Mall of America!

We had a big event in Minneapolis Minnesota a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time I have ever been to Minnesota and I loved it! Totally different than I expected. The fun thing about this trip is, all the girls from the Marketing department were there! We stayed down town which was about 20 minutes away from the mall. But that didnt stop us from going there every single day..which was 4 days. I loved flying in and seeing all the lakes and green yards. Every ones houses always look so much cooler from the air too. When we werent working, we were at the mall. We ate out (which when you are on a strict diet is hard). We rode mechanical bulls

And roller coasters

One night after dinner with my coworkers I met up with my cousin and his wife that live there. He came and picked me up at Mall of America and showed me around town and took me for yummy frozen yogurt (also not on the diet plan). I really wanted to see where they lived and meet their famous dog Benny. Their house was beautiful and it was so fun to sit on this fantastic little room off the back of his house, enclosed on his deck.

We stayed up talking until like midnight when he finally drove me back to my hotel down town. I love that guy...he reminds me so much of my brother. The day we flew out, a few of us took a later flight so we could hang out and actually shop at the Mall of America. This place is HUGE!!!! We got there right at 10 am when it opened and shopped until 3 pm and I still only saw the first floor. It has over 4.3 miles of shopping space! How would you like some Mall of America Fun facts?
It has over 520 stores, 50 restaurants, 24 amusement park rides including a roller coaster that winds around the enclosed atrium of the mall.
There’s also a 1.2 million-gallon aquarium that features sharks, stingrays, giant sea turtles and other types of aquatic creatures.
86 hours is the length of time it would take to complete your visit to the Mall if you were to spend just 10 minutes in each store. Thats a lot of shopping.
My very, very favorite store was TYPO. I pretty much wanted to buy every single thing in that store. Here is a tiny example of its cuteness:

But one thing about Mall of America, is it taught me one of the greatest lessons on marriage while visiting. I had ONE thing that I had in mind that I wanted to buy. Just one thing. A cute fall jacket and I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like. And to my surprise, I found it. I sent this exact picture to Russ to see if he liked it.

Of course, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world and thought he would share in my excitement seeing how I found the one and only thing I wanted 500+ stores and no one else would have it in Utah. He responded about me looking like a biker chick and a bad @$$. Hmm, not the response I was looking for. But you better believe I made room for that baby in my suitcase and I also learned a valuable lesson of not asking husbands their opinions on clothing and decor. Those cute letters in the picture above.. I sent him a picture of those too. Our front living room has a bunch of red tones so I got white and red letters for our initials and text him a picture of it laid out, and his response for that, "Is it for Valentines Day or something?" Never again. Do not ask the hubs.
Have I mentioned how much Russ loves the honey badger you tube video? He does. So I bought him this as a souvenir.