How Sweet It Is

Bereket turned 8 recently. She's all about friends, phones, music videos, resisting suggestions from her parents and candy. Actually it's more like CANDY. After several cavities, it's a semi-forbidden fruit in our home, especially the sticky stuff. And boy, does our little one crave it!

One evening this spring, Bereket asked to do some homework on my laptop. When I later looked at the search history, I discovered she had abandoned the math program she was supposed to be doing and instead was googling "World's Largest Candy Store." It made me chuckle a bit.

Shortly after Bereket's internet escapade, I learned that Minnesota had a sweet spot of its own that has a huge following. Simply called "Minnesota's Largest Candy Store," the Jordan based business has more than 50,000 Facebook followers. As I looked at TripAdvisor reviews, the idea of a mystery birthday trip came together in my mind. I could just picture Bereket and her 3 cousins posing near the big yellow billboard that so many others had posted images of online.

It's hard for Bereket to wait when surprises are involved. She made it all the way to the morning of the big event (May 26th) when she intercepted some secret communication about the plan. When she saw the word "candy store" in a text, she was over the moon. Jason and I gave her $10 in spending money for the trip (plus $2 I owed her from raiding her piggy bank in an emergency) and she got busy organizing the cash in her wallet and calculating what she might need for tax.

It takes a good hour and 45 minutes to get to Jordan from our home. We passed the time by playing a guessing game about the destination of our mystery trip (Bereket's cousins still didn't know where we were headed and they asked her question after question trying to figure it out). We also stopped for lunch at the Dairy Inn in Cannon Falls.

When we finally made it to the candy store, we were all amazed. It was huge and bright yellow in color. A billboard advertised 150 varieties of root beer.

We spent almost two hours exploring the aisles of sweets and treats from around the world and we still only saw a fraction of what was there. Even my husband who despises shopping had a fun time checking out the confections.

Bereket was thrilled to discover chocolate lipsticks!

Nils shows his strength.

On the way home, we ate some of our purchases and stopped for an ice cream cone. We stretched our legs at a beach and let our feet cool off in the water. At home, Bereket opened a few presents from Granny and the kids. It was a beautiful (and hot) day. I am so thankful for this sweet escape from reality to celebrate our spunky girl.