Let's Go to THE MALL!

If you don't watch How I Met Your Mother you have no idea who Robin Sparkles is. You also would not know that her big hit song as a 90's Canadian pop sensation was "Let's Go to the Mall."
Oh, and if you don't watch How I Met Your Mother, you should. I don't watch many shows of the scripted variety anymore, but this is a show worth watching.

Anyway, in case you didn't catch my drift by the title of this post, we went to the mall today.

The big mall.

We never go to the big mall because we ALWAYS encounter ungodly traffic on the way there. Today, much to our chagrin, wasn't any different. Even on a Thursday morning at 10 am.

Holy gridlock, Batman.

Fortunately we used our wits and found an alternate route. Without a GPS, mind you.
Because we're losers and don't have one.

Ahem.

So anyway, we went to the big mall today for a purpose.
Someone had money and gift cards to blow.

Lucky.

Ah, a Lego store gift card, courtesy of my mom and dad.

The Lego store is Caroline's personal Disney World. In fact, when we visited Disney World a few years ago, the Lego Store, adjacent to the McDonald's, at Downtown Disney was the highlight of her trip. Well, that and the hotel pool. Clearly we should have saved our money on the pricey tickets to the theme parks and spent the entire trip swimming, eating chicken Mcnuggets and playing at the Lego store.

Lesson learned.

Caroline managed to walk away with quite a bit of loot today. We brought along her friend, Bailey, who is a fellow Lego and Webkinz enthusiast. In quite a show of generosity, Caroline bought a Webkinz for both herself and Bailey today. Usually Caroline is a bit more conservative with her money, but I was proud of her for being so kind to her friend.
After all the money was spent, we dined in the ambient food court: McDonald's for the girls and Quiznos for Craig and me.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience. I went with two goals in mind: buy a 2010 calendar and go to Starbucks.

One goal was achieved. I have a nice new calendar.

However, we were in a rush to get Bailey home by a certain time so she could leave with her family on a weekend trip, so Starbucks was forgotten.

Boo.

It's a cold and dreary day here in Northern Virginia. Since we maintain a pretty tame lifestyle, it's probably quite obvious to you all that we don't have any big New Year's Eve plans. If I have my way, I'll be asleep well before the ball drops. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch last year before 10 pm while Craig and Caroline struggled to stay awake upstairs. All I remember is that Caroline was very disappointed that the ball doesn't really "drop." I think she was expecting it to fall from the sky at a crazy speed and shatter on the ground from the forceful impact.

Overall, I think 2009 was a decent year. Besides Caroline's broken front teeth and a crazy repeat bout of pneumonia, we've all remained healthy. We took a couple out of town trips, Craig's job is more than secure, our neighborhood is wonderful and I haven't gone crazy yet.

Hopefully I'll be able to say the same thing about 2010.

Well, minus the broken teeth and pneumonia, of course.