The Mall of America

Kids chose this one. - the Mall of America in Minneapolis. It was a long day. We got to the mall an hour or so before they opened to snag a good parking spot and to walk around and plan the day out a little before the crowds arrived. I had promised Gracie that we’d ride the animals around the mall, but the ones they had there were super disappointing (you only could ride in a small circle where they were located, and not anywhere around the actual mall - boo), so now I owe her a scooter ride at the Valley Mall after we get home.

Jon, Grace, and Sam went on some rides at the Nickelodeon Amusement Park inside the mall (Caleb didn’t want to, he’s not a ride person). Grace and Jon went on some of the larger rides while Caleb and I hung out with Sam. We then grabbed some lunch at one of the food courts while watching out the window to see planes land and takeoff at the nearby airport. Then Sam rode some more rides while Caleb, Grace, and Jon went on GoKarts in a different part of the mall (Sam was too little/young for these).

After waiting “forever”, Gracie got to go to Build-a-Bear, bought herself an Axolotl accessorized with a Hufflepuff scarf, and even bought Sam his own stuffed animal (an Eevee from Pokemon) with her own money, which was very sweet. Afterwards, I got a little sensory break by stopping at the bookstore (and was super glad I brought my noise-cancelling headphones, as there was a loud event happening in the middle of the mall nearly all day, some sort of dance competition, and the people/crowds alone were overstimulating).

I’m pretty sure we hit every toy stores they had, checked out the crayola store, went to some mirror/art/light thing, grabbed a dinner from a different food court while Sam nearly fell asleep, the kids all got some new shoes (Gracie is almost in my size!), we made some personalized M&M’s, and we finally headed out …. Or so we thought. We got all the way back to our Airbnb and Jon realized he’d lost the key to the house. Grace panicked while Jon figured out he’d left them at the Go-Kart place, and we went all the way back to the mall (luckily it was only about 20 minutes away). He got them back and we got some ice cream. It took forever to get out of the parking garage because we left as the mall closed and everybody else was leaving at the same time. It’s 10pm and we finally made it home.

So… long story short … malls can be fun, but I’m just ever so glad that Amazon exists!Read more