The Land of 10,000 Lakes and a REALLY Good Time

This past weekend, Ben and I traveled up to Minneapolis to see some of my college friends. My friends Jen and Clay have a son Jake who is exactly 2 months older than Ben. And he has SUCH cool stuff.
It was great fun, despite the rocky beginning. Translation: the Road-Trip-From-HELL. I won't give you the play by play because trust me, there are parts you are better off not knowing. I will tell you it included, in no particular order:

• torrential downpours
• the child saying after just ONE hour of the 4 1/2 hour car ride "Are we there yet?" and when he was told him we had another 3 hours to go, I thought the guy was going to puke.
• massive traffic jams in the middle of nowhere that made the once 4 1/2 hour trip, close to 6 hours
• roads that we needed to take being closed
• a visit to a ghetto Walgreen's
• and yet more traffic jams.
  

The next morning, good ole Minnesota welcomed us to her fair state with this wonder of nature:

Clearly Winter and Spring still haven't figured out whose turn it is to control the remote.

Please keep in mind that when we left Madison it was 71 degrees. PMS much Spring? Therefore my child had no coat, was wearing shorts and I only brought these shoes.


So yeah. That was fun.

Since doing anything outside was out of the question, we made the GREAT decision to take the boys to The Mall of America. Ah, MOA. Such a place of serenity. Of calm. Of happy parents, quiet children and such reasonable prices. The Mall has this power that as soon as I stepped through those magical doors, the spirit of "Kmart Mom" came rushing over me. Suddenly I grew bad frizzy bleached hair, was wearing green eye shadow, smacking on my gum, carrying my coupons while wearing uncomfortable pumps and tights jeans. All the while screaming at my kid that if he didn't "SHUT UP HE WAS GONNA BE HEARIN' ABOUT IT IN THE PARKIN' LOT REAL SOON!"


We did manage to get through the Nickelodeon Universe park without injury. The boys drove the bumper cars and later Ben and I went on the Log Chute. I don't care how old that ride it, it still rocks!

Finally, when I thought I was the only one that was having sensory overload issues, Jen said through clenched teeth "If we don't get the hell out of here soon I'm going to scream!"

Then there was Saturday night. I soon realized, you can take the girl out of the sorority but you can't take the sorority out of the girl.

Fifteen years may have gone by since our hey days at Kappa Alpha Theta, but you wouldn't have known it by looking at our moves on the dance floor that night. It was as if a time machine took us back to 1993 and we were lookin' goooood. Although I blew my 21 year old cover when I muttered to Anne "I'm going to be so sore tomorrow..."

There is something about being around friends that have known you for such a long time to make you feel centered. Plus, those are the only group of people who call me solely by my last name and still ask if I'm a vegetarian.

We will be back up there soon but first a written legal contract needs to be drawn up between Jen, Clay and I that states they will NEVER again subject us to the horrors of The Mall and my liver needs to do some serious recovering.