped when people saw her. There were times that Rick and I were laughing so hard we were crying. It reminded me of the kid in line behind Ralphie to see Santa in "A Christmas Story"--the one with the aviator goggles on---and it reminded me of #4 on "Multiplicity". We convinced her to take the mask off when we got to the gameroom. (Notice AC's new short haircut. Isn't it CUTE!!!!)

The first thing Anna Catherine wanted to do was ride the Frog Hopper. Jackson wasn't brave enough. I think he was mainly overwhelmed by the whole game area.

The kids wanted to bowl next but all of the lanes were full so we moved on to air hockey. There were two tables and one happened to be open. Jackson absolutely loved it! He didn't understand the scoring though. Every time the puck was on his end he knocked it into his goal. He would get so excited and do a little dance. I tried to explain that he didn't want the puck to go into his goal but he didn't want to hear it. We played three or four games of air hockey.

We walked away, came back to the air hockey tables, and only one was available. I told Anna Catherine and Rick they could have a turn since we had already played. You can tell by the look on Jackson's face that he was NOT happy to be sharing the table!

There were many arcade type games throughout the midway: games where you drive cars or motorcycles (can you tell I'm not a gamer--I give terrible names/descriptions to games), skeeball, basketball toss, "the claw" where you try to win a stuffed animal, various video games, a mini carousel, and many games for little kids. There were several Deal or No Deal and Wheel of Fortune games too. There was a huge line of want-to-be players/gawkers surrounding the machines so I didn't get the chance that night. I want to try those out sometime.

Rick was able to snatch a lane for bowling. This game was a contender for favorite game of the night. It is a "bowling alley" for children consisting of four lanes with bumpers up (and Anna Catherine still managed to get three gutter balls). The lanes are narrow and short and the balls were light with no finger holes. We only allowed the kids to play two games because there were people waiting to play.

Jackson wanted to try the Frog Hopper and Anna Catherine had no problem riding again with him. I thought he might get scared because he's never been on any rides other than a carousel and bumper cars before. He thought it was fun.

There were still several things we wanted to do like ride the bumper cars and the roller coaster simulator. And I'm sure the kids would not have complained if we had offered to let them make another round through the game area. But we had used all of the money on our cards and Gatti Town would be closing in 35 minutes. Oddly enough, the kids understood and didn't complain or throw any fits. We cashed in our tickets, each child picked a prize, and he went back for a last chance trip over the buffet. Surprisingly, they were still putting out fresh food. I was afraid we would be left with cold, hard pizza rejects. Everyone had a delicious "bedtime snack" and then we went home. Our first Gatti Town trip was a complete success!! Our stomachs were full, the kids (and the adults) were worn out from all the fun, and everyone went to sleep without any fuss once we were home. I believe we will be making many more trips to Gatti Town!!