Sorry about the delay in the blog. We are all back together in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I want to thank my friends Christy and Dave for being such wonderful hosts to me while I was in Tampa. It was an emotionally difficult weekend but I am really glad I went. I have so much I want to say about my weekend but I just can't seem to find the right words to type so Dave is going to tell you about their weekend instead.
Well the boys and I stayed in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. After dropping Cindi at the airport we headed across the street to the highly touted Mall of America. The new Apple G3 iPhone debuted on Friday. Since my phone was having serious issue, like people can't hear me, I figured I joined the other crazies and battle the line (with 3 kids) at the Apple store. L-o-n-g story but after 3 and 1/2 hours I finally left the store WITHOUT the stupid phone. As Charlie Brown would say... "AUUGH!" Apparently I didn't qualify because I already have an AT&T phone. Whatever! We walked around the Mall and right before we were about to leave a very nice mom asked me if I'd like to have 2 free tickets to the amusement park. So I bought one more and the kids were loving it for the next 3 hours riding rides inside the middle of the mall.
The next day... back to Mall of America to see the movie Kung Fu Panda by Dreamworks. We enjoyed it but my personal animated favorites remain Toy Story II, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc. After more walking and shopping we had dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe where the kids had some cool balloons made for them (see photos). I also also bought a rocket for me... and the kids. It's the kind my brother Doug and I would launch off when we were kids. (Serious note: I keep telling myself, this is the time to do all those things that I have been "too busy" to do over the last 12 years. This rocket makes that list. Now I just need to make the time to build it and blast it off with the kids).
The last day, Sunday, we ventured out and headed to the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. The kids are getting overloaded with museums but this one had a special Star Wars exhibit and a special effects movie showing at the huge curved Omnivision screen. Since the exhibit was sponsored by Medtronic (I really enjoyed working for Medtronic. It is a great company with great people!) I talked the ticket lady into an $8 discount. As usual the kids weren't really excited about another museum but hours later I had to drag them out. After pizza we watched the movie Madagascar in the RV. I've heard this movie a few times diving down the road back home in Cindi's Denali but believe it or not I have never watched it with the kids. Albiet a small one, it's another thing I apparently didn't have time for, or make time for, over the last few years. We did get to watch the movie on the Sony flatscreen I installed but after experiencing the Bose demo in the Bose store yesterday at the Mall, I now need to find a way to install my Bose sound system that was too big to bring in the RV that I refused to leave in storage (that was a long sentence). We then picked up Cindi at the airport. Yea! Mommy's back!
Well, I flew back Sunday but got stuck in all kind of weather delays. My flight from Chicago to Minneapolis was cancelled and so was the earlier flight to Minneapolis. There was only one more flight out that night. I was lucky enough to get bumped up on the standby list (there were 86 people on standby) and because I fly a lot I got pushed to #3. Finally, flying all the time paid off and got on the flight. I didn't get back 'till after midnight but I was glad I didn't have to sleep in the airport.
We stayed the night at Walmart and then headed to the grocery store in the morning. After groceries we drove to William Obrien State Park. It is a nice place and we are very excited to be able to relax for a few days. We sat and talked to Richard the camp host for quite some time. He and his family were so nice and gave us many tips as to where to visit next. One of the best things about this trip is all the wonderful people you meet along the way.
Thought of the day: Faith and God's love is the only way to make it through a terrible loss. I honestly don't know how people that don't believe in the truth make it through such tough moments.
By the way, the state park we are at does not have cell service so if you are trying to call us you are out of luck. We are getting hardly any internet either. It goes in and out and I am hoping this will post. If you need usin an emergency send us a email and we will drive somewhere to connect with you. We have pics for this post but they won't download due to lack of internet so we will add them later.
