My Suburban Bubble: A brief retrospective

I haven't coordinated with Ian to get the nice NY pics from his camera yet so here's a look back at the recent holidays. We made the trek to the Twin Cities for the first time in a shamefully long time. The drive didn't seem overly tedious. I guess if you put an iDevice (or two) in the hands of all passengers time will fly.

First we stopped off in Oklahoma City to visit my family and celebrate our Christmas with them. Over the years we've done various takes on name drawing or Dirty Santa - homemade gifts, used items, $25 limit - and now we've moved on to Gift Card Dirty Santa. We left for the northern leg of our trip well-stocked with iTunes, Target, Whole Foods and Starbucks cards.

After narrowly missing what must've been a tow truck driver's worst nightmare in Des Moines we made it to blustery St. Paul. It was cold like we haven't felt in a very long time. Negatives! As much as I hate the Austin summers I don't know if the Minnesota winters are any better. Heat Index vs. Wind Chill? But those Minnesota summers...ahhhhhh. Alex was thrilled to see real snow...INCHES of it! Emma was tickled to finally have good reason to wear her warm boots. She also spent Christmas Eve in bed with a cold, but thankfully not the horrid flu that was going around. Knock on wood.

The new house is beautiful!

There was sledding and visiting family & friends and gifts and a Trader Joe's (my FIRST!). The Mall of America (SOMEONE needs to create a decent app that will let visitors plan their trip). They've made a lot of changes since ditching the 'Camp Snoopy' theme. I was also struck by guards at every entrance turning away any unchaperoned under-21s. I can't imagine the throngs of people if they hadn't been turning some people away. By 2pm it went from being merely crowded to Oh-My-God-I-Just-Need-To-Find-A-Corner-To-Rock-In-Crowded. But Emma loved every minute and we did actually score some fun deals. And the SOCK store - JUST SOCKS from floor to ceiling. Oh My.