Day 7 - Mall of America!

We are onto Day 7!  Unfortunately there are no pictures to go with this days blog because I forgot my camera in the car...like the dumb dumb I am.  BUT there was a lot of fun happening that I can describe.

Today we traveled from Duluth to Minneapolis to go see the Mall of America!  The students were really excited about all they were going to do today.  We got on the road, eventually, and we got to the Mall of America around 10:00.  It took a little bit to find parking, get everyone organized, find a bathroom! and figure out a plan.  Basically we decided to wander around the mall until noon for lunch.  We split up into three groups and went on our way.  I had three girls and three boys with me, luckily my mom came with so I had a little help wrangling them in.  My mom describes them in the mall and trying to watch them as trying to wrangle cats...a tad difficult.  They got to see a lot of different stores, the candy store being their favorite!  They got "blood" packs, they thought that this candy was genius!  They also looked at a store that had nothing but hats, that was pretty cool to them too.

We started heading towards the food court and our girls got highjacked by a beautician so they all got mini make overs, complete with make up and colored streaks in their hair...they looked adorable!  While the girls were being made over the boys were being introduced to the bands that help you balance.  They had a lot of fun testing them out.  I finally had to drag them away so we could stay on schedule.  We found the food court and enjoyed a delicious Arby's lunch...YUM!  We had a few issues trying to find the other groups but eventually we regrouped. 

At 1 we went to the Sea Life Aquarium in the Mall of America.  If you haven't gone you should GO!  It was so much fun.  We first got a back stage pass and they took us around the aquarium.  We got to see them feed the sharks, learn how they take care of sick animals, and how they feed all the animals in the aquarium.  It was super interesting.  The students also learned about the intelligence of octopuses, the life spans of sea horses, and a bunch more...just in the back stage tour.  Our tour guide was very friendly and also very helpful and informative.  After the tour we got to go through the aquarium.  It's so neat!  They have an exhibit that shows what tide pools look like, they have a whole section with A LOT of jellyfish, and big tanks that you walk through in see through tunnels.  The first tunnel we went through had a shark sitting on top of it!  Sheila let out an interesting squeal when we pointed that out to her :D  They also had a broken statue of Poseidon in the larger tank and all the students were excited to ID him, gotta love that Greek Mythology unit!   Of course we ended in the gift shop but it was a lot of fun.  Mom bought all of the students a mini ID flip book that they could use to figure out what fish they saw and as a keep sake from the aquarium.  We all love her! 

Next was Nickelodeon Land!!  Let me tell you....TALK ABOUT FUN!   Most of our students, like 99% of them, have NEVER been on any type of roller coaster....ever!  When we first got there we all went on the log shoot.  For those of you that know the old Camp Snoopy it's the Paul Bunyan log shoot.  They all loved it and bought some pretty hilarious pictures of us going down the shoot.  Then it was roller coaster after roller coaster.  There was A LOT of screaming.  At one point I was crying so hard from all the high pitched screaming that was going on.  I had to be a couple of student's "roller coaster buddy" but a lot of them put on their brave faces and went for it.  A couple of the students weren't into high motion rides so they got a couple of snacks and one student got a characture (sp??) of herself and a lot of them thought this was so cool!  They all stood around while the picture was finished.  They also were introduced to Dip N Dots!  No one believed me that it was ice cream!  It took a lot of convincing and taste testing to prove that it was indeed ice cream.  Next I took them to bumper cars.  I figured for the students that aren't big into the fast rides this might be a better pace.  They loved them!  I swear everyone went on the bumper cars at least 4 times a piece! 

We only had two hours on our passes, which worked out wonderfully because we had dinner reservations at 5 and the tickets started at 3.  We were getting close to five so we split up and hit the final rides that we wanted to hit.  All in all this was a big hit with the students.  No one walked away complaining.

Our next stop was Rainforest Cafe.  This is one of my favorite restaurants in the Mall of America.  It's set up like a rainforest and they have thunderstorms every 45 minutes...so cool!  We were a tad late...one student "wandered off" for a bit, but luckily the people working rocked and they found us a place.  We were seated by a giant statue of Atlas, again with the Greek Mythology, and we had a mini review session about the Olympians and Titans...wow we're nerds!  The first thunder storm happened about 10 minutes after we were there, there was a lot of "ooohhhh" and "Ahhhhhhhh"s.  There were also a lot of fish tanks, so they were entertained.  Dinner was on a select menu and of course...they all chose hamburgers!  You'd think that they would be sick of them but nope...they stick with what they know.

After dinner we went shopping again.  Let me tell you...I'm pretty sure I'm going to get A LOT of angry emails from moms in Kong because I introduced the girls to Claires....their new favorite store!  We also hit the Disney store and Hot Topic....all popular.  The boys checked out game world or whatever the store is that has tons of electronics and games.  Yeah...getting them out of there was a challenge!  Luckily we had the walkie talkies to keep in communication with Oscar and his group because they wandered away from the rest of us and the mall is a tad large...so finding them would have been tricky.  Eventually we all regrouped and headed back to the hotel.

One interesting fact about this day of the trip is that it was 103 degrees outside!  Minneapolis was the hottest city in the entire US that day!  The humidity was ridiculous as well.  Sheila and I were so thankful that we chose to stay inside that day of the trip.  I'm pretty sure the students would have died otherwise.  Just walking to the car was pretty difficult for them.  It was hot in the mall as well but not nearly as bad as it would have been outside!

That night we settled down in our AWESOME hotel.  We stayed at Cambria Hotel and it's a NICE hotel!  The students walked into their rooms and couldn't believe it.  They kept saying we were VIP!  We relaxed the rest of the night and journaled about our day.  They were all pretty exhausted so it didn't take a lot of convincing that we should go to bed.  :D