Courtney's Blog August 2nd, Day 28 of the Epic McFarland Journey!

Ahhhhh. I woke up this morning fondly remembering that I never have to study again. We head down to breakfast as we usually do and on the way we pass the pool. These hotels are brutal. We are trying to keep the pool a secret whenever possible, but it's very hard with HUGE POOL signs everywhere. And...the windows showing the indoor pools that are RIGHT outside the lobby. Not to mention when you check in and they say "ARE YOU GOING TO THE POOL??"" Are you serious Mr.? Are you taking them? Anyways, this hotel actually gave us a room with a window that opens up into the indoor pool with the huge dragon water slide. We manage to avoid the kids seeing it...until the morning.

Now we begin the meltdowns. After the first two, we get down to breakfast and assume the normal routine. Adam takes our stuff to the car with Abby, I start getting us breakfast. We walk in the crowded breakfast room...and pass by the the pool...again. Start fit #3. I drag the whiny, brat tired child into the breakfast nook and search for a table. He starts whining more and more. The place is packed. Mainly with families with children the same age range. Gideon starts to completely melt down again so I say "Ok, let's go do a timeout". 75% of the room including plenty of moms are staring at us like the morning freakshow. Like they've never seen anything like this before. Like their children have never, ever, once whined or cried. As soon as I mention, "time out", Gideon calms down. I see one table left that has a muffin on it. No one is sitting at it. There is only one guy standing up getting coffee. I say to him, "is this your table?". He looks horrified like I am going to put him in a time out. He shakes his head no, "you can have it". So I throw out the muffin and sit down. Gideon starts whining ...again. Moms and their children start staring...again. "Oh, good, the show is back on with the angry, cranky mom and the whiny child!!!" I try to calm Gideon down again, but he's not calming as easily this time. I can't take the staring any longer and I sternly say the following...very, very loudly: "GIDEON, QUIET DOWN. EVERYONE IS STARING AT US. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY, BECAUSE THEY ALL HAVE CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN, BUT THEY ARE. APPARENTLY, THEY PREFER THIS TO THE NEWS. PLEASE STOP WHINING SO EVERYONE CAN FOCUS ON SOMETHING BESIDES US" It worked. The moms stopped staring immediately and Gideon must have gotten the hint because he calmed down. And for th rest of the morning, I didnt have to wait in line for anything because everyone was terrified of me. Oh well, I guess it was my turn for a temper tantrum. As we walk out of breakfast, a young girl comes in and says to her dad "what happened to my muffin?!". Ooops..I guess that WAS his table...

We decide to veer off track and head to something we hadn't originally planned - the Mall of America. We look up the amusement park inside and its really expensive, but luckily, you can buy tickets to 1 ride at a time. We decide we will play it by ear. We also decide to have lunch at one of my favorites - the RainForest Cafe. We then decide to take the kids to the Nickelodeon store, the Disney store and the Just Born Store (maker of peeps and mike and ikes). We passed by all the rides including roller coasters that were flying over our heads. So cool. The lines were incredibly long, though, so we tried our best to avoid them.

We head out of the mall with bags of new goodies and full tummies. Once we're in the car, I tell Gideon I am proud of his attitude for the trip. He was a good boy and we didn't have any meltdowns at the mall. A huge difference from breakfast. He says..."well, that means I get to watch...you know it!!". Oh man. How could I resist. That kid got to watch more egg videos.

We get to the hotel and we plan that we're going to head home soon. We schedule to be home on the 5th. That means 3 more nights in a hotel. 3 more nights of peeing on weird toilets and trying to figure out how the shower works. Three more nights of trying to be quiet while the kids sleep and we're trying to do crazy and wild things..like our nightly crossword puzzle. Yes folks, we are that old. We are having such an amazing time, but we're ready to head home. But not before Niagara Falls!

Oh, I almost forgot...on our way out of town this morning we saw signs for the famous Corn Palace. Still not sure what it was. It was raining so we didn't go inside. But I did brave walking through a biker gang to get this shot...

Summary:

I needed a 32 minute time out for my behavior, roller coasters fit in malls and people build buildings out of corn.

Ended the Day at the Fairfield Inn, Westin, WI

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