Our boy is 7!

Our first born son is now 7. He asked to go to the Mall of America and ride the rides. We obliged.

What a fun day we had. After sleeping in, I fixed a big breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits and fried eggs (his request - so like my dad!). We left around mid-morning and I continued our read-aloud of "The Goblet of Fire." Our first stop was for me to pick up some needed spices. I'm going to try their "ozark blend" for oven-fried chicken. If I like it as well as what I had been using, I'll switch. But if not, I'll have to pick up more of the original when I'm back home visiting Mom.

Then off to MOA. We hadn't been there for the kids to ride rides for at least a couple of years. But they still remembered certain rides. MOA offers a birthday package and we chose option 2 - 5 hours of unlimited rides, a free cupcake, and 3 free tokens for the game room.

We started on the rides and for 5 hours we went around and around riding and re-riding all their favorites. David and I each took one of the older girls on one of the roller coasters - both liked it. No one would ride with me on the "big" roller coaster though, simply because the cart you ride in spins as you move along the coaster. Other big favorites were The Camp Bus, The Frog Hop, The Log Ride (Youngest son even asked to go on it again!), and The kid's mini roller-coaster.

But I think the family favorite was Bumper Cars. We rode them three different times. Our family took up 5 cars - 1/2 of the ride. Only the two littlest weren't big enough to drive. The second time we rode, all the other cars had good drivers and it was a lot of fun. All of us were able to zoom around, bumping, or narrowly missing other cars. At least one of the other times, it wasn't that way. The other drivers only wanted to bump into each other and would remain, or lock you up, in a great big clump of cars.

After our five hours were used, we took the kids to the game room. With a total of 21 free tokens, there wasn't much to do. But since this was the first time our kids were ever in such a place, the game where you roll the ball and try to make it land in either a basket or in the rings was great fun. They each played twice. With one token left, one daughter suggested the game right behind us. It was the type where you put the coin in, it will roll down, and if it lands in a train car to "dump" it, you win tickets. So David tried it - and won! It was really quite funny. We ended up with enough tickets (from all the games) to cash in for a sucker for each kid. They thought it was great fun.

Since we ate a late and big breakfast, and had a treat of a cupcake (and purchased an icee), we waited till supper to fill our tummies. We chose "Nathan's Hotdogs" in honor of the birthday boy. They were pretty good - mostly we were all pretty thirsty.

After supper, while the kids enjoyed their suckers, we walked around the Mall for a bit. But by this time they were getting pretty worn out and quite a bit grumpy. So back to the van, more reading about Harry, a brief stop at the Lands' End Inlet (found sandals and tennis shoes for all but one) and finally we arrived home.

The kids went to bed and slept right away. David and I chose instead to relax a bit with a bottle of Gewurztraminer and a bit of reading first. (him, me)

Now, before you wonder. The birthday boy will get his homemade angel food cake and homemade ice-cream on Sunday afternoon. Along with a fish fry to feed whatever family is able to come join us. If you're in the area, and want to come, let me know! :-)