Playdate Review

Our Wheel Throwing Playdate Review

| Patti Webb

It’s the last week of the school year and the last posts before our annual summer blog break. So we’re keeping it fun with a playdate review.

With the kids getting older, there isn’t much that they haven’t tried. So, play dates have been harder to brainstorm and plan. One of the first things I wanted to do when we came up with this blog series is wheel pottery. I had never done it before, and the girls have done kids clay sculpting classes many times. Now, all three kids are finally old enough to take it on.

Most pottery wheel studios have a minimum age for their beginner wheel classes, or they want you to buy several sessions or weekly course. In my cursory Google search, I found Mudfire, an open community pottery studio built around creativity, inclusivity, and shared space. They offer single Wheel 101 and 102 classes, capped at 12 people with a minimum age of 6 years old. They also have kids summer camps and special kids-only pottery wheel classes starting in June.

  • “It’s called wheel throwing, not wheel gently tossing.”
Continue reading →

Our Activate Playdate Review

| Patti Webb

For our last 2025 Playdate Review, Mary and I headed over to Activate Games. We had brainstormed this venue a few years ago, but our kids were just under the age recommendation. Now that they are 7 and 8, we decided to give it a try and see how they’d fare.

Activate is an indoor, high-tech gaming facility where you and your friends physically step into interactive game rooms that blend technology, puzzles, and movement. It’s like stepping inside Nick Arcade. The environment reacts to your movements in real time. Each themed game room is filled with lights, sensors, and challenges:

  • Laser mazes: Duck, dive, and dodge beams to reach the other side.
  • Arcade-style basketball hoops: Fast-paced scoring challenges.
  • Puzzle rooms: Memory, logic, and teamwork tasks.
  • Climbing and agility rooms: Test your speed and coordination.

The kids have all done their fair share of video gaming and interactive gaming with their consoles, VR, laser tag, and Immersive Gamebox. Mary and I have also had a couple adult group outings with immersive gaming. Could we shepherd them into a new gaming world??

Continue reading →

Our Panda Fest Playdate Review

| Patti Webb

For this play date review, we’re tweaking it yet again. We’re sharing our first ever girl date!

Once Mary and I settled our spring break plans, we got tickets for the brood to go to Atlanta’s first-ever Panda Fest, an Asian food festival with dates in multiple cities across the country. Panda Fest vendors are mostly local and they specialize in Asian street food and snacks.

Attending were BOTH sets of twin girls, so no boys this round. My husband Troy also came for the food and to be an extra set of hands. H&K are two years younger than A&Z, so now we’re factoring in age gap for this play date.

Continue reading →

Our Goat Yoga Playdate Review

| Patti Webb

First playdate review of the year!!
Hear us out: Yoga… but with goats.

As our kids get older, experiences become less about laying a foundation and more about exposure. Yeah, we still want to show our kids something new; but instead of sharpening their motor skills or working with their senses, we’re also starting to integrate culture, instruction, complex skills and body control, and executive functions.

All that is to say that we want to give our kids a fun challenge. When we asked our kids to guess what we had planned, this was nowhere on their radar.

Continue reading →

Our Escape Room Playdate Review

| Patti Webb

When we first came up with doing playdate reviews, we hated that we couldn’t find an escape room. For every spot in our area, the minimum age was maybe 10. Fast forward a year or two, and I get a flyer for Escapology at my girls’ field hockey practice. A new space was opening up literally 10 minutes from us. I could’ve kissed the mom (who happened to be the owner) who said that they didn’t quite have a minimum age.

“How could this be?”, you say. KIDS MODE!

Escapology is an immersive, and always private, escape game where players are gathered inside a themed room and must complete their mission before time runs out. Stepping inside a real-life adventure, they must find hidden clues, crack codes, and solve puzzles to make an escape—all in an hour.

Continue reading →