Our Life, A Beautiful Chaos......: Appointment with Santa Clause????

My brother Jeffrey had contacted me the later part of last week wondering if the kids and I would be interested in going to Macy's 8th floor display today. I have been wanting to take the kids, but as I posted previously the end of this year has been busy busy busy! Well, this morning I woke up and it was just freezing, freezing cold and even though we wouldn't need to be outside at all, the thought of going downtown was just not sounding like a joyous Monday outing! After talking with the kids and Jeff we all decided that lunch and a visit with Santa at the MOA was the way to spend the day!

After driving around for just about 40 minutes, in 4 different parking ramps I suddenly remembered why I LOVE Valet services! Thank You AVALET in Nordstroms....you are truly a life saver! No really! With all of the crazy lunatics driving around that parking ramp, I was starting to feel a slight bit violent.....it's just the truth!

Once we made it into the mall, I couldn't find where Santa was hiding out this year! Jeff was to meet us by Santa and we were already late because of our parking excursion. I resorted to asking the information booth where a lost lady with 4 children could find Santa? To which he simply replies "the good one? or the bad one?" Ummm.... well, is the good one "good enough" to convince my 16 year old that there really is a Santa? Or is the bad one "bad enough" to convince my 6 year old that there isn't? What kind of question is that? Trying to be as quick witted as possible, so that my on the fence 9 year old doesn't really catch on....I say, "we would like the BEST one please"......the reply? "Ok, well you can find him across from Bubba Gumps on the 3rd floor......but you are going to have to make an appointment". I laughed, no really....I did. Since when do we have to make an appointment to tell this jolly ole man with the pretty white beard and velvety red suit what we want for Christmas? The gentleman behind the Information desk looked at me straight faced and said "I'm serious". I couldn't believe it! Really what is this crazy world coming to?

So we find Uncle Jeffrey and decide to go have lunch before we see Santa. The kids of course picked the Rainforest, sounded good to me! We sat down for lunch and decided to have some good ole family competition with the miraculous kids menus! We found a little game that kept us occupied while our food was being prepared. Lots of giggles, it was great. Our service was horrible. Really truly horrible and I will spare you all the icky details, but we ended up getting half off of our bill. That wasn't what I was going for, but when a waitress pretty much throws a plate at you ( a little exaggerated OK, but not much ) I guess the manager has to do something drastic to make you happy!

Then it was off to see "The Man". We opted for the Santa who's schedule was apparently open for the day and didn't require an appointment. It worked out great because he was right by Lego Land so it kept the boys content during the wait, which by the way was not all that bad!

As we are waiting in line I notice the price of the pictures. Ok, now I am not a cheap person, I like nice things and I like to do nice things for others, but what in gods green earth was I going to do with a 5X7 "portrait" of my kids ( half of which know the "Santa secret") that cost a WHOPPING $14.99??? When we arrived at the "desk" the polite lady asks me, "So what would you like to purchase this afternoon"? I asked her if it was ok to just take my own picture and her politeness quickly turned into, oh, okay whatever attitude. Ahhh the joys of the holidays! Hey, my babies got to see the jolly ole man in the velvety red suit and all was good!We had a great day at the MOA, it was kind of nice because we weren't there on a mission.....we were there to have a little fun!
We visited Brookstone for a nice little massage: