Spoiled

This past Sunday we loaded up the three munchkins in the van and drove a few hours north to visit the craziest (you’ll see why in a second) mall in Canada.
Santa spoiled us again this year by sending us for a fun family vacation to West Edmonton Mall.

This year we were extra spoiled and stayed in the famous Fantasyland hotel (which is located right inside the mall.)
Oh, the convenience of staying right in the mall! Definitely a huge bonus when it came to the little ones naps!

We stayed in the “African” room and to say that the kids loved it would be a HUGE understatement, and I have to admit, Chris and I thought it was pretty cool ourselves!

Don’t you just love the leopard print carpet 🙂
Oh, and check out the tub. So cool. The kids had a ton of fun having a bubble bath in that huge thing!

Ok.
Now, onto the crazy mall…..

Let’s just start with the ginormous pirate ship right in the middle of the mall.

The kids had so much fun pretending to be pirates, and throwing pennies overboard into the water below!

And if a pirate ship isn’t enough, well, how about a huge water park, filled with tons of water slides and a huge wave pool.

This was a big hit with all the kids, although they definitely need to turn up the heat in that place. It was freeeeeeeeezing standing in line for those slides! Our poor baby girl was shivering so much that we spent quite a bit of time wading in the kiddie pool and soaking in the hot tub 🙂

This craaaaaazy mall also has a huge skating rink down one of the halls. We didn’t go skating, but really enjoyed watching.
This picture is taken from the “senior” skate time and I have to say it was so inspiring to watch all these sweet seniors gliding around the ice.

There was one lady in particular that must have been in her 70s twirling around the ice and doing crazy spin after crazy spin.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She just looked like she was enjoying herself so much and it was more than awesome to watch her doing something that she so obviously loved.
(Chris thought I was crazy for taking random pictures of complete strangers, but I wanted to remember watching them! I hope to be doing something that I love when I am older too!)

Now, if a giant pirate ship, a water park and skating rink aren’t your cup of tea- no problem. There’s plenty more crazy to come….

How about an underground aquarium?

Penguins, fish, sharks, sea turtles, crocodiles, sting rays.
This was probably our baby’s favorite part. She was so cute when she saw the penguins. She was squealing loudly and pointing excitedly. I wish I could have frozen time in those minutes watching the excitement in her eyes. Just precious.
Our big boy got to touch the sting rays and other squishy sea life. This was also very exciting!

And our two year old. Well, she was most entertained by climbing all over the rocks. Yup. Busy little bee, that one. She also LOVED the penguins. I am sure she would have sat there watching them for the rest of the afternoon, if we had let her.

Try… an indoor amusement park.

The kids all enjoyed riding the rides and playing the arcade games. Chris and I had to fight over who would go on the yucky fast, spinney rides with our big boy and Chris lost, so he got to ride the “fun” rides with the kids.
It’s so sad. I used to LOVE rides. The faster, the more spin, the better. But ever since having kids I can barely watch the rides without my stomach turning 🙁