Road Trip Wrap-Up

Anyone who knows me (hello Elsie!) knows that this is absolutely the WORST possible thing that could happen to me!!

And, obviously, my children know that too.

We LOVED this sign. I bet they get a lot of business this way. It certainly got ours.

This was somewhere in Wisconsin (I think).

Brett hangin' out at Moe's.

We had an absolutely wonderful, fantastic time. Believe it or not, all the pictures I loaded are from Saturday and Sunday. We sure did take advantage of Daddy's weekend-before-work!

Our trip there and back was pretty smooth too. We only threatened to sell the kids to the gypsies twice. Hey, only twice in NINE HOURS is pretty darn good.

Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington offers a "Big Ticket" which is a pass to all the attractions we went to for one price. Instead of paying all the entrance fees, you buy this pass and you're in. You can go to each place once in 3 days. Pretty sweet deal when you add it all up. I think we saved a couple hundred dollars between the 4 of us.

Once Jeff had to go to work (Monday afternoon), Brett, Lili and I traveled all over the place. We were able to have our car since Jeff rode to work with someone else, so we were free to roam. And roam we did. We found a couple different shopping malls in the area, another zoo and amusement park (Como Zoo and Como Town---sweet!) and we even ventured back to the Mall of America. By the way, we went on 'Toddler Tuesday' so we got our $8 stroller rental for FREE as well as a free ride pass for each of us to Nickelodeon Universe (a free $20 value)! We were able to stay at that stinkin' mall for another SEVEN hours! Pretty good with 2 kids and a mom heck-bent on getting her shopping in :) Oh, and did I mention that there's no sales tax on clothes AND shoes!!! Someone was in HEAVEN!! And, of course, I pointed out to Jeff that for every dollar I spent I was saving him 7%!

Our hotel in St. Paul was awesome! Embassy Suites. They had a free cocktail hour (actually 2 hours) each evening, which mommy LOVED for obvious reasons and the kids enjoyed for all the hot snacks they had---and the kiddie cocktails too. We had a set routine everyday: awesome breakfast around 8:30, then shopping for a good 6-8 hours, then swimming in the pool for an hour, then cocktail time, then DADDY'S HOME!!!!, then dinner, then wrangling the kids into bed sometime before midnight. The only down side of the hotel was that the internet was 10 bucks a day! I didn't think any hotel this side of the White Swan charged for internet anymore. So, that's why there weren't any updates for a week. You guys are important and all, but sheesh!

So now we're home.

The kids are in bed every night by 9:00.

Baseball is over for another year. (Brett's team got 2nd place overall. Not bad.)

School starts in 3 weeks......not even funny considering I'M starting school too :(

And Brett is 11. (holy cow)