On my own at the Mall of America

After spending two nights away from the girls, Aunt Lori brought them to the twin cities to join us on Wednesday night. Mitch was still in a conference all day Thursday and I was nervous about what I would do once we checked out of the hotel, especially since it would be Hattie's nap time. We had to check out at noon. So I loaded up the girls and ventured over to the Mall of America. Mitch and I had gone for dinner and walked around quite a bit on Tuesday night so I was comfortable knowing where to go and park. The place is Huge which is good since it's the largest mall in America, probable the world. Mitch had talked to Leah and explained that there was an amusement park, but that she couldn't go on the rides since I had to stay with Hattie and she did very well. We started with lunch at the Italian Villa, pizza and roasted vegetables and chocolate milk. Then we ventured down to the aquarium. It was a nice enough aquarium, but nothing like what we were spoiled with in New Jersey. Right off the bat the girls were excited to see the Stingrays. And then there was a touching exhibit. The girls were so brave touching Horseshoe crabs and Chocolate Chip Starfish. Kiersten kept telling Mitch that she touched Chocolate Chip Fish and he looked at her like she was crazy, but that is really what it was called. They were super excited to see the jellyfish. The tanks had light bulbs that changed colors so it looked like the jellyfish changed color. They thought it was amazing.

The octopus were pretty cool and they were much more active than the ones in Jersey. They liked watching their "suckers" stick to the glass. And of course they were thrilled to find Nemo, Marlin and Dori. Then came the big glass tunnels that you can walk through. I must admit that these were pretty impressive. Only because it was such long walk with all sorts of different sea life. It stared with fish, then onto sharks and rays, and then some more general sea life. The last tunnel had lots of turtles. I kept hearing "They are soooo cute!" Lastly we walked through the rainforest part. The girls weren't as interested in this but they did like the thunderstorm sounds!

 

It took us an hour to get through the aquarium...I still had over three hours to kill. We went to Lego Land, and American Girl (Bad idea, they wanted dolls!) and then the Disney store, where I let them get princess dolls because they were being REALLY good. Still almost two hours to kill...ugh! It was shaping up the be a long day and I could tell the girls were getting tired. But then I saw an Auntie Anne's pretzels. We sat down for a rest, had a snack. We took a bathroom break and then headed back down for another stroll through the aquarium. By the time we finished up there was only an hour until Mitch would be done. We went to the bathroom, AGAIN and then headed to the car. Hattie was out by the time we got back to the hotel and Kiersten was close. We only waited 20 minutes for Mitch and with a movie playing the girls were fine. I think Kiersten was out by the time we hit the interstate and Leah was right behind her. All in all, hitting up the mall was a good idea and since the girls slept the 8 hour ride home went pretty well. It will probably be a while before I'm ready to do it again!