Let's Celebrate One Last 2014 Indie!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

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This week I'm celebrating one last 2014 Indie!

*throws confetti*

Last weekend we drove up to Minnesota to visit the Mall of America. We went a couple years ago and loved the amusement park in the middle of the mall. Yeah, it's kind of crazy to drive six hours in December with a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old to a ginormous mall but we're always up for some crazy around here.

We actually had a great trip, barely any snowy-rainy-windy weather, the kids played nicely and slept during the drives and we spent most of our time at the hotel water park or the amusement park and neither was crowded compared to the actual mall part of the mall. One of the highlights for me was stopping in at Wild Rumpus as soon as we got to town. It was nice to walk into this cozy little store and do some quiet shopping before heading to the hotel. I'll be talking about my Un-Boring List later this week but visiting more independent bookstores was on the list and this was a great last 2014 indie visit!

Wild Rumpus has some pretty exotic animals roaming around the store! The kids were shocked to see a black feathery chicken as soon as we walked in. Then we spotted this store worker with a rat!

We looked at the birds, the chinchillas, the tarantula, the cats, the dog and the ferrets!

 

There were all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore. Back in the corner, there were two kiddos reading a book together snuggled up with a white chicken. It was very cool. My kids were amazed!
 
 
There was great artwork all around the store. Little Bean thought it was awesome that there were a crack in the ceiling. We found a picture book to give to a cousin, finger puppets, a graphic novel, a sticker book and a giant blank book we're going to illustrate ourselves. It was a great trip!

 This is one of the most unique bookstores I have ever visited. Overall, this year, I discovered some wonderful independent bookstores and made more trips to my local indies that I love. I'm excited to see what other Indie I discover in 2015!

(Can you see the purple door behind us? There was an adult-sized door and a kid-sized door so you could go in through either one...complete awesome in every way.)

What are you celebrating this week?