Spring Break

Spring break!!! Yea!! We drove 12 hours (not including potty and gas and food breaks) to get to the Mall of America. This sounded like a great plan when we first came up with the idea. It was a spot that we'd heard of but had never been to. Not super far from home with things to do for our teenage girls and our younger boys. So off we go. The trip was not too bad. We had 6 kids with 4 adults divided into 2 cars. We had lots of snacks and many electronic devices. We really had lots... we counted. In all it was: 8 laptops, 5 Gameboy DS's, 9 iPods, 8 cell phones, 2 CD players and one sirrus radio. Hard to believe we had room for clothes and everything else we crammed into the cars!

The drive was nice and uneventful... just the way I like it... other than a bit of confusion in Chicago. We saw O'Hare airport very close up and circled it a bit more than we should have. But we eventually found our way out and managed to locate an authentic Chicago deep dish pizza place which was excellent. We walked into the restaurant and asked for a table for 10. The manager said "Oh yes, we have the table all set up for you." This surprised us a bit, but we sat down. Apparently, ANOTHER party of 10 had the foresight to call ahead for a table, but we got there right before they did. Oops!! Luckily, the place could handle the sudden invasion of both groups and the dinner was excellent!!

So now we are here. We have spent a few hours at the mall and the kids already know what they want to still see tomorrow. There is a pool (and wifi!!) in our hotel so everyone is very happy. Things are good here in Minnesota. It is so nice that the kids are old enough now to handle these kinds of trips and we're all flexible enough to just 'go with the flow' as things come up. I think all the kids will have great memories of this trip... I am glad we decided to make the journey.