Minnesota...or bust!

We're on the road again! It's July 1, 2011, and we're heading for our annual family vacation in Minnesota. We took off at about 9:30 a.m. from Niles, and made a stop for brunch at the Cracker Barrel in Merrillville to meet Tom's parents and drop off our dog, Jolie. They'll be watching Jolie for the next couple of weeks (and she'll be spoiled and loved to pieces!).

Our next stop was Lombard, IL, where we dropped off the Camry (we had driven 2 cars up to this point) at Beth & Bill's house, so that Jared could pick it up there on his way home next week. He'll only be going up for a week and riding home with Grandpa & Grandma Kingma. After a brief visit with Beth & Bill, we hit the road again, and pretty much went without a stop until supper, when we met Linda's parents in Eau Claire, WS, for supper. We ate at Randy's Family Restaurant, which we all found to be very satisfying (although we thought the little cups of pudding before dinner were a little unusual!). Mom & Dad Kingma were staying in Eau Claire for the night, but we were heading on to a suburb of Minneapolis, so we could be close to the Mall of America in the morning. We arrived at the Springhill Suites in Eden Prairie at 10 p.m., and after a quick dip in the pool, we all hit the hay so we could get up early for our BIG shopping day!