The Park at Mall of America

Sorry, no pictures, will try to add them in the morning. Last year the park was called Camp Snoopy, and everything had a Snoopy Theme. I guess there was some thing w/ $ and keeping the name so now all snoopy is gone. But the kids were not sad, still had their same favorite rides. It is the perfect park for our kids. Makenna can ride everything, Sawyer everything but one ride. It was crowded, but the lines were not bad. Poor Malaine will be 10 before she gets to ride anything but kiddy rides, she is so short. Which is ok w/ her, she is not the daredevil that her siblings are. She will be happy to have Sage w/ her hanging out in the younger area!
It is always a challenge trying to take all 3 kids to the park during the day while Mark works. I am exhausted trying to keep up w/ them all, and I can't even imagine if we tried this next year. I am not sure i will be that brave on my own. i told Mark we should have brought along our favorite babysitter, (who is so kindly watching our dog back home!), but another person involves another room blah, blah, blah... The only real problem i had was at lunch. We were eating in the food court, and as soon as we sit down malaine announces she has to go to the bathroom. So what does a mom do? I won't even admit it, but lets just say it all worked out fine!
i did get a lecture from some "nice" man when Sawyer got on the escalator ahead of me, before i was ready so he came running UP the escalator to get back to me. The man said" i hope you know these are dangerous". And so I, w/ my "nice Christian attitude" said, Yes, I realize that and I don't make it a habit of letting my children play on them, thank you very much. What i really wanted to say was, yes, i am going crazy here w/ all these kids, can you help me get them down the steps in a safe way? It was a man by the way, another mom, would have been nicer, i hope!
Of course this area has so many visitors from around the world. And so we saw lots of little asian girls. One family was waiting on a ride next to me, and seeing those girls, just made my heart cry. I started thinking, here we are having a blast, and our daughter and sister is sitting half way around the world, in an orphange. So I did what any good mommy would do. Took the kids out to the mall for a quick shopping trip and bought Sage some clothes. Doesn't make up for her not being here of course, but buying her things makes me feel like we are getting closer to actually putting these clothes on her.
Mark did join us at the park after work and the kids had fun taking him on all their favorite rides. We finished the night w/ dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. We had The Volcano for dessert. Sinful is all i can say! YUM! It is alot of fun, they bring it out and all the waiters yell VOLCANO and it is all lit up and sparkly and the kids thought it was amazing. Sugar high before bed always a good thing!
We did get calls from home about the terrible storms. My parents said our trampoline was around the neighborhood. Bummer. I feel bad everyone is w/ out power there. Thankful I am here! Prayerfully the air will be back on tomorrow for everyone. Just an FYI, we are not able to access our e-mail from here, so if you are trying to reach me, you have to comment here. Off to try to sleep off some calories, sure!