...and Happy New Year

My family minus a few at Rain Forest Cafe in MOA, New Year's Eve

Growing up, my family celebrated every New Year's Eve at Mall of America with my dad's sister and her family that live in Minneapolis. We stopped when Ben and I were in high school and I have always missed it. This year we made a big effort to celebrate Brian's return from his mission and start the tradition again! When we first started going, my baby brother was not much older than Nate and Lauren. Now he's a junior in high school! Nickelodeon owns the amusement park in the mall (that is where the party is) and so the kids got to meet a lot of Nickelodeon stars. There were just as many rides for kids as there were for adults and at 10 pm they did a big countdown and balloon drop. They had so many activities that we didn't get to: a huge sand box (since the party this year was beach themed), sharks to pet,
face painting, hula dancing, etc.
The kids were still riding rides at 9:40 and didn't even get to ride all of them (because they rode their favorites 2 or 3 times in a row!). I thought they would get tired by 8ish and we would have to drag them to stay til 10. They were partying hard all the way to the end. After the balloon drop, my parents and Erica took the kids back to the hotel while my brothers, Chris and I rode rides until the midnight countdown. You would have thought we were 10 years old again, running from ride to ride, arguing over who gets what seat. It was so much fun. But I will say, I was glad to climb into my bed at 12:15, completely exhausted, dreading getting up with a nursing baby in a few hours. I hope we can keep this as an annual tradition again. Hope you had a Happy New Year as well.