Exploring Minnesota: Shopping, Art, and Laura

This week Grandma P and HG visited giving us a great opportunity to explore our new state.  We hadn't seen much outside of the Twin Cities.  We hadn't seen much of  the Twin Cities.  Our guests arrived Thursday late afternoon.  On Friday we visited the Mall of America.  I think we saw all of the third floor and we wandered a little through the 1st and 2nd floors as well.  Our favorite stops were the Lego store, a game store, and getting Jelly Belly Jellybeans from a little candy store.  We browsed the American Girl store and the kids all bought something at the toy store.  Maybe sometime we will go to ride the rides at the theme park.  We saw a bowling alley, movie theater and putt putt golf in the mall but did not run across the new Aquarium.  Maybe next time.

From the third floor you can look out and see some amazing lego designs.

We miss the Spencer family.  I took a picture of this display just for them.

Across the aisle.  Game heaven in this store for sure.

The American Girl store is two stories and has a cafe and hair salon for girls and their dolls.  We made no purchases here.  Yikes! Can you say EXPENSIVE dolls.  Maybe if JJ gets into it in the future but not before.

JJ in the Lego store.  She loves Woody.

This may be a fun future visit.

Outside the lego store is a play place with.....legos.

The lego store.  The dragon runs the length of the store and can be seen from overhead too.

Another future visit may have to include a meal at Bubba Gumps.

Friday night Erin, Grandma P, HG, and JD went to see the Twins play the Tigers.  They were a minority cheering loud for the Tigers, but the Tigers won so they came home happy.  Target field looks like a nice place but I'll leave it for my boys. :)

On Sunday evening we went to the Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis.  It was bigger and fuller than I would have thought.  We had been told that we couldn't live here if we hadn't seen the "spoon" so here we are with the giant spoon bridge sculpture.

Really not sure what JJ is doing here.  Some weird pose.

The kids thought after this that they had to pose with every piece of art.  After a while we stopped taking pictures but it really was a nice evening and a nice walk.  We will go back sometime and see the few parts we missed including the longest poem which is written on the bridge crossing 16 lanes of traffic.

I really did think this was an interesting piece of art and could be a great photography subject.

The Spinner.

Walking through an archway.

Not sure what these are but the kids enjoyed climbing on and posing with them.

This was called something like: Spider at night.  Interesting...

Tuesday was JD's ninth birthday.  He wanted a Narnia cake so I thought through a couple of ideas and ended up with this.  He chose it from some pictures I found online.  I don't think it turned out too bad.

 For his Birthday JD wanted to visit Walnut Grove, Mn. which is 2 1/2 to 3 hours away from us.  We loaded up in the van and did the whole touristy thing.  I think he enjoyed it.

Walnut Grove water tower.

Our first stop was the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.  It had a lot of memorabilia from her life, a lot of information, and a room of mermorabilia from the show including the fireplace mantel from the set.

JD as Pa, HG as ma.

JJ as Laura

 I really liked that the museum was very welcoming to hands on learning.  This pump organ was free to be played.   Erin tried it out and so did two of the kids.

JD and JJ try out writing on slates.  JD was VERY excited to try this.

Wouldn't you know....she had to try on the shoes.

A clothes line and clothes to try out washing and drying.  A badger fur on the table and a bison head on the wall.  This room was so family friendly.  We spent some hands on time in here.

HG tries out the original jail cells that had been removed from the Walnut Grove firehouse.

This is a replica of the dugout.  Built to the size Laura describes in her book.  This one is actually above ground rather than built into the bank.  It is tiny.  I can't imagine living here at all, let alone with a family of 5 including young children.  Dirty and gross.

JD teaching school.

 Another hands on area included an old time grocery store, telephone booth, and post office.  It also had a display of a covered wagon filled with all the belongings a family may have taken across the prairie.  It also had Walnut Grove's old printing press.

JD doing a little shopping.

JR was very intrigued with the old phone.

JJ found a horse and that's all she needed for a fun day.

 I also appreciated seeing the prairie grass that had been replanted in the area.  It was very pretty.  It was very tall.  A young child would have been swallowed up in it running along side the wagon train.

There is still a depression in the ground where the original home stood.  Landmarks talked about in the book are also pointed out on this farm where the owners have opened the historic site to the public.

 We ate lunch at Nellie's Cafe.  A just for fun place.  There wasn't a Nellie's Cafe in real life but the TV show made one up.  It is about the only place in Walnut Grove to eat.  It is a very small town.  We also shopped at Olson's Mercantile.  A just for fun tourist place.  On the way we drove through Sleepy Eye and passed near Mankato, two places talked about in the TV show.  I'm pretty sure at least Mankato is mentioned in the book.

Little by little we are exploring our new state.  We saw more of it this past week than we have since we moved.  We look forward to more visitors to help us explore more of Minnesota.