Monster Cookies

July 19: Day Four

Author: Amber

July 19, 2009
Day Four - Bloomington, Minnesota

Today was a full and exciting day, in many ways.

We woke up refreshed after a good night’s sleep and got ready for church. We were out the door in time to drive around to find some breakfast. We learned that it is incredibly difficult to find much of anything to eat quickly in Bloomington and eventually found a Cub Foods grocery store where we could get some fruit, yogurt drinks and muffins. We ate in the van, worked through the frustrations of the morning and got to church with time for a bathroom break.

The greeters were friendly and very excited to have us there. They chatted with us for awhile until we saw our friends, Amy, Luke and McKenna, then we went to sit down. The boys hit it off right away and had a fantastic time playing together for the rest of the day.

The church service was really nice. We loved everything about it. the music was chosen well and led well. The sermon was relevant and easy to listen to, and the children’s sermon was perfect for them - it really kept their attention. The kids are still talking about their Sunday school lesson a day later.

If you are looking for a warm, welcoming and wonderful church in the Bloomington area, check out River Hills United Methodist.

It was great to finally meet Amy and her kids (so sorry we couldn’t meet her DH too!)! We originally ‘met’ Amy online when she started leaving us comments in response to our podcasts. We really appreciated Amy taking her time to call us or type us a message…it was super encouraging!

After church, the nine of us headed back to the Mall of America for lunch. Amy said that Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. was good, and she was right!

The kids had mac ‘n’ cheese meals, Jon had fish and chips and I had a delightful Cajun chicken sandwich with pepper jack cheese and bacon. YUM! Oh, and I must mention the lemonade too…it had strawberries in it. Delish!

After lunch, we all wandered around for awhile, looking for a store that sold batteries because my camera had run out. It was tough!! We were serenaded and entertained by Renaissance characters as we wandered…they were advertising the upcoming festival.

Desperate to entertain our kids in some way, Jon and I decided it was time to take them to the Underwater Adventures Aquarium. We parted ways with our newish friends and headed underwater. It was EXPENSIVE! Even more expensive than the Calgary zoo, which is amazing.

I have to say that what we saw was not worth the money. However, I think that the kids thought it was cool, and I know that they enjoyed petting the crabs and starfish at the end. Jon and I were happy that they had a play area to burn off some energy by running and climbing and jumping. And all that makes it not a total waste of money!

We finished up there and tried to do some shopping, but no one was in the mood and we didn’t know what we wanted to buy anyway, so we left the mall to drive around looking for slupees, ice cream and gas.

We got back to the hotel around dinnertime and just hung out for awhile, watching TV and playing. The day went downhill fast from there.

We ordered pizza/wings/breadsticks from Papa John’s. An hour later it still wasn’t there so I called back to inquire…the girl called the driver who said he delivered it to the right place and the person who answered the door said they didn’t order pizza, but maybe someone else in the room did so the driver gave him the pizza and let him sign MY credit card slip.

Jon knew something was wrong when I shrilled into the phone, “ARE YOU SERIOUS???”

The girl said they could send the order out again for free, but we decided no because it was already 8:00. So now I need to follow up to make sure that they will take the charge off my Visa.

So I was FUMING and gathered everyone to go out to the van to find somewhere to eat. Jon knew I wanted to do Sonic while in the US, so he planned to make me feel better by going there. We drove around trying to find it, then we stopped somewhere to ask where it was and the guy was not helpful so we just started driving again.

We finally found Sonic, decided what we all wanted and ordered it. It was delivered to our van and Jon’s sandwich was wrong so we had to get another one. And then the kids realized they didn’t have apples in their bags. So we had to call back for that.

FINALLY, we ate and got back to the hotel after 9:30, when we really didn’t want to go out at all. I just wanted to have a meal that didn’t include french fries then go for a quick swim. Way too much to ask, apparently.

Then, as if it wasn’t enough for me to be angry, frustrated, stressed, annoyed, deprived, weary, and grumpy, there was a knock at our door.

It was our hotel neighbour. Nope, he wasn’t apologizing about pizza. He was an angry neighbour. His eyes were red and watery and he looked as weary as I felt.

“Can you guys please keep it down?” he asked. “I have two kids over here who are trying to sleep.”

I know that he meant that HE was trying to get them to sleep just as I was trying to get mine to sleep. Only mine were fighting back a lot harder. And much louder.

“I have four,” I said, “and I am trying my best to keep them down. I’m sorry.”

He mumbled something else about us keeping it down as he walked away, and I just kept repeating, “I’m trying, I’m trying…” as I shut the door.

I walked back into the room and realized that I should have invited the guy in to let him have a go at silencing our rowdy boys. Instead, Jon and I just mentioned to the kids that if they were so loud the guy came back, we’d let him in to spank them for waking up his kids.

They quieted down pretty quickly after that, and soon after, Jon and I heard bumping on the wall and made up stories about why the guy next door really wanted his kids to get to sleep. Definitely not so the adults could get some sleep, if you know what I mean. ;o)

Tags: Vacation 2009

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 11:13 am and is filed under News, Parenting, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.