Sunday Snapshot: MOA

For those of you NOT from Minnesota.....MOA stands for Mall of America.
Our house is about a 45 minute drive to the biggest mall around. 
It's HUGE! 
There's an entire amusement park indoors and over 520 stores to shop at.....hello, can you say "woman's paradise"?
In the grand tradition of trying to find things that are free and cheap to do with the kids this summer, I decided to take a trip out there. 
Me....and 6 kids....
in a mall big enough to fit 7 Yankee Stadiums inside.....
big enough to park 32 Boeing 747's in it.....
and large enough to fit the 4 heads of Mount Rushmore in each corner of the building......
Smart, huh?
The plan......
to walk around the mall and play in all that it has to offer without spending any money. 
**I even packed a lunch for us to eat in the food court......like we were going to the local park rather than a public mall**

Here's a fun fact about the Mall....
If you spend 10 minutes in every store there, it would take 86 hours to see them all. 
Needless to say, we didn't quite do that. 
But we did park....go in on the first floor....and start to walk around.
The goal was to walk around all 3 levels and stop and go as we pleased. 
Here's a snippet of the conversation I had with the boys on the way there.....
"Don't ask to go on any rides......don't ask for ice cream or cookies at the Nestle stand.....don't leave my side.....if you get separated from me, stay where you are......don't get us kicked out of any stores.....Don't ask for any toys, not even to spend your own money on......don't embarrass me.......
Other than that.....Let's have FUN!"   hahaha.....I'm so mean.  :)
Alright, so what else is there.....
How much fun really can 5 boys and a little girl have in a Mall anyway.....
And what in the world will they do.....?
Well.....this.....

We played in this really cool novelty toy store.....

The boys looked around in their favorite shoe store.....

And we checked out the digs in the Vikings Store.....

We threw pennies in the alligator wishing pond at the Rainforest Cafe.......

I had zero change on me, so Trae decided to just grab some that was on the head of the gator.....

isn't it bad luck to steal someone elses wishes??....

and ate our lunch from home.....I did spend $2 on a large pop from Burger King that we shared and refilled about 8 times throughout the day....
We got a treat when we stumbled upon a stand with girls handing out free
cans of Pepsi Throwback.......
Um...we'll take 7, thank you very much.....

There were some really yummy cheese samples at the Wisconsin store

Next up was Lego Land.....a kid favorite. 
We spent lots of time there and the boys all built some pretty fun things.

There was this really cool tropical restaurant...but we didn't go in. 

We just had fun with the board out front....

We were there so long by this time that Jason decided to join us after work. 

Here we are waiting for him....

and this is the "show me your muscles" contest that went on while we sat overlooking

the amusement park..

Olivia wanted in on the action too...

Oh, honey....we're gonna have to talk about just how far a girl can pull her shirt over....hehe..

Okay, so by this time....it's dinner time.  We're hungry. 

We decided to get some McD's at the food court.

After that, we had time to go to Lego Land again

and another toy store....

....and pose outside of the Bubba Gump restaurant .....

sitting where Forrest Gump had and trying on his shoes.

By the time we finally decided to call it a day,

it was 9pm.  I had gotten there at 11:45 that morning.  Just to be clear....

That's over 9 hours.....in a mall......with 6 kids. 

But, ya know what.....we really had fun. 

I think we just might do this again before school starts.

4th of July Camping

Camping has definitely become of our families favorite things to do. 
We love it! 
The boys love it! 
And now, Olivia loves it!
The kids love it because it's a perfect way to just be outside and swim, fish, and get dirty all day...
Jay and I love it because we know we are creating great family memories for them that will last a lifetime. 
This 4th was no different.  We went to the same resort up north for the 3rd year in a row now. 
It's small and quiet and the fishing and swimming is great so it's perfect for us.

This year Tyler caught his biggest fish to date.  It was a bass that weighed in at 3 1/2 pounds and he was beyond excited! 

All the boys did some fishing and had good luck....both off the dock and out on the lake. 

Livi had so much fun in the water.  She wasn't too fond of the idea back when we were camping on Memorial weekend, but the freezing cold water probably had a lot to do with that time.  This time....she was all fish. 

We had gone up with some friends of ours this year.  They had a camper too and have 2 kids...twins.  Tyler has been in school with their daughter since they were in kindergarten together so we've gotten to know them that way.  The other dad had a good catch like Tyler....pulling in a 4 pound Northern.  The two of us decided to go ahead and fillet them up and cook them for dinner that night.  I did Tyler's bass and he did his Northern.  Between the two, we came up with enough meat for all 12 of us to have a good size piece that night. 

 On Sunday, we headed to Bay Lake where we had reserved a pontoon to rent for the afternoon.  It was one of the best weekends we've spent up there for weather.  The sun was out every day and it was just beautiful.  The water was warm......it was perfect. 
We spent 5 hours on the lake on that pontoon.  We drove it to a sandbar and stayed there for the first 3 hours or so.  Just swimming and hanging out on the boat. 

We took the next 2 hours to just go around the lake and try some fishing.  The fishing wasn't that great, but the view was beautiful and that 5 hours flew by. 
There was a radio on the boat and we had the music playing while we swam. 
At one point, Livi was over by Jason and he started to dance with her.  It was the cutest thing ever!
All I could think of was that Steven Curtis Chapman song....Cinderella. 
Made me want to cry.......This small child, never knowing a daddy before......will now grow up having one.  How precious.

That evening, back at the campsite, some of the other people staying there had brought a ton of fireworks. All the people there pulled up a chair on the beach and watched.

Monday morning came and we took our time leaving.  We weren't in a hurry to get home and wanted to get as much swimming and fishing in before we had to head out. 
The night ended with us going to fireworks.  We only had to go about a mile from our home where people lined the streets for a great view of the show.  It was Livi's first 4th of July and her first as an American, so it was pretty special. 
What a great weekend!! 

The season of neglect

...at least for my blog it is.  My gosh, it's been almost 3 weeks since I last posted.  I think thats a record for me.....a bad one.  I have so much going on this summer with the boys that it just isn't on my mind to sit at the computer and write.  It should be.....I'm sure there have been plenty of missed opportunities to tell a story or two..... 
I could tell you about a couple random things the boys have said to make me laugh. 
Like the other night at dinner when Tony looked at dad....holds up a big spoonful of food....and says, "If I eat this, will you think I'm a man?"   You have to know Tony's personality to picture him saying this cuz it was hilarious.
Trae's been on this name-calling kick.  It's not mean-spirited, he thinks it's funny to see what outrageous name he can call his brothers.  Sometimes the things he comes up with make Jay and I look at each other with this look that says...."who IS this child?..."  His latest and most favorite is fat hobo. Hm...not crazy about the 'fat' part, but I know he does it to be funny, not mean. 
Then Tanner says to me recently that he is going to be a policeman when he grows up so that he can arrest people even when they didn't do anything wrong.  Um...okay...
And lately he calls Olivia 'sweetie' all the time and even told her today that she was the cutest thing with a cherry on top.  I mean really....how many 6 yr. olds do you know that are that precious.

The boys have been good, bad, and ugly so far this summer.  They have nearly drove me to drink and made me laugh all in the same day.  I suppose thats what happens when you have 6 kids.  If life were boring I would be feeling their foreheads and checking for fevers.