If you like adventures...

Boy do I have one for you! Come along as I tell you all about the latest NessNest adventure to the cities...

Friday morning Steven tells me he wants to take our family to the cities for the night and to Nickelodeon Universe on Saturday. I agree....but it had just started to snow. By 4:00 it hadn't let up but Steven still wanted to make the trip 3 hours east. I agree. It was a nasty drive...many cars in the ditches, semi's turned over, idiots PARKED in the fast lane with no hazards on...all while traveling at about 55 mph. We decide to stop in Maple Grove for the night at an awesome Holiday Inn that had a sweet water park and a separate kids bedroom with bunk beds.

Abram peeking over the wall dividing the bedrooms.

the very excited boys on the bunk beds. Abram chilaxin'

Ethan :)


We head to the water park and hang out there until about 10pm, come back and try to settle the boys into bed. They soon fall asleep which left Steven and I in a fabulous king size bed trying to fall asleep as well...except that there was a tweenager birthday party on the second floor that partied and ran the halls well past curfew. At 1:15am Steven called the front desk to complain and the lady had obviously had several other calls as well. Around 1:30 it finally quieted down but 7am came too quickly with the halls once again filled with noise and slamming doors. We decide to get up and head to breakfast.

Suddenly things quickly take a turn for the worse with one simple phone call. My dad had called to tell me that Goldy, our dog had gotten out of his house(he was suppose to be dog sitting) and roaming the streets. I call my sister who is hysterically freaking out...which sends me into panic mode. All I hear her say is "One of your neighbors called my house and said Goldy got hit by a car!" I begin to freak out...Steven, knowing me all too well senses my panic and takes the call away from the table to settle my sister down. He comes back...I'm about to barf, kids are curious as to what's going on...it's ugly.

We say a prayer for our meal and dog and begin to eat when the phone rings again...it was my sister. Her daughter, that heard the phone message from my neighbor, heard and relayed it wrong...Goldy had NOT been hit by a car. Praise God! He did however get brought over by a car...lol. Some man found him roaming the streets trying to make it back home and returned him but found out we weren't home. Our awesome neighbors S&S tried to get Goldy out of this guys car but Goldy wasn't having it. The guy needed to go to a funeral so he took Goldy with him...LOL and would bring him back later. My sister was able to get Goldy's leash from my dad and give it to our neighbor so that when Goldy returned home after attending his first funeral our neighbor could get him out. My sister also gave him her house key to our house and when Goldy returned he was put safely inside his home, just where he wanted to be! (Thank you SO much S&S and Heather & Mom for getting Goldy home safely)

Happy boys once again...

Until....we get on the highway to head to our destination of Nickelodeon Universe at Mall of America. Steven looks down and notices all the lights on the dash came on, weird we thought so we pull off and the VERY.NEXT.EXIT to explore the situation. We just so happen to pull into a gas station that has a full service station as well. Steven goes in and has a guy come take a look...we lost a belt...no we didn't just lose a belt, the belt had been mangled into shreds of rubber. When the guy pulled it out it was scary looking. He tells us he can order the part but can't fix it today, sorry.

Steven, knowing me all to well walks next door to another gas and full service station (seriously where can you find TWO gas and full service stations RIGHT NEXT DOOR to each other) and sees if they can help before telling me anything. We are blessed, they can order the part which will take an hour and 30 minutes to put it on, sweet! The lovely wife of the station owner offers to take us somewhere close...but the only thing close is a teeny tiny CVS pharmacy...but we agree. We walk and walk and walk around CVS...listening to the kids ask if THIS is what we came to the cities for...lol. Steven calls the guy at about one hour to check the status and he says there is another part that needs to be replaced, he has it in stock and it should only be about another hour. So the wife comes back for us and we decide to sit in the teeny tiny service station instead, playing "eye spy" and "in the whole wide world." At last...$320 later and it's DONE! We thank these amazing people and head to Nick Universe counting our blessings for God's hand in this entire situation so far. We arrive at the off ramp to the mall and wait for 45 minutes to get to the turning lane to the mall where we discover NO ONE is allowed in the mall parking lot, we must park across the street in the Ikea parking lot and walk in 3" of snow and frigid temps with two, very excited and patient boys over to the mall. Was this a joke I kept thinking??? We finally arrive at about 3pm at the mall where everyone in the twin cities is enjoying Nick Universe. Crazy lines and people everywhere. At this point we are starving but the boys just wanted to ride a few rides. After about an hour and this mama on the verge of a total melt down we get some food in our bodies and enjoy the rest of our time together as a family!!!






the best family picture I could get.



At 9:30pm with the boys and us parents totally exhausted, we decide to make our way back home. With a 3.5 hour ride home any later would have been bad news. We were already so sleepy. Abram fell asleep in the Ikea parking lot about 42 seconds after he got in the van.



say what?!?!? Who drove us home?!?!? LOL

And that's one adventure we wont soon forget! Hope you enjoyed your trip with us!