New rides
This morning we went to Nickelodeon Universe for the first time. NU is the new amusement park inside the Mall of America; it's been expanded since the days when it was Camp Snoopy.

K is becoming a thrill ride junkie, and will go on anything they'll let her on. So we rode the Splat-O-Sphere together. It pulls you up 60 feet and then drops you. And then it does it again. And again. I kept trying to prepare K for the fact that the ride might be scary, and she listened with that "Mother, I'm fine" expression that children get. But there was a nine year old that got off crying just before we got on, so I was a little worried. I needn't have been, though. K loved it. She also went on the flume and GhostBlasters, a haunted house ride where you shoot at ghosts.

M is more cautious about rides (I was at his age too; my parents took me to Disneyland and then I didn't want to go on the rides). He jumped inside the huge pineapple jumper, and rode the Blues Clues cars that go up and down when you press the buttons.

Resolute kindly watched the kids drive the kid bumper cars (M was put out that people were bumping into him when he was working on his driving) while I went on the Rock Bottom Plunge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants_Rock_Bottom_Plunge. The important part of this ride is the part where you climb vertically and then go back down vertically, as you can see in the photo. That was fun. Otherwise the ride isn't all that thrilling, though it has several upside down loops and twists. Those aren't so much my thing. I like big drops and "air time," that feeling of weightlessness you get on some rollercoasters just as you reach the crest of a hill. I was pretty happy to have gone on it once though.

I skipped the Avatar Airbender. Imagine a huge skateboard doing a half pipe 60 feet up while you sit in a spinning chair on it. It looked fun, but my tolerance for spinning rides has, to my disappointment, decreased as I've gotten older. I commiserated about this with other people my age in the lines.