Finding Minnesota: From Special Ops To A Kids' Bounce House
WAITE PARK, Minn. (WCCO) - This time of year, kids often get stuck inside with all that energy to burn. That's why parents appreciate indoor playgrounds with trampolines, jungle gyms or bounce houses.
The Bounce Adventure in Waite Park is almost guaranteed to have kids running around at all times, simply because of who owns it.
Devin and Melissa Cesnik have six children of their own: Logan, 9, Luke, 8, Lance, 7, Lydia, 5, Lily, 3, and Lauren, 1. (They said the "L" names weren't intentional at first; "it just happened that way.")
"That's all I ever wanted to do was be a mom and help other people with their own kids," said Melissa Cesnik.
Their relatively new business is a big change for the Cesnik family.
Devin Cesnik spent 12 years in the Air Force, most of it with Special Operations, until his retirement in 2013.
He would spend months at a time in the Middle East, South America or Africa, training government personnel for worst-case scenarios such as capture or torture. He also took part in dangerous rescue missions in enemy territory.
Now he's overseeing 2-year-olds, which his military buddies can't believe.
"When you talk about, 'Oh yeah, this is what I'm doing,' they're just, 'What? How does that even make sense?'," he said. "You know, it's so starkly different."
It's a business, though, that they decided to take on as a family.
"As cool as this all is, and as cool as the other things we're doing or all the other accomplishments we'll ever do, our kids matter the most to us," he said. "So when you do these things, these experiences, you want them to be memorable and positive."
Most kids could only dream of having bounce houses and an arcade at their disposal whenever they wanted. The Cesnik children often arrive to "oversee" the operation after school.
"They do love it," said Melissa Cesnik. "They ask to come every single day. They don't ever get tired of it."
Now, they're expecting another child, sometime in June.
"When we got married we said we wanted seven, so we're about to have seven," she said.
The Bounce Adventure is open seven days a week, and it has a private party room where kids can have pizza, cupcakes and juice boxes.
Devin Cesnik, meanwhile, is still using his military experience. He teaches self-defense and survival skills at his business next door, Spartan Survival.