Trip to the Mall

I said I would post more about our company that we had last week...well, here's the "more" :) A friend of ours from back home who I knew from way back in our young adult group days at church and who Nathan has known since going to school in Foley was in Chicago for business. He saw via facebook that we were staying in a hotel close to the airport in Chicago and we decided to hook up! We haven't seen each other in YEARS! So last Thursday evening, Joel came over for some homemade pancakes (which I think he appreciated since he eats out Monday-Friday while he travels!) and some fellowship with lots of laughs. We had to joke that our houses back home are 5 miles from eachother but it takes us both being in Chicago in order to get together. :) Lots-a-laughs

Due to the weather, Nathan was off work last Friday and we decided to take a trip to the mall. We had no idea what kind of mall it was, it just had The Buckle there and that's where Nathan wanted to find some pants. Once we started to walk around, we realized that it was a tad bigger than the mall close to where we are staying as it remided us a little of the Mall of America, except a bit smaller and minus the amusement park :) But we did look at the directory like 15 times, just to give you an idea. We ran into the Rain Forest Cafe restaurant and our kids were mezmorized by everything they had there. "We wanna eat here!" they all said excitedly. Well, first we needed to finish shopping and then it was time for a potty break. Since we were right next to Sears, we thought to just go in there. We noticed though that there were quite a few people sitting on the benches and standing next to the entrance of Sears with lots of security. We thought there must be a show or appearance or something? But we kept on...needa find those bathrooms! One step into Sears and we saw this sign....

Ahhhh...that makes sense now! Well, pretty sure it might as well be the president making an appearance with as much security and police and rope and walkie-talkies and other badge-wearing people there were!!! It was even 3 hours before they were coming! The mob of people about an hour and a half before their arrival.

We decided it was time to eat and it was quite the experience for the kids! They loved it!! They were so well behaved too! I think it had something to do with all the things going on around them but the waitress had to comment on how they were are sitting so still and quiet and then they ALL ate everything off their plate and literally licked them clean...she was impressed with that too. "AND good eaters?!?...Where were you when I had kids?!" she said :)

They had a big screen at the mall where you could see yourself and then penguins and polar bears came out of the water on the screen by you. The kids had fun. Can you see us on the screen? :)

The one thing that we are finding out living in a big city is that 5 kids is A LOT!! My friend here said that she thinks she's seen a family with 4 but that's the most. So when we are walking out in public, like the mall, we might as well have aliens sticking out of our heads with the looks that we get :) We've mostly only received nice comments from people, which is always fun to hear. One guy kinda stopped us and asked (of course, as does everyone) "Are these ALL yours?!" "yes" we say with a smile. And after he takes his jaw off the floor, he says "Do you have a couple jobs?" I said "No, just one good one." "Well, that's great!" He says. Then he realized we weren't sure which route he was taking so he went on to make sure we knew that he thought it was great. "Oh, well, beautiful family...really, I love it! Way to go." Another elderly man stuck his hand out and touched Nathan's forearm while saying "You have a beautiful family". Another lady walking with her 3ish yr old girl says to me "Excuse me, are these ALL yours?....These?...All of THESE??...yours???...These are all yours???" YES!! "HOW do you do it???...I can't even handle this one!" Another guy friendly argued with me that I wasn't old enough to have all these kids. Yep, pretty positive that I am :) Those are just a few of the recent comments. I'd love to be with some friend of ours who have 10 or 12 kids! I'm positive people would think it was a private school on a field trip or something. :)