Family Vacation, A Little Like the Griswold's, Only Not As Funny...

 

It got a little floody around here this past weekend.  After almost 6 months of constant snow cover and subzero temps, we welcomed spring with open arms... and hip waders.  And sand bags, and dump trucks, and helicopters, and police escorted flatbeds filled with... more sand bags.  The weather was quite nice, but unfortunately it was far too soggy to be playing outside.  It's tough for a kid to enjoy the outdoors when most of the playgrounds in your neighborhood look like this:

So we decided that we'd had enough fun with the ol' Red River for a bit, and skipped town, heading east bound to the Twin Cities.

The Red River bridge on I-94, day before the crest

Thank goodness for portable DVD players!

The decision to head out of town was the single most spontaneous thing our family has ever done. While eating lunch, I commented to Daddy that the kids had been exceptionally good that morning. He got that "thinkin' look" on his face, then brought up the suggestion that we take them to Nickelodeon Land at the Mall of America (we had talked about doing so for quite awhile) as a "thanks-for-being-good and happy-early-birthday" treat. We took Asha there last summer for a mini-vacation. We had the best time and thought Noah was old enough now to enjoy it as well. So we hastily threw in a change of clothes, filled the car with that precious $4/gallon gas (yowch), and eased on down the road.

 

Though passing out is almost as good a time killer on road trips

I very much appreciated our access to modern technology on this trip more than ever.  As we drove out of town, I booked a hotel through Expedia on my handy dandy new Windows Phone.  I got a sweet "last-minute" deal at a nice hotel just a couple miles from the Mall of America (who says frugality isn't fun?!)  The kids were silent the whole way, occupied by their portable DVD players.  When we got closer to the city, we punched the hotels' address into the phones' GPS system and were led right up to the front door!  After we checked in, we found the closest Denny's, grabbed some grub, stopped at WalMart (yup, we forgot Asha's socks in our rush to leave town), and found the quickest route to the MOA, all from our phone.  Nifty!

The dim spot in our weekend was the night in the hotel.  It was a great place, don't get me wrong.  The kids loved the pool, and the rooms were nice & roomy.  Just not roomy enough for a toddler who loves (and I mean LOVES) sleeping in his own bed. Or for a big girl who insists upon sleeping with her bony knees shoved into your spine.  We booked a King room, knowing that Ash would end up in bed with us anyway, and that Noah would probably follow suit.  We were all exhausted by 7:30, so we took advantage and tried to get them down for the night then. "Not a chance, suckas!", they seemed to say.  Noah babbled, giggled, crawled all over us, begged for "TV on!" and was just being a royal pain in the pooper.  Asha whined about his wiggling; so he sat on her head and soon both began to wail.  Daddy To The Rescue jumped up and dialed the front desk, "Yeah, can we get a crib up here?"

45 agonizing minutes later, the hotel staff finally showed up with that magical crib, with its four wonderful walls that held Monster Man captive until at last he drifted off to sleep.  Sister was out moments later... too bad Mom & Dad didn't get a wink of sleep that night.  The tricky thermostat kept the room temp ranging from rain forest to arctic tundra in a matter of minutes.  Kneecaps McGee and Baby Mouth Breather ensured that we didn't get too much rest.  6:30am rolled around, and Ash was up with the birds as usual.  She & Dad went down to check out the continental breakfast.  Bless Daddy's heart, he kept her down there and allowed Mama & Noah to sleep until 8:00.  2 hours later, we headed over to the Mall, to begin our day of fun!

The plan was for Mom & Asha to hit the theme park right away, while Dad & Noah would visit the aquarium.  The boys had a blast, Noah loved all the "fsssshh" and sharks. We girls didn't waste any time getting started on the rides...

I love this! The kids on both sides of her were flipping out (this did NOT appear to be a scary ride) and Asha just kept grinning and looking at them like, "what is the problem, nerds?"

She started on the mini-coaster, then immediately graduated to the BIG one!

Wheeeeee! Crazy wild- haired Mama and her calm, collected daughter on the roller coaster!

Captivated by the train, he kept yelling "All Aboard!"

The boys wrapped up their tour of the aquarium and joined us for the remainder of the day.  Dad & Asha decided they wanted to go on some scary rides, so I took Bam Bam and headed to the rides geared toward the Dora/Diego crowd.  The little man was hilarious on his first ride, I wish I could've read his mind.  He never once cracked a smile, but didn't seem the least bit afraid. He was simply fascinated by the whole concept!

Excuse me, you're gonna do WHAT with this thing!?

Noah was brave enough to go on a couple of the kiddie rides on his own, but I was never quite sure if he was going to cry, puke, or burst out into giggles.  My normally chatty little dude was mostly silent, just taking in all the sights and sounds.  He'd get off one ride, then run along to the next one and hop right in line, so I was pretty sure he wanted to go on them... at least I hope so, or else I'm losing my Mom of the Year trophy if the kid was miserable.  He recognized all the familiar cartoon characters, and thoroughly loved running full-speed ahead and watching Mama try to keep up with him!
 

Favorite picture. Ever. The poor child looks milliseconds away from barfing, but there were no tears and otherwise no outward panic whatsoever. In fact, he was pretty rad, especially for a not-quite-2-year-old!

If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather play Legos

 

Little trucker

LOVED the semi truck ride, we hit that one up at least 5 times

 

Daddy & Asha swingin'

I was bummed that I missed out on snapping pics of our other two brave adventurers, but I heard they had a wild time. It's a lucky thing Asha is very tall for her age, she was juuuuust tall enough to ride the "kindof-scary" rides. We quickly learned that our daughter has NO FEAR whatsoever. She convinced me to go on the "Fairly OddParents" rollercoaster. I very nearly lost my cookies, as did the 40-something guy and his pre-teen son who shared the ride car with us, but this little girl had an ear-to-ear grin the entire time!  She was a rockstar! We've never been so proud.

Chillin' with a little snack while the other two went on the scary rides

 

Running to the next ride

Freefalling and loving it!  Much giggling followed.

My favorite part of our day at the theme park was when big sister decided she would take a break from the big kids rides, and wanted to go on some (considerbly more babyish ones) with her little brother. That stoic little guy was suddenly all smiles when Big Sis was by his side. They decided their favorite was the Wonder Pets Flyboat -- a kid-friendly version of one of those "freefall" rides where you slowly go up, then get dropped down at high speed, reaching zero-G with your cheeks flapping in the wind! 

A highlight of the trip - worth every penny that they had this much fun together.

All in all, we had a really fantastic weekend. The trip home was of course long, everyone got a little tired and cranky, we got home way later than we wanted to, and came back to a mountain of laundry stared smack in the face of a Monday...
But it was worth every single hassle for all the fun we had and great memories we (hopefully) created for the kiddos. And despite the lack of sleep, expensive gas, and hassle of traveling with two nap-less kids, I loved every minute of our spontaneous little family vacation!