Mall of America

 Lego store at Mall of America

May 29-30, 2010 - This past Memorial Day weekend, we decided to take a road trip to Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. It was Kristian's first long road trip. We have driven to Lincoln, Nebraska, but that was tolerable being that it took only an hour versus this 6-hour drive! We left our house around half past 3am Saturday morning and the kids woke up once we put them in the car! An hour or so later, they fell back asleep. We only made two stops: a break for the bathroom and breakfast at Burger King. We arrived at Mall of America around 10am. 

Mall of America is huge, but we had expected it to look a lot more glamorous and bright inside. The walls and carpet were mostly dark shades of brown while there were numerous stores and barely any windows. There were plenty of benches and kiosks along the walkway, but barely any fountains that we can remember. Kailani said she saw one. Maybe with all the stores taking up space, there's barely extra room to decorate?

Once we made it to the center of the mall (as seen in the above picture where we noticed the ceiling was covered with windows), we reached Nickelodeon Universe, but we made sure to stop by the Lego Store before hitting the rides!

Lego Clock Display

More Lego displays and the theatres on the 4th floor

Chris and the kids building a Lego car and putting it on a track.

Although Kristian was too young for most of the rides at Nickelodeon Universe, he did like the rides in which you put in quarters into the slots, but only if they were stationary! The first little ride we came across was a green and red mini-bus and he was uncomfortable with the rocking. He was content with simply sitting and pressing buttons!

On the other hand, Kailani was tall enough to ride the rollercoasters for the first time!

If you look close enough, you'll see Chris and his brown shirt and Kailani seated next to him on the Pepsi Orange roller coaster. Chris took a clip of her on her first roller coaster ride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Hq8GshH6o

We spent hours at Nickelodeon Universe! Kailani couldn't get enough of the rides!!!

Daddy and Kristian w/Sponge Bob and Patrick Star

We had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. 

And of course, they offered a wide variety of shrimp recipes to choose from!

Once we left the mall and checked into our hotel, exhaustion hit everyone, especially the kids. Kailani and Kristian were overstimulated. When we visited Mandarin Kitchen, a popular local Chinese restaurant, Kailani started crying and wouldn't eat. Kristian had fallen asleep. It wasn't until we took the food and came back to the hotel that she calmed down. By 10 in the evening, we had all fallen asleep!

On Sunday, we went swimming downstairs at the pool before checking out of the Hilton. Our next stop was Ikea next door to the mall. They were advertising a free small breakfast, so we were able to do a little shopping immediately after our meal! You may be amazed to find that as much as I do love shopping and finding great bargains, we weren't inclined to shop while at Mall of America! After skimming the 11 pages of stores and restaurants prior to our arrival, there weren't many stores that we had never been to or don't have back at the malls at home. If the kids were older, or if we had another family with us to watch over the kids, we may have done some shopping, but we were happy to spend time doing other things rather than to buy unnecessary things! 

After Ikea, we stopped by one of our neighbor/friend's parents' house which was only 1 mile from the mall. We relaxed for a bit, let the kids play, and ate some chocolate walnut bars with sweet tea. They even offered for us to stay the night in their stuga (Swedish for small cottage, place for relaxation), but we were ready to spend the last day of vacation back at home.

After leaving their house, we had lunch at White Castle. 

Kristian was beginning to get cranky.

On the way home, I was sad that we didn't get a magnet from Minnesota. (I like to collect magnets from the places we've visited.) So, Chris stopped at a few places before we found one! The first gas station had a small car wash/shack in which you would ring the door bell and we imagined two people opening the door with one holding a bucket with sponges and the other holding a hose! At the next stop, we ventured into a tiny town with one stop light and a closed down gas pump, so we left. Finally, we found a travel center with a restaurant and it had magnets along with other Minnesota souvenirs and toys we bought for the kids! 

We didn't stop again until we stopped at a rest stop and then a late dinner at McDonald's. With so many stops, Kristian was less irritable, but it lengthened the amount of time it took for us to get home. There were some severe storms with extremely heavy downpour on our trip home, but luckily we made it back safe and the kids stayed asleep! From the point in which we left White Castle around 3:30 pm, it took us about 7 hours (10:30pm) when we actually arrived back at our house.

Airplane display off the Iowa highway at a small airport

This road trip served as our test to see if Kristian would be able to handle the long trip back to Virginia this summer. Although he did better than we thought, it will be better to wait until he's older. Until then, we'll have to stick to closer sites and attractions!