Happy March, Reader!

Dare I say we've made it through the majority of winter?! Spring officially starts in just 11 days and our 10 day forecast includes one day in the 70s!

Now while I'm dreaming of open windows, short sleeve shirts and outside play... we just wrapped up our kids' big Christmas experience gift: Tickets to see Ben Rector in his Symphonies Across America tour.

The closest tour stop to us was Minneapolis or Nashville. Kyle and I have been to Nashville several times and I had never been to the state of Minnesota at all, so we chose Minneapolis! We left Friday right after school, stopped in Iowa to have dinner with my sister and her family then hit the road to finish the trip. It took 8 hours total including stops for a drive that is 6 hours and 45 minutes without stops according to Google Maps.

How I Like To Road Trip

This is a bit of a controversial road trip opinion (diehard Midwesterners.... iykyk) but I think road trips go so much better when we don't try to power through and set a goal of getting there as fast as possible.

You need to stretch your legs? Let's find a park. We had lunch an hour ago and now you need to go to the bathroom? That just makes sense physiologically.

I like to stop, move, stretch, get a beverage. The upside to this is that if they've moved their body, they can handle a good stretch in the car! Kyle worked in the car the first two hours of the trip which we've done several times in the past and works great for being able to travel often and not take too much time off work. I prefer to be the driver anyways so it totally works out. :) We alternate screen and no-screen activities as we drive. For the first hour and a half or so, we listened to Ben Rector music, talked about what we were most excited before and just let the kids chat and mess around in the back seats while Kyle worked and I sipped my iced coffee! Then we turned a movie on and when the movie was over, we had made it to our dinner stop.

Where we Stayed

I used a Capital One travel credit to cover two nights in a room at the Minneapolis Downtown Embassy Suites. In 2025, I opened the Capital One Venture X card for both me and Kyle. The annual fee is $395 but it includes a $300 annual travel credit that can be applied to travel bookings, increased mile rates (10x miles for hotels!), and access to Capital One lounges. I used this statement credit and paid $97.92 for the difference, but then earned $9.72 in miles on that charge that I was able to apply to the cost of the hotel. So my net out of pocket for 2 nights in the hotel was $88.20!

PS I'll be teaching a workshop in April about how I manage credit cards in my budget and how I use them for travel hacking while keeping my spending in line and my credit score high. I'll send out registration for the workshop soon so keep an eye out in your inbox and instagram!

Embassy Suites is one of a few hotels that allow all 6 of us to stay in one room and have enough beds and space to make it comfortable. This room had 2 queen beds (allegedly. they felt more like fulls 🙃) in one room with a door. The other side of the room included a sectional couch that had a sofa bed, desk, bathroom, kitchenette including a wet bar sink and enough room on the floor for another kid to use the couch cushions for a bed.

Saturday - Mall of America

When we woke up Saturday, we went down to breakfast then got ready to go out for the day. Kyle was the only one of us who had been to the Mall of America and the kids were PUMPED. It was only 20 minutes away from our hotel.

Mistake: We bought all the kids unlimited ride wristbands. Now this was probably worth it for 2 of the boys who rode as many things as they could. But one of the boys was resistant to riding (which frustrated us at the time but spoiler alert: he got sick that night so he probably wasn't feeling well even if he couldn't articulate that) and then Ruby rode absolutely nothing. $230 total - could have easily cut this in half by limiting number of rides and not getting a wristband for Ruby but as I said on Instagram no one is able to get it right 100% of the time and that's ok.

We got there right after it opened and didn't have long lines at first but as soon as lunch time hit, the lines were extremely long for many of the rides (like 30 minutes+ for a 4 minute ride). This was not the efficiency or experience of Disney World. :)

Kyle really wanted to give the kids a budget to spend: so he took the lead on this activity after they rode a lot of rides. We gave each kid a budget of $40 and named off stores they might like. He took them around to several stores (I do not like meandering stores aimlessly and he knows this without me saying a word.) and I found a bench to sit and chill with any kids who didn't want to go into that store.

We had lunch at Shake Shack. I ordered on the app for mobile pickup while we were walking over there. A burger for everyone, 4 fries to share (could've easily made this 3) and 2 milkshakes to share. It is an absolute MIRACLE that only one of us got sick considering we shared straws. 😖

Saturday - Ben Rector Concert

After 5 hours at the mall the kids (ehem... not just the kids) were ready to have some down time. We returned to the hotel and laid down in bed with a movie.

Embassy Suites usually has a Manager's reception late afternoon which includes free beverages (2 alcohol beverages per adult!) and light snacks. This time they had veggies and hummus, gold fish, chips, and an onion dip.

Kyle and I got gin and tonics, the kids got lemonade, and we all munched on snacks. We decided to go to the concert (7:00pm to 9:00pm) and then order pizza afterwards!

The concert was 2 hours long and we got there right when doors opened 30 minutes before it started. The kids had never been to a concert hall like this at all so everything was new! I will say in hindsight I wish we had been able to go to a true Ben Rector concert in an arena, but this was his only tour right now with symphonies. By the time intermission rolled around, they were tired of sitting still and didn't know several of the new songs (or any songs by guest Jon McLaughlin). We loved it. But we also live and learn!

Saturday Night 🤢

We ordered pizza after the concert, ate in our room, then went to bed.

At 2am I woke up with the mom intuition that the sound that woke me up was a prelude to sickness - and it was. Our second son, Shepherd, woke up vomiting. And continued to get sick about once an hour all night and into the next day.

I cleaned up his bedding as best I could but it was a mess. Someone asked me on instagram "what's the etiquette for this in terms of telling the hotel?!" I did 2 things:

1. Cleaned up as best I could. This was my child and my responsibility as much as possible. I rinsed the bedding in the tub, threw away one towel that took the brunt of the mess, and put everything that was soiled in one pile in the bathroom.
2. Told the hotel with full honestly. At checkout, I simply said "I'm so sorry, but one of my kids got sick in the middle of the night. I cleaned as best as I absolutely could, but you'll want to give housekeeping an advanced warning to sanitize and wear gloves or masks if they have them." The front desk clerk was extremely appreciative of my attempt to clean and my honesty and that was it!

I am a broken record but these bags have saved us time and time and time again. You cannot wait until you need them to buy them - it will be too late.

Sunday Drive Home

Kyle took the 3 healthy kids to the hotel breakfast and pool while I stayed in the room to clean and pack. We checked out by 11am and then stopped for coffee at Spyhouse coffee which was great! We brought a bag of beans home and we were so glad that we did.

I went into this drive with the lowest of low expectations. I was mentally prepared for him to be sick the whole time and for the whole family to start dropping like flies.

Low expectations were my best friend. He only got sick 4-5 times on the drive home and no one else got sick. Because of the puke bags keeping the mess contained, we didn't even have to stop while he was getting sick. He was so weak and tired at this point that he would get sick, twist the bag up, put it in the seatback pocket, and go back to sleep.

Since the kids had eaten a late breakfast and we had lots of snacks in the car, we ended up only stopping for one mid-afternoon meal at Panera. The kids alternated between books, movies, and video games.

We got home around 7:30pm, I got kids to bed and Kyle unloaded the van. He wants every single item out of the car immediately. I couldn't care less one way or the other but I sure am grateful for him!

In Summary

It was fun.

I added a state to my list of places I've been.

Kids did things they've never done before which is always fun.

Some regrets. Some gross things out of our control.

Would do again.

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