Location: Waterloo, Iowa
Attractions: Get Air & Applebee’s Grill & Bar
Date: January 30th, 2020

It was the end of the year and I had 2 days of vacation that I needed to burn. I either use them, or lose them and I am no loser, especially when it comes to time-off from work. I debated for quite a while about what to do with my days off and finally landed on taking Charlie, my 12 year old daughter on a snowboarding trip to Sundown Mountain for one of the days. I wanted to find something that Mattix, my 8 year old son, would find equally as enjoyable and we decided Get Air would be a lot of fun.

We have been to Get Air before as well as Ninja U in Cedar Falls and both are a lot of fun and a great way to get a bunch of energy out, which can be hard in the cold winter months in Iowa. We opted for Get Air this time because there are a few Ninja U style obstacles at Get Air, but also a ton of trampolines, a basketball hoop for dunking, a foam pit for trying cool aerial tricks, and a dodgeball arena. All that seemed to suit us well for what we were looking to do.

Dad Tip: Visit the Get Air website and later go to Facebook and you’ll be served up an ad for 40% off your second ticket if you buy online.

Once we got there and put on our “Get Air” socks with the rubber on the bottoms, we headed to the trampoline area for some jumping warm ups. We bounced around for a few minutes, reaching the apex of height, and returning to the trampoline for another bounce. After a few minutes of that we headed to the basketball hoop for some attempted dunking. I may have missed my first few attempts, but once I got the rhythm of my jumps down, I could even two-hand dunk on it. The trick is to get a few good bounces in before you get to the hoop. Mattix had fun trying to send me the perfect pass to set me up for an alley-oop. I’m not sure we ever did get a successful one, but it was fun trying.

It was about that time that I noticed a former schoolmate of mine was also there with some of her kids so we chatted it up a bit. I caught my breath while Mattix moved on to the obstacle course. After some more trampoline time and attempting some flips into the foam pit, we joined a group of kids playing dodgeball. I forgot how hard it is for kids to be honest about whether or not they were hit with a ball. Let’s just say some kids are better at admitting defeat than others, my own kid not excluded.

By this time, I was sweating pretty good. It was kind of gross actually so I went to the bathroom to try to find some paper towels. No such luck. I did stick my head under the hand blow-dryer for a bit, but I still looked like I had just run a marathon or something. For the remainder of the time, I sat and watched Mattix play dodgeball. It’s always fun to see how he interacts with kids that he doesn’t know. It brought back memories of me as a kid; trying to show off to impress these people that you’ve never met before and will probably never meet again.

Earlier, when we were jumping into the foam pits, we wanted to try out a swing that was over the foam pit, but it seemed there was always someone on it. When we saw it was free, we tried it out for a bit. I asked Mattix if I should try a backflip. I don’t think he thought I could do it, but I proved to him I could. I slowly got my momentum up and then swung back with all my might, not stopping until my feet flipped over my head and back around underneath me.

As we put our normal socks back on and changed back into our winter-wear, I told Mattix we could go to any place he wanted for lunch. His first thought was that he wanted to go to Wendy’s because he recently saw a commercial for The Baconator that he thought would be good to try. I threw out a couple of other options, and we landed on Applebee’s since we knew they had good burgers and he could no doubt get one with bacon on it.

He had been craving some orange pop, so when we found out they didn’t have any he was a bit upset. His disappointment was quickly pushed aside when he discovered they had smoothies. We both decided to have a burger. Him, the bacon burger and me, the Whiskey Bacon Burger. We sipped our drinks until our food arrived and then dug in. I didn’t take long before we realized that his sandwich didn’t have bacon on it. I pulled a piece off of my burger and put it on his so his dream lunch could at least partially come true.

Our Daddy-Son Day ended with me cleaning my plate, finishing my drink, and boxing up his leftovers. After all that excitement and a couple of full bellies we were ready for some relaxation back at home.

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