Nelson Family Blog: Mall of America Weekend

Monday, September 19, 2016

Mall of America Weekend

This past weekend was very busy, but it was so much fun. Emma and I went away for a little girls weekend and we had an absolute blast. Emma and I headed to my sister's house in Mankato on Friday, and got there at about 12:00pm.

Rachel and I took Emma to Bounce town, which is an indoor play area with toys and inflatables. Needless to say, Emma played her little heart out and had a really good time. We were there for a solid 2.5 hours and Emma played and played. After Bounce Town, we headed to Sibley Park to feed the animals and let Emma play in the park for a little while. We ended the evening with supper at Dino's, which is a pizza place. After that we just enjoyed a quiet evening at Rachel's house.

Saturday was a very tiring day, but I cannot believe how much fun Emma had. We left Rachel's house around 9:00 am, and headed to Mall of America to take Emma to Nickelodeon Universe. We arrived at the park at around 10:30 am, and it was actually pretty quiet there. Emma was able to ride pretty much any ride without having to wait in line, and she could usually ride it twice in a row. There were 15 rides that Emma could ride (some of which she had to ride with Rachel or myself) and she rode every single one of them, and most of them she rode 3 or 4 times. We definitely got our moneys worth out of Emma's wristband.

Emma is such a fearless little girl. She did not hesitate to ride any of the rides, and she just laughed and enjoyed herself on every single one of them. She rode ride after ride until about 1:00pm, when we forced her to take a lunch break. We hit up the food court for lunch, and then we went to checked out the Crayola Experience. This is an exhibit where kids have a lot of hands-on activities that they can participate in, including coloring pictures, receiving crayons with personalized labels, playing with modeling clay, a play area, and many other stations. Emma was a little young for some of it, but it was pretty cool, and we probably could have spent at least 3-4 hours in this place. However, Emma lost her focus after about an hour and a half, and we went back to the rides.

Emma rode rides again until about 7:30pm. It was one long day in Mall of America, but she had so much fun, it was so cute to watch her. But that little girl fell asleep about 5 minutes into our drive back to Rachel's, and didn't even wake up when we got back to the house, and slept all night until about 6:30 the next morning. She was one tired little girl. And she was so sad to leave the rides.

Sunday was another busy day. We all went for a much-needed coffee run in the morning, and then we spent the morning getting packed up a little and recovering. My parents came to town for lunch. We decided on Red Lobster, and it was delicious. After lunch, we headed back to Sibley Park because Emma wanted to show Grandma and Grandpa the animals and the park. After some time in the park, we headed to the mall for some odds and ends. At 4pm, Emma and I finally headed back to Sioux Falls, and Emma slept most of the way back to town.

It was so very nice to be back home, and back to my boys. Emma and I missed them. It was really nice to cuddle and see Elliott after two whole days without seeing him. I swear he grew since I saw him last. We spent the evening watching the Vikings beat the Packers (heck yes!!) and unpacking. It was a great weekend, but man am I beat. I may go take a little nap before I have to get the kids from daycare. :)