Thirty-six days of completed writing prompts for me., and I am absolutely loving it. I only write for 5 or 10 minutes. This was my prompt for August 26: Day 32: Describe a memorable trip.
Yesterday, Nina and I took Niko to the Great Wolf Lodge in Bloomington, MN (about an hour from us). Niko had been looking forward to this for a while (a while back, he watched a YouTube Kids video where a family visited Great Wolf Lodge). Well, after I finished my workday on Monday, I was off the rest of the week. Mainly so I can join them, and also, school for Niko starts next week. On August 31st, we get to meet his teacher. He then starts 5th grade on September 2nd. It’s nice because he is off September 4th and September 7th, so it will be a quick first two days and then a 4-day week!
Besides a trip to TX in June, we haven’t done anything. Even though Nina had grand plans of getting him out of the house more to do outside things this summer, that never happened.
So, on Tuesday morning, not only did we visit Great Wolf Lodge, but we also packed overnight clothes if we wanted to stay overnight. The Great Wolf Lodge was enjoyable, but only the wave pool and lazy river. A portion of the waterpark was closed, so that was disappointing. As we were eating a not so great lunch at the Great Wolf Lodge, we had a family discussion – stay at a hotel (not the Great Wolf Lodge) or go home. I was outvoted, so we booked a nearby hotel with a walking bridge to the Mall of America.
For dinner, we journeyed to the Mall of America where we walked around and Niko got a drink from a place called Niko Niko. We then had dinner at Benihana as we wanted to show Niko the experience of having a chef cook in front of us. I have been to a Benihana once, and that was a very long time ago. I really enjoyed my chicken fried rice and the onion soup. The fresh vegetables (onions and zucchini) and shrimp were absolutely delicious. Niko ate most of the shrimp that was given to the three of us, and I ate lots of the vegetables from them. Nina had noodles, and they were a bit too spicy for me. Niko got Wagyu beef fried rice and a lobster tail. He has always to try Wagyu, and he never had a lobster tail. Well, drumroll…Wagyu was really good, but the lobster was OK, so Nina and I split it. On our cruises, there is always one night where the main meal is lobster tail and shrimp, and I order two or sometimes three!
The following day, we did Mall of America again, but this time, we shopped, we ate, we ate, and we ate! We did visit the aquarium and saw the theme park. As we were leaving, Nina looked at our bags, and said everything we are taking home is food! Well, exactly, how else do we roll? Niko had Shake Shack for lunch, and Nina and I had Ramen (me, I had stir fry and she had some appetizers).
Yes, we will definitely go back to the Mall of America, not sure on the Great Wolf Lodge.
