I am able to now fill in the page in Meredith's baby book, entitled "My First Vacation". Did it turn out exactly as me, the mommy-planner/perfectionist would have thought? Not exactly.
We started our vacation on Mother's Day. This may seem like an odd time to travel, but it was a deliberate choice. Our first stop was at the Wisconsin Dells. The resort we stayed at (Kalahari) had a buy one night, get one night free if you booked over Mother's Day weekend. Score!! I'm always up for a good deal. The other reason I wanted to travel on Mother's Day was because of my first Mother's Day last year. It was awesome to be a new mommy of all but 5 days, but it was rough. I'll spare most of the details but let's just say that I was bed ridden with my feet 4 times their normal size. I'll never forget the hospital nurse calling me that Mother's Day morning asking how I was doing; She assured me the swelling would go down and of course, she was right :) Anyway, I wanted to do something fun on this Mother's Day. Oh, and I
hate crowds and wanted to get in our "summer" vacation before schools were out.
So, our trip to the Dells was very nice overall and what I expected in terms of scenery, waterpark rides, resort features, etc. But, I did not expect that we would have lost our Meredith in the trip up to Wisconsin. No, we didn't actually lose her or forget to pack her :) We ended up four hours from home with a different child! Sure, she was tired when we arrived because she can't sleep well in her car seat. But, we didn't expect that she would be absolutely terrified of the water. What a change from our little girl who loves bath time and could stay in there until she gets all wrinkly. So, needless to say, I don't have very many pictures of Meredith in the water. I mean, who wants to take pictures of a screaming child? Also, she developed this very clingy behavior towards me. If she couldn't see me or be but a few feet by me, she cried or was very whiny. Usually she will go to Chad just fine, so this was a bit disturbing as well. But, she did seem to enjoy the regular pool with one of us holding her and she made some attempts to touch the water streams, as long as we were with her.
Here are some pictures of the resort we stayed in (I really liked the African theme):
Here are some of our pictures from the water (Kalahari had an indoor waterpark, so we never had to go outside to swim. Very nice for our fair-skinned family):
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| Pre-Water Park. So far, so good! |
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| She hated this "ride". |
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| She had some fun with Daddy in the big pool. |
We had time to go to a big outlet mall in the Dells (obviously, since Meredith didn't like the water), so here is Meredith enjoying one of the kiddie rides:
What a nice family picture!:
Leaving the Dells for Mall of America. She looks excited, doesn't she? :)
Well, she's a little more excited now that we are actually in the van:
Okay, so Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota was really our favorite part of the trip. It was a three hour drive from the Wisconsin Dells. Meredith did really well in her stroller as we walked through the biggest mall in America. She was very patient as we spent two days there and walked nearly the entire mall (so it took hours and hours and hours). It helps that she loves to look and "talk" to people. She made a little friend as we were eating there one evening and couldn't take her eyes off of the girl. We also liked that our hotel was only about 3-4 minutes from the mall and that parking was free at the mall (I was
very surprised by this) and the parking decks were very close to the entrances.
One of our first stops was when we came upon the Disney store. Needless to say, she enjoyed it very much and all the toys they had there:
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| What girl doesn't like a princess mirror? |
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| She LOVED the tunnel. |
Here are some more pictures of the Mall:
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| I was amazed at all of the rides. |
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| The lego store was really neat. Too bad most of the pieces they had were too small for Meredith. |
Some family pictures. Too bad we didn't get anyone to take one of the three of us so we could be in one together! (Can you believe that is a log ride behind us...in a mall!?):
This is how she took naps when we were in the mall. She did very well:
We did let her stretch her legs every once in a while. Can you tell she enjoyed it?:
Another fun part of our time in Minnesota was visiting the IKEA store that was adjacent to the Mall of America. AMAZING store and I could have spent hours in there. We also had a delicious meal there....a half rack of ribs, cornbread, and fries for $6.99!!! That was the best meal price we had anywhere on our trip and the food was awesome! Here is Meredith enjoying the kids section in IKEA:
Overall, this was a nice vacation. Chad had time to relax from his job and didn't check e-mail at all. I was very proud of him! Also, it was a bit of a vacation for me too, because Chad was able to help me with Meredith, which I don't get during the days while he is at work.
The hangups (whiny little girl, her vomiting in the hotel room - I'm not even going to get into the details on that, and her fear of water) were quickly overlooked when we think about our fun experience. Would I do this again?? YES! Maybe just not with a one year old :)
