Vacation on a tight budget

The trip we're taking doesn't seem like a vacation because we're going specifically for doctors appointments. Three of them to be exact. We'll be heading to Minneapolis in a few weeks and our entire family is actually going! It's been a long time since we've done anything together that involved staying overnight somewhere. We'll be gone for 5 days as Emeric's appt's are Thursday, Friday and Monday.

Thankfully because this is a trip for medical reasons we'll get some expenses reimbursed but I figured the kids aren't just going to want to sit in the hotel the entire time so I did some searching online to try to come up with cheap ideas of ways to have fun.

Here's my non exhaustive list:

1. The Mall of America. Obviously. There's Lego Land, the American Girl store and a bazillion other stores that are just fun to look at. Well, at least for the girls and I.

2. On Saturday mornings the MOA(Mall of America) theater has free movies for kids so I'm hoping Jake won't mind keeping Emeric at the hotel because he's impossible to watch a movie with(Emeric that is, not Jake. He's reasonable.) and I can take the girls.

3. Pumpkin patch! Free admission during the week and this should be a lot of fun for the kids!

4. Mall play place. Quite a few malls in the area have play places and the kids will enjoy playing and I will enjoy window shopping! :)

5. Again, the MOA. There's free trick or treating there on Friday night!!

6. Home Depot-I realize this is probably nothing exciting for those that have a local Home Depot but we don't and they have free crafts for kids on Saturdays.

7. Children's Museum-This isn't free or necessarily cheap but it's the one place we'd like to take the kids where there should be plenty to do.

8. The hotel pool! Enough said! :)

9. State capitol- They give free tours. No one but me will likely enjoy this but oh well. It's free and it's right across the road from Emeric's doctor.

10. Como Zoo-Free admission!!


So, I think we'll have plenty to keep us busy and while I'd love to be able to do all the other fun, expensive things, I'm just happy that we're actually all able to go on this trip.

Emeric will see Nephrology on Thursday, Opthalmalogy on Friday, and then Monday he has an EEG and then an appt. with the neurologist in the afternoon. In between all of that we can hopefully fit in some of these activities. Really as long as I am able to make a daily trip to various Target stores I don't care what else we do!