Birthday Wishes From Minnesota!

Wednesday is Betty's birthday!  Unfortunately, I am spending her birthday in Bloomington, Minnesota.  What kind of present is that - leaving your wife at home during her birthday week to take care of the house, the kids, and the cat by herself?  I know I will have a lot of make-up work to do when I get home!  I flew out Sunday to go to Bloomington for a training class for work.  Betty's first full day on solo duty included dealing with a sick cat, discovering Matt cut a gap out of the front of his hair (two days before school pictures!), and helping McKenzie through the heaviest homework night of the school year so far.  We've been using video chat to keep in touch, but you just can't use video chat to tag team stuff like that!  Betty, I hope you have a great birthday anyway!  You deserve it!

Before I left on my trip, we went to Batesville looking for stuff the kids needed.  One thing they didn't need but I couldn't resist since it was on sale for $5, was a Spiderman costume for Matt.

He loves Spiderman right now and I knew he'd love this.  He had to put it on immediately and slept in it that night, too!

This has nothing to do with anything, but I had to share......

This is Andy in a Beatles wig Sunday morning!  He sang with some other Beatles impersonators Saturday night at a thing at our church and was showing off his wig before church Sunday.

Now for a few pics from my trip so far.  This first picture is of my rental car.  A young lady from National Car Rental led me and another man to the midsize row for us to pick out a car.  The other man was ahead of me and when we got to our row, he practically sprinted to a nice, generic red car.  I looked around and realized why he was in such a hurry.  All of the rest of the vehicles were different color variations of this.....

That's right......I'm driving a Cube.  I've gotten the strangest looks this week in parking lots and riding down the road.  I think I saw a man laugh at me tonight as I left the hotel to go eat.  Let's move on.....

Monday night I went to the Mall of America, which is the largest mall in the country.  It's amazing and I only got through about half of it.  I plan on going back a time or two before I leave.  Here are a few pics.

 This is an autographed picture of the Boston Red Sox after their 2007 World Series Championship.  Only $3,000!!!

 This is the three story American Doll store.  McKenzie would love this store.

 This is a Dora the Explorer Ferris Wheel in the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park which is in the middle of the mall.  They have this, a roller coaster, a log ride, and several other games and stuff in there.

This is a Super Target.  Not only am I missing Betty's birthday this week, but I'm spending the week in the birthplace of Betty's favorite store - Target.  The first Target store opened in this area in 1962.  I did make a trip to this Super Target for Betty.  I called her while I was in there so she could tell me what to get.  I was amazed how she could tell me where to go and where stuff would be.  It was like she could see inside the store and she'd never been to that one!  I guess if I couldn't spend Betty's birthday with her, spending it with Target is the next best thing.

Happy Birthday Betty!!!!!!!!