Two American Girls Visit American Girl Place at the MoA

Yesterday was a big day in the Twin Cities... at least for tweener girls and their moms. Minneapolis (it's Bloomington, actually, but we won't quibble about that) has been graced with one of only seven American Girl stores in the country, and it opened yesterday.

As you can imagine, the MoA (Mall of America, to those of you not from these parts) was mobbed with hoards of tweener girls clutching Kit, or Samantha, or Jess, or Mia, and waiting, waiting, waiting to get into the store. Because there was a wait. Yes, a waiting line to enter the store. And a waiting line to get into the waiting line to enter the store. The girls' moms were clutching their cell phones and tweeting or writing on their Facebook walls about the crazy-long wait in line. (At least that's what I was doing!)

Mall security leading us ("Single file! SINGLE file!") from
the line-to-get-in-line to the line-to-get-into-the-store.
The wait didn't turn out to be quite a long as the one-and-a-half hours that mall security had told us it would be, but we would've waited that long and then some.

Finally entering the magical store was a beautiful moment. The doorman asked us "How many?" I replied "Two." "Four," he corrected with a smile. He gestured down to the Julie and Mia dolls that my daughter was clutching in the AG Place-exclusive double doll carrier that we had picked up in the flagship store in Chicago last year. (That bag was the object of much envy among the others in line, to our delight! There were many whispered comments of "OH! Look at that girl's bag!", tugging of parental sleeves and pointing of little fingers).

Once inside, I couldn't help comparing this pared-down version to the flagship store, and it doesn't quite stand up, obviously-- but if you haven't been to the big ones in Chicago, New York or L.A., you won't feel any sense of disappointment. There were fresh flowers everywhere; huge glass cases filled with dioramas of the historical girls and all their accoutrements; and big, comfy benches to soothe tired shoppers. They also have HUGE (they have to be huge to hold the doll boxes) signature red shopping totes to hold all the loot before you head on up to the cash registers to shell out what feels like a month's salary for the little love clutching your hand and saying, "Thank you, Mama."


The first thing we did was head straight up to the bistro-- we hadn't eaten and were starving from standing in line all that time. Well, of course they were full, and all the reservations for the rest of the day were already taken.

They did happen to have two spots open immediately at the desert bar.... So guess where we ate? We bellied-up to the bar with Julie and Mia, and lunch was a luscious strawberry cheesecake and an even more luscious molton chocolate cake. Mmmm.





After that, it was down to some serious shopping. We covered the upstairs, then the downstairs, then the upstairs again, then the downstairs again. Lauren had to decide what to do with all that birthday money. Then she hit on it: Samantha's being "retired to the archives"... she'd get a Samantha doll!

We scooted over to the Samantha case; six left. Lauren (good little shopper that she is) grabbed one. We circled back around to the Samantha area three more times while we were there: two Smantha dolls left... one left... none left! Good call, Peaches! (She's an excellent shopper. I take great pride in that!)


After that we searched in vain for an American Girl Place Minneapolis shirt (like the Chicago shirt Peachy has on in the photos). Wouldn't you think they'd have those??

We settled on two other cute shirts for Lauren, and after a very long line at the cash register, we were outta there! Tired, but happy after our long day at AG Place. Will we go back? The only question is when!