Let's Bowl

Friday, October 19th was our first bowling outing of the season.  We hadn't bowled since the last weekend in February. We went to the local bowling alley in the late afternoon so there wasn't many people around, which is exactly what we wanted.  We bowled three games and I did just ok.  I used the name Keith to keep score so my dad could be there too.

Scotch Doubles Bowling

The last Saturday of every month (at least in the no-so-good weather months) is Scotch Doubles at Flaherty's.  We met Kim, Greg, Ray, Dolly, Anna, Greg and Chris and Tanya there for about 3 hours of bowling.  I hadn't seen Greg and Anna since the fall and I hadn't seen Chris since October and Tanya since the summer!  It was an awesome and fun way to see everyone again.  It was Chris and Tanya's first time playing Scotch Doubles and they bowled a 252 on one of their games and Greg and Anna got a 256!  Our best game was 196.  They take the best of 5 games and the 1st-4th place gets money as well as 3 other random places.  We came in 20th out of 28th but Tanya and Chris and Greg and Anna both won $5 on the random place prize.  Another game we play while bowling is poker.  Each couple puts in $2 and for every spare or strike you get, you can take a card.  If you have more than 5 cards at the end of each game, you can only use 5 cards to make a hand and the best poker hand wins the pot.  M and I won twice on the pot.  If you don't really take bowling that seriously and want to have lots of fun with a group of people, it's a perfect activity.

The group with our new friends and bowling neighbors Randy and Amber

Holiday Party

I had my company holiday party last Friday at Pinstripes in Edina.  If you haven't been there, Pinstripes is sort of an upscale bowling alley with bocce, a dance floor, food and drink.  We received drink tickets so anything you wanted, it was free.  Because of this, I helped myself to six vodka cranberries...with Grey Goose of course.  M had already agreed to be my driver for the night so it was fun to kick back and relax with my coworkers. I had tons of fun. I did use up too much fun that night because the powers that be took away all my fun for the next day as I had a hangover and stayed in bed in some capacity until 4 pm.  Oops. 

Here's some of my favorite peeps from work:

Bowling in Blaine

Last Saturday we met Greg and Anna at their house in Coon Rapids to meet their cats.  They have two cats that look similar to Fuzzer.  Their names are Maynard and Scooter and they're really nice cats.  After meeting them, we headed to Blainbrook to go bowling.  We bowled two games and I did my best in quite some time.  I bowled a 126 and 124.  After bowling, we went to a coffee/smoothie place called Flyte.  I had a peach smoothie and everyone else had coffee.  The people working there were so nice and gave us candy canes and then a little bit later came out with a TheraPets Heating Pad Kitty for each one of us.  Shortly after we got home, the snow started.  We went to the backyard and walked to the pond and then came back and jumped on the trampoline for a little bit.  We're just big kids!

Scooter

Maynard

Maynard

Scooter

Fuzzer with TheraPet Cat

It's Bowling Time!

It's getting to be that time of year again...bowling season.  Bowling would not be fun in the summer as you don't want to be a dark bowling alley in the middle of summer but it's a perfect winter activity.  We went bowling for our first time of the season the Saturday before Thanksgiving week.  We met our usual partners, Greg and Anna for a couple of games and wow, was I rusty.  I did break 100 for the second game though. :)  When we came out of the building, it was snowing for the first time this season and it was slippery.  The bowling alley is just under 6 miles from our house and we saw two accidents on the way home.

We all have our own bowling shoes now-  M made his shoe debut

Check out this bowling shoe in the pro shop

Scotch Doubles

M and I met up with a bunch of friends and family for a bowling night of Scotch Doubles.  We had never played before and it was interesting, confusing and fun all at the same time.  Scotch Doubles is when you share a lane with a total of four people and then you play six games.  The girls throw the first ball for games 1, 3 and 5.  The guy throws the second ball to clean up the frame for that game.  If the girl knocks down 9 pins on the first throw, it's considered a strike.  The same rules apply but the girls and boys are switched for games 2, 4 and 6.  You pay $24 a couple and then you can win money for coming in 1st, 2nd or 3rd and then there are two random prize winners and $5 for the team that comes in last.  We were ranked #15 out of 21 couples.  One of the teams in our group won one of the random prizes of $10 and then Greg and Anna won $5 for coming in last place. :)

April Bowlers

As per usual, M and I met our bowling buds Greg and Anna last Sunday for what might be one of our last bowling Sundays.  It's just getting warmer out and the last thing I want to be doing is bowling in a place where I can't even see outside.  It was cosmic bowling this day so we had black lights, disco lights and the lights off.  I did fantastic (for me) on my first game with a 138 and then bombed on my second with an 81.  We talked about coming up with an activity to do once it gets really nice out and disc golf was brought up.  Hmmm....I can't even throw a Frisbee the traditional way consistently so yeah, that might be a challenge.

Bowling Geeks

We've been bowling every Sunday since about the end of the football season and despite that, I'm not getting better and maybe even a little worse.  A couple of weeks ago we went with our regular partners, Greg and Anna and we had Wayne and Tyler join us to watch us.  I think my average up until that point was 110 but it has to be lower than that now.  My goal is still just to break 100.

Greg and Anna were out of town last weekend so it was just M and I to bowl.  We buy our time by the hour so we were able to get in four games in an hour and it was a workout.  We were so used to bowling with a group that we weren't used to going up to bowl so often.  We both did terribly but we did practice doing Scotch Doubles.  Scotch Doubles is when one person rolls the first ball and your partner rolls the second ball.  It's fun and we realized that M is better at the first ball and I'm better at cleaning up the pins he didn't get the first time. We planned on going to Scotch Doubles (last Saturday of every month at Flaherty's) this past Saturday but we ended up cancelling for different plans, which I'll write about later this week.  

This past Sunday we bowled again with Greg and Anna and Bobby, Jennifer and their kids and Bobby's mom met up with us and bowled in the lane next to us.  Again, I was pretty bad and my low score was 85 and the high 104.  Anna had two strikes in a row and she was on her way to getting a Turkey (three strikes in a row) but didn't.  She actually said instead of a Turkey, it was Tofurkey since she is vegan, which I thought was funny.  I didn't take any pictures because it was kind of a lot going on with so many people and kids so next time.  There's nothing more exciting than a bowling group photo, is there?!