Game On!

SURE PLAYS A MEAN PINBALL:  This weekend brought many, many chores, but it also brought some big fun, most notably in a field trip to the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show.  

The show used to be held at Seattle Center, a stone's throw from our house, but for the past couple of years it has been in Tacoma. After a couple of years' hiatus, we decided to give it a go this year, and the drive was well worth it. Such fun!

Immediately upon entering, we were in the Kids Only zone. 

There was a fun Shrek machine, which the kids both loved.

CJ enjoyed this table top console.

Little did CJ know he was missing a rather wonderful view ...

That aside, we made our way into the main hall and enjoyed around three hours of nothing but game lights and sounds. 

So. Many. Games. ...

There was a Star Wars section close to the entrance. That was big fun, of course.  Annabelle and Christian did some pod racing.

Star Trek was also well represented. In fact, about the newest pin on the floor was this machine. ...

We played some familiar classics. ...

and discovered some new old favorites, including 'Tapper.'  

The game seems so simple - you pull the tap to fill a beer for patrons at the bar, and serve them, but you also have to pick up empties and tips. Fun and challenging!

They played all the classics like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Q-Bert

So many of the vintage pins are space-themed. We've seen lots of them before, but the Skylab machine was new to me!

 

I also love the 70s-era pinball machines like Evel Knevil, and one we saw for the first time, Muhammad Ali!

The kids battled aliens ...

The aliens always won, LOL.

We even saw R2-D2 there! :)