Minnesota Here We Come!

Charlotte's babysitter took a vacation day on Friday, November 13th so we decided to both take the day off and head out of town for some quality family time without having to think about the other things we could/should be doing. After contemplating a few options we decided to head to Minneapolis and get a jump on our Christmas shopping. We took the money from the wedding I shot last weekend, packed the car, and headed north!

We stopped a few times on the way up. Our main stop was at an outlet mall about 40 minutes outside of the cities. We got some AWESOME deals!! From there we made our way into town. We pricelined a super cheap room and were put at the Sheraton in Bloomington. We arrived and checked in. When we got to our room with our gigantic pile of Charlotte's stuff we knew there was no way this room was going to work. It was just TOO small. Jim went and checked on upgrades and got us a bigger room with some play space for the girl.

We spent the evening playing and Charlotte got to swim for the first time. She absolutely LOVED it! We weren't surprised given how much she loves her bath. It was so awesome to watch her swim and play with us.

She was having so much fun she definitely did not want to get out of the pool. I think baby swim may be in our future!

Saturday morning we hung out. We ate breakfast in and played on the floor with all her toys. As you can see, they are EVERYWHERE. We let her take her morning nap at the hotel before we headed out for the day. When you get sad that your baby is growing too fast just put them in a king size bed, it makes them look little again!

When we made it out for the day our first stop was the General Store. Jim and I were there in 2005 and it was a very neat place so we decided to head there again. It was still chock full of all kinds of neat things. We got a couple of little gifts and then headed on our way.

Our main stop of the day was The Mall of America. After an HOUR of trying to navigate the parking garage we were finally able to park and head in. The mall was crazy but good. We got a little bit of shopping done and had a good time. Charlotte was a super rock star. She did so great the entire trip but especially at the mall. We tried to go see Santa as he had just arrived the night before, but we were too late and he was closing up shop. We did however finish the trip with this absolutely adorable family picture outside Santa's workshop. It wasn't too long later that we were all ready to go. Home here we come!