How to Shop with Boys

Last Saturday I did the unthinkable. I dragged my whole family to the big city north of me and spent the day quilt/fabric store shopping. It was awesome! It was an adventure and turned out much better than anticipated.

The morning began with all of us sleeping in until about 9am. The nice thing about fun fabric shops is that the owners are sleeper-inners also, not a single one of the stores opened before 10am! Once we got on the road we (and I mean the man in my life) "needed" to stop at Cabela's, only the largest outdoorsman store in the world or at least state. After an hour spent comparison shopping for walkie-talkie radios in the bargain cave and haggling the clerk down on the price we were finally ready to hit the first fabric store.

Once we arrived at the designated area I got out of the car as Olaf unrolled all the windows.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"No, thought I'd stay out here with the boys." Wow, he sure knows how to keep them little ones out of trouble. I ventured into the store and saw a beautiful array of Alexander Henry Halloween fabrics. After scouring the store I decided I needed a little of that. I peeked out the window at the car and saw Olaf had spread out all the walkie-talkie equipment on top of the trunk. I knew I was safe to spend a little more time if I wanted. So I finished and purchased the fun material and headed out to the car.

Next stop was lunch. Of course Middle Child, pickiest eater in the world, didn't like lunch. So Olaf got two sandwiches instead of one. Bonus for him!

We hit another quilt store while everyone waited in the car but me. This store was split in two, on separate sides of the street! They had some really cute stuff. Boys played Nintendo DS's and didn't even complain.

Then off to the next store. It had some awesome mushroom fabric from Alexander Henry. I had to have it. It was next to a Baskin Robbins. The boys had double scoop waffle cone ice creams. I think Olaf spent more on ice cream than I did on a few yards of material, and it's not cheap fabric.

The next store was Mormon Handicraft. It is inside a Deseret Book Store, which is an LDS book store. I usually avoid DB at all costs. So I headed in and for some reason the family followed this one time. I headed upstairs to check out the material. After a few moments I heard some kids downstairs. I peeked over the railing. My boys were running around the store. With Walkie Talkies in hand. They played some game of cat and mouse while I shopped. While most people were quiet and looking at church books, my boys ran amuck in the store causing all kinds of commotion. I loved it.

We were finally downtownish area. So we decided to tour the Beehive House. Brigham Young lived there and it was decorated in period pieces. It sure was a pretty place.

Then I dragged the boys to two more fabric stores. One was in a village-type, old-fashioned area with lots of cute little houses turned into stores. I headed out to find my store. While shopping in the store I heard my phone turn off. Middle Child had been watching YouTube and drained the battery. No big deal until I decided I was done. Where were the boys? Couldn't call them. So then I opened my ears and listened. I knew I would be able to hear those wild boys eventually. And I did. They had found the Petting Farm! After letting them pet little pigs and goats and all we headed to the very last quilt store. They were so relieved when it was finally over.

And to treat them all we took them to dinner at a place where the entertainment is Cliff Divers. They were enthralled. And to finish the evening we took them to the 9:30pm showing of Prince of Persia. It was good. Lots of action.

When we got in the car at midnight finally, they flipped on their DS's. I made them turn them off. They weren't happy and fought for a minute. And as soon as they closed their mouths for a minute, they zonked. But not before they thanked me for an awesome day. I may get them to go quilt/fabric store shopping again!

Update to The Big Presentation:

A little girl at church ( I guess she's not all that little, she's 8 or 9) told her Mom I'm a Movie Star since she saw me on TV! I got a really good laugh out of that one.