We were up at 7 the next morning for breakfast and hit the road again at about 8:45. We had to make a pit stop at the nearest Wal-mart to replace the Bailey's brand new DVD player that had crapped out four hours into the trip on Sunday. Once that was taken care of, we got going. We stopped north of Des Moines for lunch. At that point, the boys moved over to Mom and Dad's car and the girls both rode with us. I'm not sure how Alison and Johnathan managed to get those kid-free hours, but it must have something to do with me being crazy. Anyway, we finally got to our motel in Savage at a little after four, got checked in and unpacked, and then headed over to Gramma Amy's house. She looks great, and her house hasn't changed for as long as I can remember. All the aunts, uncles, and cousins came over for an impromptu dinner of barbecue from Famous Dave's. We had a really nice time relaxing and stuffing ourselves, and the kids had a blast running and playing with one of the neighbors.
Today was Mall Day. All Nathan has talked about since he found out what all we were going to do on this trip is meeting Spongebob Squarepants at Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America. It made sense that to save our sanity, we should go straight to the mall as soon as possible. We got there at about 10:45 and went straight into the amusement park to search for the Sponge. I have been to the MOA a few times now, and I still can't get over the absolute hugeness of it. Phil had been asking me, "Is there a ________ store there?" and you can fill in with whatever store you can think of, and the answer was always, "Yes, of course there is a ______ store there. There is every store you can think of, and some are there more than once." For example, the hat store Lids is on all three levels. There are about 8 Caribou Coffee shops, along with 3 or 4 Starbucks. There are two Auntie Anne's pretzel shops. The Old Navy store is two-story. Anyway, you could spend an entire day in the mall from open to close, and still probably not see everything. If I had been going on the trip by myself, or if it was just Phil and I, we would have done exactly that. However, since the kids are here, we spent the entire day in the amusement park. Well, that's not entirely true. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe, and after lunch, Phil took the kids back to ride rides with the Bailey's, and I walked around level one with Mom and Dad. After that, we met back up to regroup, the kids wanted to ride more rides (imagine that), and so we hung out in the park a while longer. At around 3:30, we Anders' broke out on our own for a little while, so Phil could visit the Harley Davidson shop and we got the kids a snack. We walked around level three for about an hour. The "highlight" came when we were in the HD shop looking around, and I suddenly realized I didn't see Amy anywhere. The shop wasn't that big, and it wasn't that busy, so I hadn't been paying as close attention as I should have. I looked up and she was gone. I called to her a few times, thinking she would call back, and nothing. Obviously, I started to panic, which caught the attention of the clerks in the store, and soon Phil, my Dad, Johnathan, me, the two clerks, and all the customers in the store were searching and calling for her. Just as they were about to notify mall security, she emerged from under a rack of shirts, where she had hidden to take a poop. She never once answered to us calling her. I have a sick feeling just thinking about it now. Here we were in the biggest mall in the country, with people everywhere, and I couldn't find my child. Thank God she is fine. I have never wanted to hug her or strangle her as much as I did when I saw her this afternoon.
After that, she didn't leave my sight for a second. I took her and cleaned her up, we went back toward the amusement park, and made a pit stop in the American Girl doll store. This was my second mistake of the afternoon, after losing sight of her in the HD store. I had to drag her kicking and screaming out of that store and away from ALL THOSE BABIES after we had been in there for nearly half an hour and she had touched almost every single doll display in the store. She was in Hog Heaven. We managed to meet back up with the rest of our group, and decided it was time to call it a day. After leaving the Mall, we went back to Gramma Amy's for dinner, and stayed to play games for a while. The hubbys took the kids down to the neighborhood playground, which is the same place Alison and I used to go play when we visited Gramma when we were kids. After a stop at SUPERTARGET (insert trumpet fanfare here), we are back at the motel, it's 11:30, and the kids just went to sleep about 15 minutes ago. It's hard to get them to go to sleep when we are still up on the computer! Of course, I managed to leave the USB cable for the camera at home, so I can't post any of the 150 photos we have taken over the past couple of days. My favorite is one of Phil on a roller coaster today, both arms over his head, screaming and whooping as the ride dropped straight down from 3 stories up in the air. It's classic. Oh, and there are some good ones of Nate, when he finally did meet Spongebob.
Tomorrow we are going to another amusement park, Valleyfair. This one is outside, and tomorrow is supposed to be the best, weather-wise. Then, tomorrow evening is a celebration for Gramma Amy's 90th birthday. It's not till November, but we are taking advantage of all of us being here at the same time. It's kind of a surprise, she knows something is going on, but she doesn't know what. So if you see her, don't say anything. Night night, all!
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