Day #35, 36, 37, 38, 39 & 40 - The Break, etc.

Well, I am back from my trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was lovely being away from the office, stressful being away from the dog and the house, fun to be with Travis and our friends, devastating to pay too much money for tickets to a game where our team lost, exciting to experience a professional NFL game at close range regardless of the outcome, impressive to visit the biggest mall in the USA - Mall of America, beautiful to see new spaces and scenery, frustrating to somehow over AND under pack, super fantastic to get free breakfast every morning, lousy to be reminded we overpaid for the hotel in order to get said free breakfast, great to hang out with and get to know new people, overeating on good food and walking enough everyday to drop right into bed and snooze deeply each night.

IT IS SOOOO GOOD TO BE HOME!!!

According to my calculations I am 5 posts behind. Instead of writing a post for each day I will write down a short snippet of something I was grateful for those days. If I choose to expand on those at future posts I will.

1 - I am Grateful for Chuck. My Brother stayed at my house to keep an eye on things. I am so happy he was willing to be inconvenienced and come up here a few times this weekend and be with the pets. At the same time the carpet and tile was being installed downstairs, so it was probably hard to take a nap after the graveyard shift.

My Brother Chuck...Good Guy and Superb Brother...Thanks!!

2 - Tennis shoes. I cannot say how many times I was glad I had my tennis shoes on during this trip. Perhaps my outfit would have looked better with a dressier shoe, but we walked A LOT and I would have been hurting without those comfy shoes.
3 - Sleeping in. I haven't REALLY slept in for a LONG time. It was so great to sleep until 9:00 a.m. every day.
4 - Air Conditioning - The room had it, the car did not. We borrowed a car from Matt's brother. It is their 3rd car left over and the air was not working. All Kim and Matt heard half the time was, "role down the windows!!!" It was great to have the freedom of a car though - air or no air.
5 - Making the rules of my own Blog - This list is my cheat, but I will just add 5 days on at the end if I feel like it then.

I will post some photos tomorrow. I don't know quite how I will share all the best details of my trip, but I am excited to share some of it with you. The break was great.

I Am Grateful,
HB

A few photos from trip:

 Mall of America has a Lagoon (amusement park) in the middle of it.

It is 1 mile around each level. There are 4 levels...

Picture of squished back seet of friend Karl's car...I love this photo.

MiniHaHa Falls - Who names a water fall this? Fun day. 

It is so nice when someone will take the whole groups photo...

Me, Trav, Kim and Matt...One Sweet trip. This is the Mississippi River.