Build a Bear!

I said in yesterday's post that it was so odd to be the passenger in a car...and that's true. It was also odd to be a passenger on vacation! Not since I was in high school have I gone on a vacation when someone else planned all of it. Kind of refreshing!


Faith and I left home this past Thursday morning and arrived in Louisville, Kentucky around lunch time. After feasting (don't even think I'm kidding!) at the precious Sonic, we had our first official vacation adventure.

Build A Bear.

I cracked up when Faith told Hannah about it. I could tell that Faith was about to burst with excitement and stopped herself several times from telling Hannah about our first vacation surprise. So when, at last, at the Sonic picnic table, Faith smiled widely and said, "Hannah, we are going to Build a Bear!!!!!" - I watched Hannah's reaction carefully.

She stared for a minute and said, "I don't know what that is." Now that was a crack-me-up moment.


But when we pulled up in front of the store, she decided it looked like a lot of fun! And because I'm just an overgrown kid at heart - I agreed!


I'd never been in a Build-A-Bear before, and you can know I was not leaving that place without my very own bear. Hello! It's vacation! I talked Faith into getting one too. Bears all around! And because the child of a scrapper who also is the "niece" of a scrapper is nothing more than a scrapper in training, we got this picture. Slightly blurry, but she'll learn. (My camera is complex. I was impressed she did this well!) Anyway. Here are Faith and I with our empty bears.



If you've never been to a Build-A-Bear before, welcome to my virtual tour. :) The first item of business, once you've chosen your bear (and those are all the choices there on the wall in the background!), is to stuff the bear. Annie, the lovely worker bee, hooked our little bears onto the tube in the stuffing machine, and we pressed the pedal until the bear was filled right up!

And then - we had to give our bears big hugs to make sure they were stuffed just right. (This sounds like a children's story doesn't it?)

Some of us were more fond of the sound of the stuffing machine than others. Hannah did manage to press the pedal for her own bear's stuffing, as long as she kept her ears good and plugged. Kaylah, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with it.

We chose a heart out of the little basket of hearts and Miss Annie put those hearts inside and sewed our bears right up. (Side note - Chonda Pierce tells a story...I tried to find it on YouTube and couldn't...about going to a Build-A-Bear while she was in rehab for depression. You've GOT to find that story and listen to her tell it. Hysterical - and moving all at the same time.) Anyway, I thought of her as we put our hearts in our bears.

Miss Annie was kind enough to take a picture of all of us with our bears before we moved on to the next part of the fun!

The next station was the "washing" station. Air, which sounds like water and did NOT amuse Kaylah, comes out of the shower heads, and there are little brushes to use on the bears. Once we convinced Kaylah that the shower heads were not going to make any more sound, she joined in the fun of brushing and sprucing up her bear.

Let the shopping begin! Can't leave without an outfit!And there are, as you can see, many options. Boy outfits, girl outfits, summer, winter, day, night, sporty, formal, jammies, swimming, anything you can think of - right down to wedding dresses and tuxes. Kaylah may be young, but she's got the shopping for clothes thing DOWN.

They have little dressing rooms complete with mirrors (and stacks of underwear if you look right in front of the mirror). Hannah and I shared a dressing room for our bears. (Hers received a Tinkerbell looking costume - complete with magic wand.)

My bear's outfit was selected based entirely on the shoes. They were just too cute and I could not pass them up. So I found the coordinating dress and that completed my shopping experience! At least for this trip. If I ever get to go back to a Build-A-Bear, I'll probably buy her a little change of clothes. :)

Final stop in the experience is the birth certificate station - where you can name your bear. Because it felt appropriate for this stage in my life journey, I named her Hope. Please meet Miss Hope. (Side note - I had no idea how appropriate that name would become as the vacation went on. More on that later.)

And Faith, who has also been walking quite a journey of her own, named her bear Grace.

While Faith and I paid Miss Annie for our bears, Kaylah found a gift card and got to work swiping. Seriously! Shopper in training!

And that completed our Build-A-Bear experience. I really had a lot of fun. Would love to go back someday with another kiddo (or just me - for more clothes!) to have more fun. Don't know if Build-A-Bear employees everywhere are so great, but Annie was an exceptional helper. She really made our visit the best start to vacation EVER!

So if you haven't ever been...and you ever get the chance to go....I say GO BUILD A BEAR!!