Okay, I'm trying to catch up sporadically since I'll never do it all at once. I was AWOL for awhile because we went out to the Mall of America (in Minneapolis) for a few days. We enjoy the area and stayed at a really nice hotel. Love going to IKEA (since there are none around here) and got a nice bench for the front foyer to store all the shoes that pile up there (for just $40). The kids had a blast at the new Nickelodeon Universe inside the mall. Yes, it's geared towards younger kids, but they added 2 new coasters (real, not kiddie!) and still have my favorite ever coaster in the entire world (now called the "Fairly Odd Coaster". I rode it 5 times in a row, much to the amusement of the little kiddies I ended up with each time!
Anyways, funny story for you all! We went there Friday morning, and wanted to get in and get our wristbands before opening so we were ready to hit all the rides ahead of the crowds. DH dropped us off at the Sears' entrance and went to park, while we ran in about 5 minutes before opening. We get to the center of the mall (where the amusement park is located) and see a line of about 25 people - mostly families with younger kids. Obviously the line to buy tickets for Nick Universe, right?
Well, we stand there a couple minutes, and as I look into the park, it looks like to me that there's another place to buy tickets nearby and they're just opening the chain gate on it. I tell the boys to stay put and I run over to check it out. As I get there, the employee asks what I want. I tell her I need to buy wristbands and she tells me she can help me out. I turn back to the boys to signal to them to join me and realize what I couldn't see coming from the other direction.....they're standing in line to get into the newly-opened AMERICAN GIRL store!

Can't you just see everyone looking strangely at 3 teenage boys in line there alone?
Anyways, just to make you think I'm a bad parent as well, Eric had a great time at both the mall and the IKEA store since he got a pair of Heeley's for Christmas.

He's old enough and coordinated enough to avoid people though, and smart enough so that anytime he saw any kind of security he would be walking before they could register that he was rolling a half second earlier!

He was only told once in all the time we were there not to use them. Not counting when I yelled at him as he came off a rollercoaster and went zooming down the off-ramp!

Now he probably won't have a chance to use them again before May or so, so I'm glad he had some fun with them. Yeah, I know, I'm a bad mom!
More updates later!