Mini vacation in Minnesota

This past weekend, Kevin worked a 36 hour layover in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since Kiera and I have not joined him on an overnight for over a year, we decided it was time. So, we caught a 9:10 flight out on Friday night and returned at 1:15 on Sunday. We almost didn't get on the plane Friday because there was only one seat and now that Kiera is two, we each need our own seat. Luckily we had a very helpful gate agent that allowed her on as a lap child since she turned 2 less than a month ago. Let me just tell you that I now know why they have this two year old needs there own seat rule....She is too big to sit on your lap in a regional jet for three hours. Thank God she is a frequent flier and is very good on planes, otherwise I would not have done it. Anyway, she was very excited to know that her Daddy was flying the plane.
So we landed at midnight and by the time we picked up our rental car and headed to downtown St. Paul to the Crowne Plaza it was after 1 am. Whew! What a day.

Here is the little angel in her hotel crib:

The next day we headed to the Mall of America. Ok, imagine three HUGE malls stacked on top of each other with an amusement park in the middle....there you have it....the biggest mall in America. Here are some pictures of us at the amusement park:

We also had a nice lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Kiera really liked it except when I tried to get her picture with the giant frog. The elephants were stone and didn't move, but their eyes lit up and the whole restaurant got darker and the sound of large elephants loomed overhead. Many kids cried, but not Kiera!

I don't know why the pictures above did not cooperate, but anyway, the whole reason I went to Minnepolis was to escape the Houston heat and see some snow!

Here is the view from our hotel room. This is the Mississippi River frozen over:

We went to a local park and had some fun in the snow. It was so cold (14 degrees in these pictures) that the snow did not even stick. So no snowmen or snowballs, but there was still tons of fun!

Kiera's most favorite thing about the snow was when her Daddy threw her up in the air:

Yes, we own a snowsuit! We were supposed to go skiing this Christmas, so Aunt Wanda bought Kiera one. I was thinking we weren't going to get to use it, but we did!

We had a terrific time!