a visit to the great sandy claws!

tristan and moira visit santa

(clicking the image above will take you to my picassa web album all images are small sized for web friendliness, expect something on my dA page soon...)

so, this day i took the girls down to visit santa clause. now, i have typically gone to ridgedale mall in minnetonka, mn every year for the santa visit, mostly because i was convinced that the santa they hired was in fact actually santa. however, last year, ridgedale lost him to the mall of america, and i'll be damned if i am driving out to bloomington to wait six hours in a line to see him now (although i can't fault him too much, i'm sure the MoA can pay him tons more, and i'm sure the elves have unionized by now, which means he needs every cent he can to keep his workshop running). last year, we went to southdale shopping center in edina (edina, you see, is an acronym for 'every day i need attention'), however, the santa there was not as good as the photos on their web site indicated (to be exact, the man, while looking similar to santa was not even remotely jolly and had the cheesiest smiles i've ever had to endure from a paid celebrity that's never appeard on baywatch). luckily, ridgedale managed to aquire themselves another santa who was almost as good as my favorite, so this year, the drive wasn't as bad, and the santa was passable.

we arrived in the early afternoon, and we were issued a pager similar to those that restaraunts use. it was an hour and fifteen minute wait, so with time to kill we went to the new apple store where i saw all of the ways that steve jobs and co. would like to seperate me from my money. the girls played some games in their child storage area. unfortunately, their attention was not near as rapt as i might have hoped, so, we went back to the middle common area. the girls played around with some interestingly painted ruffage (which got their fingers all painty, and i spent a good time humming 'we're painting the roses red' from disney's alice in wonderland). then they danced around.

eventually the pager erupted in a flurry of buzzes and flashing lights, which scared moira half to death. we went back to santa's 'cabin' and then stood in a line. yes, you read that correctly, the pager was to let us know when we could go wait. within about 15 minutes they were finally in to see the big guy. all of that waiting and it was over within 3 minutes. rather anti-climatic if you ask me, but the girls were excited. santa seemed a little burned out, which is why i usually take them much earlier in the season (that, and the lines seem shorter in late november / early december). their minimum package was 2 5x7" prints for $19.99, which seemed a little steep, but what can you do? i got plenty of decent shots on the digital, so, if i want to spread the santa love, i can do it for a mere 19 cents a print from someplace like target.

all in all the girls had a great time, and we have another santa visit under our belts. i'm sure one of my prints will be donated to their mother, because it seems like that's how things work between us... bah.

enjoy the photos people! ;)

EDIT:

these are the photos that made it to my dA gallery.