Mall Madness!

Steve had to work today so Mary was gracious enough to spend her day with us. We were all able to fit in her van and traveled to the Mall of America. When you're in Minnesota ya gotta do the Mall of America!

This place is huge! It is the nation's largest fully enclosed retail and family entertainment complex with more than 500 stores and employing over 12,000 people. Think about it - if you took just 10 minutes in every store it would take you more than 86 hours to shop it all. Ya gotta love Minnesota for coming up with this!

We even got there minutes before it opened and for the first time in his life Gary was waiting at the door of Macy's for them to unlock unlock and open. Wish I had taken a picture of that!

I had a single focus - to shop. I have several significant events coming up - my anniversary, my class reunion and my son's wedding all in the next 47 days. I had no time to waste and just wanted to go!

While I shopped Mary and the kids gave Gary and Taryn the official tour of the amusement park located in the center of the mall complex. There are seven acres of fun here including over 30 rides and attractions, a four-story interactive LEGO display, and the Underwater Adventure Aquarium with over 4,500 sea creatures. They had a blast and I didn't even hear from them till lunch time. After a quick bite they went right back to it...and I continued to shop.

A huge highlight of the day was Aunt Mary treating Taryn, Patrick and Ashlee to select, assemble and dress their very own stuffed animal at the Build-A Bear store. It was fun to see each of their personalities expressed in their choice. This was a most special gift to Taryn and she has loved on her bear ever since. It is rarely out of her arms.

We met back at the van at 4 pm and then hit some rushhour traffic on our drive home. We had a completely sunny day, but back in St. Paul a major rain storm with sever thunder and lightening had hit. We came home to a downpour that reeked some havoc with our awning. Gary and Steve worked in the pounding rain to secure everything while Mary put dinner together.

After another wonderful home cooked meal with them we had to say good bye and head West. It was hard to leave. We had much fun together and really enjoyed our time there so much. We drove till 1:30 AM making it to Sioux Falls South Dakota.