New friends…{209/10…366}

Words can’t even begin to describe how excited Sydney was when she got to meet these friends…. This was definitely the high light of her trip…no doubt.

After Spongebob, she met Blue…

and then Dora and Diego

Airborn….{207/8…366}

My little one did it yesterday… for the first time ever she jumped off a diving board. Now, granted, she was wearing swimmies but hey, she is only 3 1/2. At first she wanted to do it but she would walk up, get in position and then turn around and get off letting the next person go. I was fine with that actually. But after doing this a few times, she got brave and she just jumped (well, more belly flopped) but she loved it. The rest of her afternoon you know what she did… and much to her credit she figured out how to jump straight in instead of flopping.

and here’s one of Andrew and Max, just playing around. They  were happy to bring some of our old  pool toys with us.  (At our pool club you can’t bring floaties/big toys, etc.)

Stop by later as I am hoping to update again.  I am trying to get caught up… I really am trying!

Summer…

This is what summer is all about right… swimming and ice-cream!!!!  Just wanted to say to this little one’s mama… thanks for having us swimming today… we had a blast!!!!

HBW!!!

Taken at Ride Makers in Mall of America. It’s like a build-a-bear for remote control cars. Pretty cool store!

Mr. Serious…{205/366}

I actually felt inspired yesterday to pick up my camera… haven’t felt that way in a while… I hope this means I am coming out of my slump…  Andrew was nice enough to let me take some pics of him with my new bench I found a few weeks ago.  I got some really nice ones…  I do have ones of him smiling which I like but this more serious look is more him.  Such a serious young man he is!

OK..about the bench… get this.. a few weeks ago we were on our way home from the pool and I saw this great bench curbside.  Me being me, was like wow, what a great bench, wondering if it was trash.  I pull into the driveway and I think my kids were mortified.. they were like, mom…what are you doing.  I said I wanted to find out if the bench was trash, cause if so, could I have it.  I think my boys felt like just melting away…ha ha.  Long story short, I ring the bell and yes, the bench is trash.  I was thrilled.  The guy was nice enough to move it up the driveway till Shawn was able to swing by and pick it up on his way home from work. (I had no room in my car with all the kids).  The guy was actually happy I stopped because he had  “Got Junk” scheduled to come 2 days from the to pick it up…so I saved him money.    You know the expression, one mans trash, another mans treasure!!!!!

Charge it…part 1 {203/4…366}

I will get back to the park pics and if I am really good I will get all the pics uploaded on an on-line album for you to see them..lol. My boys are leaving for their next vacation at the end of nextweek so, I should have lots more time then.

Anyway, I didn’t take load of pics of us shopping but I did grab a few…one reason was because how many shopping/store pics can you take an generally the stores were busy and who wants strangers in their pics…lol but also because my flash wasn’t working and the lighting in many stores wasn’t conducive to picture taking…lol These stores should really think about us natural light photographers..lol!

See…in most areas as you are walking around it looks just like any other mall. The only really difference is that the mall is huge, it’s 3 full levels with a few additional things on the 4th floor. It has every store imaginable and then some and has an amusement park inside, in the middle but other than that…it’s just a mall.

We did walk all 3 levels and hit some areas more than once. We skipped most (not all) of the clothing and chain stores because we didn’t want to waste time shopping in the same stores we could shop in at home… A few of our favorite stores were Games by James (you guessed it … a game store.)(we bought some fun games), Itz-a-Puzzle (I am a puzzle girl and so is my sis…so with both our bdays in August…let’s just say.. I had some fun there), Basin (more about that in another post), Teavana (did a fair share of damage there) and of course the Nick and Disney stores as they are just plain old fun…..

Here’s my girls doing one of the things she loves best….shopping!

and everyone’s fav…

Thirsty? How about some water…{202/366}

The mall had a “gas station”…it sold things just like any other gas station store..offering you candy, gum, sandwiches, drinks, etc. and saving you the trip and time of going to the food courts… I thought it was a neat concept because if you didn’t know better you would really think you were at a gas station.  What I really liked was the water dispenser they had… it was a designed to look just like a gas pump….very clever!

bang…bam…bump….{201/366}

Everyone loves the bumper cars right?  My boys certainly do.. they went on the more than once!  This park was just fantastic… it’s amazing to think it was indoors…lol.  I will have many  more pics to share…not to worry…

Whooooo lives in a……{199/200…366}

under the sea….

The kids had a ton of fun, here at Nick Universe in the Mall of America.  We spent the whole day Sunday at the park…so stayed tuned for more pics!!!!

Welcome…{197/8…366}

We decided on basically spur of the moment to take a 4 day weekend..and visit our neighboring state.  And I have to say, we had a fabulous time.  Who knew that MN is so beautiful and has so much to offer.  We will definitely be going back there soon to check it out even more.  Our main purpose of this trip was to visit

and spend some time at the indoor amusement park.  (And of course do some shopping!)