Over the hills and through the woods...

to St. Paul, MN we went over the past weekend! We haven't taken a family road trip since June 2010 so we were really excited. It was only a 1 day event but at least we got out of the house and did something. Everyone went except for my oldest son Brandon. He stayed behind to play video games with my nephews. I usually make everyone go but this was a one time exception. We hit the road at 8 am (needless to say, we were suppose to be on the road by 6 am...us and our hmong times!) after we made a quick stop at McDonald's for breakfast. I like long road trips because it gives me time to reminiscence about everything and it helps me to clear my conscious. Anyways, I love it how driving along the way, I see all these cool barns. I love barns and their rustic red color look to them. I'd love to do a photo shoot by a barn one of these days. So, to try to not fall asleep and keep the hubby company while he's driving, I played with my camera and started to take pictures of barns along the way. Here's a couple of the barns that kind of caught my eye:

Our first stop when we got to St. Paul was the hmong flea market. We headed straight to our "favorite" vendor. I contemplated whether I should take my camera into the flea market or not and I decided not to because I really wanted to concentrate on purchasing movies instead (otherwise my camera would be everywhere and I would end up with no movies!). Of course, my kids had spotted their favorite vendors as well...the toy section! So, I ended up buying them each something. After we all got what we wanted, we decided to head to the food area. My gosh....if I ever lived in St. Paul, I'll be eating out every single day, especially at the flea market. They truly have FOB/MTT food, which is the yummiest! We decided to just grab a quick snack and then headed out to Como Conservatory.

 The Como Conservatory was just about a 5 minute drive from the flea market. It was soo crowded that I didn't take as many photos as I should/wanted to.

 Selina and Princeton looking down at the "make a wish" fountain. My Princeton said "Mommy, I want to make a wish"....I turned around and there he had 2 quarters that he scraped off from the bottom of the fountain!!

 Look at the above picture of the leaf. In the middle of the leaf is a little seed/flower growing in it. I thought this was pretty interesting.

My goofballs...hahaha....I had to "yell" at them for this group shot.
After the Conservatory, we headed to Rice Palace Buffet. The very first time I eat at this place was about 4 months ago and I thought the food was really yummy. However, I didn't really care for it this time. It was not like last time because the food wasn't as good anymore. My husband said that I was just too hungry last time..haha. After eating and filling our tummies up, we headed back home. My kids wanted to go to mall of america but it was about 5:30 pm and by the time we get there it would've been about 6:30ish and not enough time to do much. Told them that next time we'll go there instead.

Overall, we had a good weekend. Sunday, we just lounged around and watched our movies we bought from the flea market. Can't wait for our next road trip again!