Christy returned Sam to us on Friday morning on her way to deliver Ava to pre-school.  Sam had had a great time at their house and I loved Christy’s familiarity with my granddaughter.  “We’ll see you again in a couple weeks, Sweetpea!” 

I’d been making a list of things to do while she was visiting and one of them included a trip to a big Asian supermarket in Savage; they have a deli counter and some pretty tasty egg rolls for 75¢ each – a heckuva deal.  They are wrapped with rice paper rather than a wheat wrapper and Samantha loves them.  I made her and Rob come with me to get them.  When we got home I heated them in the oven while I made some nuoc mam sauce (she loves it) and we commenced to lunch.  They were a hit.

And she showed us her physical dexterity as relates to tongue twisting.  I can’t do this:

Rob and I had discussed another outing planned for her time with us: a visit to Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza place and game room.  I haven’t been there since Chris and Becky were probably 10 and 7 years old.  It’s still at the Burnsville Center.  Our plan for Saturday fell apart when Sam had a bit of a meltdown on Friday afternoon.  I don’t remember what triggered it but she wanted to talk to her mom.  It went downhill from there.  She wanted her mom.  She wanted to go home.  Beck wasn’t buying.  She pretty much told Sam to suck it up and see if Babi and Grandpa didn’t have a surprise for her.

The mere mention of Chuck E. Cheese dried her eyes and we headed out shortly thereafter.  What can I say?  The food was mediocre at best,

and that’s being a bit generous.  The games were fun!  We arrived at about 4:45 and were among but a few customers then.  Families dribbled in and by the time we left at 7:15, people were scanning the room looking for an available table.

It was the best $40 we’ve spent in a while, I think; at least as far as entertaining LaTwerp.  I believe we bought 100 tokens for about $15.

  About 75 of those tokens kept us busy until about 7:00.  She doesn’t know about the 25 or so that I stashed for another time.  I believe I’m going to get some more to have on hand, too. 

Sam loved the basketball game and did a great job hitting her mark.

  She was incensed to see that a bigger girl was  obviously cheating at

the game and racking up a yard of prize tickets by way of ill gotten baskets.  I played some games, too, setting the house high score for shark whomping.  :-) Whomp!  Whomp!  Thump!  Gotcha! Whomp!  I nailed 43 of those suckers in whatever time is allotted.  My record was still standing when we left.

She collected enough tickets to get her a look at the 500+ credits prize shelf.  It only took about 15 minutes to decide how she was going to cash those in.  She selected a blue squishy spiky ball.

We left at 7:15 and the place was crowded with lots of families and with grandparents and their grandchildren. 

Back home, she was sacked out within an hour and peace and tranquility again reigned supreme at Schloss Schaller.  One more night with her and we return her to her mother.