Trip to MN: Mall of America

after six years of living away from family and coming back to visit, i have learned a few things:

- it's exhausting trying to fit in visits with everyone

- we will never please everyone

- we will never have time to see everyone we want to see

- it's exhausting

- even though we home base with my parents, they generally get the leftovers. the nights after we've been gone all day or the mornings before we go somewhere.  we may sneak in a day or so just at home but usually our schedule is full.  

as much as we enjoy our crazy busy time filled with catching up with friends and family, i had decided after our last visit in the summer of 2010 that the next time i came home i was going to focus my time on my parents and family.

last summer i found very cheap airline tickets to mn so i booked a long weekend home between football ending and gymnastics competition season starting.

the weekend we were able to go to mn was the weekend before the girls' birthdays.

since mauryn was turning 5 my mom wanted to get her an american girl doll.  

so we knew one day of our trip would be spent at the mall of america.

when we knew we would have a day at moa, the kids started making plans for what they wanted to do at the mall for the day.

topping mauryn's list was going here:

finding the kanani display,

and picking out her doll.  {yes the box was as big as her!}

after getting kanani and having kanani's ears pierced {of course!}, mauryn went to lunch at the american girl cafe with her grammie {the only grandchild out of 17 to call her that - typical mauryn}, morgan, and morgan's friend emily.

thankfully mauryn let me sneak in to get a quick picture of her before lunch.

morgan snapped this picture of mauryn getting ready to eat her pizza. it just makes me smile at my silly little girlie.

the other thing topping miss mauryn's list was to get her ears pierced.  she decided last spring that she wanted her ears pierced when she turned 5.  i thought she might change her mind but she was pretty set on the idea.  

once she got in the chair, she got a little nervous.

the first ear hurt just a bit.

there were some tears after it was all over.  it wasn't so much that they hurt but the fact that she wanted pink earrings and the woman piercing her ears did white.  oh the drama!

while at moa, morgan wanted to spend the day with her best friend emily. the girls haven't spent their birthdays together since they were five.  so for months the girls talked about what they wanted to do on their day together.  they made lists, checked the website at moa, and made a plan.  at the top of their plan was shopping and hanging out.  i love that even though we moved six years ago, these girlies are still best friends and have plans to go to college together :o)

landon wanted to avoid all things girlie and hung out with my mom in legoland while mauryn got her ears pierced and the big girls shopped.  he spent over an hour just playing and creating.

the one thing all three kids agreed on for the day was going on rides.  

this was the first time we had been to moa to do rides that there haven't been crowds and lines.

there were literally no lines. the kids would do a ride, get back in line and hop on the ride again.

it was my ride loving children's dream come true. 

they rode and rode and rode some more.

while they rode, played, and shopped i got a few minutes to visit with one of my dearest friends amy {who is emily's mom}.

it was a wonderful fun filled memory filled day.