Fargo is Far, Far Away

Well... Steve and I can cross North Dakota off the list of states we haven't seen (my list is much, much shorter than his). It was a lot of driving, but I think we all had a good time. Except maybe Steve for the hours he had to spend in a very boring and apparently terrible class on pediatric dentistry. We made a circle trip out of our driving adventure - we only covered the same road twice for the first and last 60-ish miles of our adventure. We headed to Fargo by way of Minneapolis last weekend. We stayed the first night of our journey in Menomonee, Wisconsin. The next morning we packed up for the Mall of America in Minneapolis. We had fun checking out the mall, but were a little disappointed by the fact that it was basically just an over-sized mall. I guess Steve and I were both expecting more one-of-a-kind shops. We did have fun visiting the "doll museum" (aka the American Girl Store) and had planned to take Abby to the aquarium, but she got too tired. The highlight of her time in the mall was finding a barbie doll sized "Beast" to go with her Belle dolls. She's had lots of fun with that guy since we picked him up.

Our hotel in Fargo (the Ramada) was really nice. We had a great time at the pool, which had a kiddie pool and also a water slide. Abby and I went down the water slide once, but that was enough for her. She really had fun in the pools and the "hot pool" (aka hot tub). While Steve was in class the girls and I had to find ways to entertain ourselves, so we did some shopping and afternoon naps. We also checked out the Red River Zoo. I would not give it particularly high marks. There weren't very many exhibits and about 1/4 of them didn't have any animals that we could find. Abby is pretty petrified of animals too, so that didn't really help our zoo experience. The one animal she did like was the Russian red squirrel, so we took her picture next to it. I think we spent about 45 minutes total seeing every exhibit in the zoo - that gives you an idea about how small the place was. And it was in the 60's, cloudy, and super windy. So... if we ever decide to go back to Fargo I am going to be skipping the zoo and heading to Scheel's sporting goods instead.

After Fargo we headed to visit Glenn, Melissa, and Jack in Brainerd, Minnesota. Abby and Jack had a great time playing together, which was really fun to watch because it was the first time they were able to really play with each other and interact instead of just playing in the same space and fighting over toys. They jumped, stickered, and played with cars and dolls. And they've both been asking about each other since we left so it must have been lots and lots of fun. We also got to see Melissa's baby belly in person and hoped that Baby H. might sneak out early to meet us, but no luck on that. We can't wait to meet him or her and our other new cousin Isaac when they are born in the next few weeks.

Yesterday we made the LONG, LONG drive home from Minnesota. The 10 hour drive took us 12 hours, which isn't too bad for a two year old girl and her baby sister. We even stopped to see Agate Falls in the U.P. on our way back. But by the last hour of the trip the girls were pretty exhausted, we had a bit of a meltdown from both, and my back was killing me from having a very compacted seat (my seat has to be all the way forward for Olivia's carset to fit into our car). It was fun, but we were tired and sore from the big adventure. So today we slept in as late as possible, got the refrigerator restocked, mowed the jungle that used to be our backyard (it was mid-calf deep in spots), and started on the gigantic laundry piles.

So now we are back to normal, at least until Friday when the girls and I head down to Flint to take my baby sisters to a concert and visit with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Scott for a night. Busy, busy, busy!