What Was I thinking????

Krystal got an invitation to one of her good friend's birthday party at a place called "Amazing Jake's". It is like Chuck E Cheese for older kids with laser tag, put-put golf, a rock climbing wall, go-karts, carousel, game arcade and bumper cars. The birthday girl was turning 12 and most of the other kids are about the same age. Anyway, it is in a mall that is about an hour's drive from us. With gas prices still high, I decided that I would take the other two kids and we'd spend the 4 hours of the party roaming the mall and maybe Christmas shopping. You see, we don't have a mall where we live, we have a couple of shopping areas that have a pretty good variety of stores, but you can't walk to all the stores, you do one area, then drive to the next area, etc. It is hard to describe, but it is more like shopping centers than malls without all the little stores that malls have. I'm not much of a mall person, but I do like to go occasionally and just see what is there. The last time I was in a mall was just before Christmas last year when we went to pick up the Christmas pictures. So I was ready for my next mall experience.

Well, we got there a bit early as Krystal hadn't gotten her friend a present yet. We dashed to the nearest book store, bought the book Krystal wanted to give her, then dashed back to Hallmarks to pick up a card and a bag to put the book in. Headed over to Amazing Jake's. Nobody (for Rachel's party) was there (even though it was already 12) so we wandered around a bit while we waited. Aidan wanted to climb the rock wall and drive one of the go-karts, but I didn't want to spend the money and stay there. I wanted to wander the mall! We waited until the rest of the party arrived, the we took off. Aidan wants the new Lego Batman game so we headed off to Game Stop. No luck for the PC version of the game so we ducked into Limited Too where Caryn wanted to go. We bought something like $270 worth of merchandise - pajamas for both girls, 3 or 4 shirts for Caryn, some of the new WebKins, and some of the Kookie pens. But for every $50 I spent, I got $40 back in coupons to spend later so it isn't that much right??? Right! Then we went to the food court and the kids got MickyD's and I got a rice bowl from someplace else. Back to wandering and after striking out on the PC version of the Lego game at another store, Caryn sees the Children's Place and wants to check that store out. I managed to pick up a couple pairs of pants for Aidan here as well as a down vest thing that he just 'had to have' and a few more shirts for Caryn and Krystal. Finally we went back to the book store where they were having a 'buy 4 get the 5th for free' book sale. I found 5 book and the kids each picked up 3 or 4 (but the sale wasn't on kids books). Finally back to the food court for an ice cream then it was time to pick up Krystal. My attempt at saving money on gas cost me around $600 when all was said and done. What was I thinking?????????