Vacation Without Daddy - Day One

We drove several hours to Minneapolis on Thursday to attend our family reunion. First things first...



Test out the pool.



Watch Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network saved this Momma so many times. Do you know how easy it is to dress a child watching the Cartoon Network? All I had to do was ask for the appropriate limb and in zombie like motion, it was offered up. Yes! Check out those beds. They were another saviour. Usually I don't sleep well in hotels, but this one had us covered. It was like sleeping on a slice of heaven. Yum.

Next up was a trip to the Mall of America with our cousins.



Hunter was very helpful and sat next to Gavyn in the back seat teaching him important things like how to say "poop". They look so innocent, I'm quite certain you wouldn't have guessed this was what was happening in this picture unless I told you, huh?

Uncle Randy helpfully wheeled us around in our Diego stroller. Thanks, Uncle Randy. You were a life saver! And we saw cool things like Lego Land.




Lawton and Kekoa celebrated their birthdays together again with a volcano at the Rainforest Cafe, "the zoo place we eat where the alligator goes 'Rawr!'", according to Kekoa. Our experience this time was not what I remembered from last time. Our seats were less than stellar... last time we sat next to the fish tanks and could see and hear the gorillas. This time we sat looking out of the restaurant and were constantly misted by the rain and mist machine directly at our backs. The service was poor. The prices were high. Our drinks were never refilled. It felt like we were in a time warp and would never get out of that place. And did I mention the balloon man? How, determined to make my life as miserable as possible, he interrupted our meal with his cheesy smile, his flip book of possible balloon shapes and a large sign on his chest that read, "Tips Appreciated"? And then had the audacity to ask me a second time if my boys would like balloons (I'd said no once already.) after he'd finished making balloons for their cousins? He hated me, and I hated him back. Ok... maybe not hated, but I definitely resented the intrusion. I already was dealing with the "no nap crankies". I didn't need his help. What I SHOULD have done, was take the balloons without giving the tip. *grumbles*




And see? I'm not lying about the mist machine, am I? Never again. You heard it here first.



Some kind people gave us tickets they wouldn't be using as they left the Nickelodeon amusement park area, so the grand finale was a trip down the Log Chute for Lawton and Hunter and a ride on the carousel for Kekoa and Gavyn. I thought it was fitting to sit Gavyn on the camel (beings this is the family reunion on the Lebanese side), but he was terrified and rode the entire ride with his arms wrapped tightly around my neck. Kekoa's sitting back behind us on his white horse.




We slept like babies that night. And missed our Daddy, of course. If Daddy had been with us, we would have had balloons from the balloon man. After all, it IS vacation, ya know.