The Citadel Mall, Featuring Elliott Yamin

My Mom, Desiree, Dave Dave, Katie, and I went to the Citadel Mall as soon as Desiree got out of school. Elliott was going to be singing there, along with some Disney Channel girl from the movie Camp Rock.
At the end of the show, they were going to light up the big 90 foot Christmas tree. We left a few minutes after 2, and got there about 3:45. As soon as we got there we all went to the restroom real quick and went in search of something to eat, we were all starving. Unfortunately, the only place we could find close enough was a pretzel place. Desiree, David, and I got a pretzel with cheese, and Katie got half of mine. David and Katie also got their own Icee. They were happy campers for the moment.By this time it was about 4:25 and my Mom keeps searching for a better spot to stand. She sees people on a roof top and tries to find her way up, only to be told it's for a private party. So after all this, we go back to the spot we started at, but a few rows farther back now. We sit and wait for it to start. The kids are eating, but starting to get antsy. Desiree takes my Flip, and we don't see her again until Elliott is done performing...lol. She went up a little closer and left us behind, because we had the stroller and it was too hard to move through the crowd with it. Katie wanted out of the stroller, David wanted to dance with her, but Katie wanted to go solo. Since I'm not really an Elliott fan anyway, I didn't even stay for the first song. (I just went to get out and hang out with my family for the day.) I decided to take the kids to get some candy at the Chocolate Shoppe they had there. My plan was to just take David and bring Katie something back, but I guess she could tell I was getting ready to go somewhere, because she reached for me to pick her up..lol. So with Katie on my hip and David holding my hand tightly, we went through the crowd and tried to make our way through. Mean people at that mall, let me tell you lol. They were so pushy and unwilling to let anyone through. To top it off, the whole time I'm trying to get through the crowd, Katie keeps touching and grabbing people that we pass. Oh brother. I must have apologized to at least 10 people who turned to look at me after feeling Katie's touch :/ We finally get to the candy shop and David asks for a candy apple. They just happened to be giving out free samples of carmel apples, with chocolate covering. I gave one to David and one to Katie. Katie ate hers up. David took a bite then handed me his leftovers saying he didn't want it anymore. I looked down in my hand and see he licked the chocolate off and gave me back the apple...lol. So I thought, how about I DON'T buy him a $7 candy apple, so he can eat the chocolate off lol. I tell him to pick something else and he chooses very carefully for a few minutes. He picks a white chocolate covered pretzel about the size of his hand. We're about to go pay, when he changes his mind. He asks if he can have a small bag on the shelf. We make our way over, and see it's Christmas Tree & Candy Cane shaped white chocolate covered pretzels for $4. That's fine. I get a cookie for myself and we pay. I told David he needs to wait to eat his yummies until we get back to the stroller. We make our way through the crowd again. David hears Elliott singing "Wait For You" and says "Hey! My Mom has this song!" lol, I guess she's played it in the car a lot :p We finally get back to my Mom during the last song and the kids sit down and eat.
A few minutes later, Elliott goes off the stage and my Mom is ready to bolt and go home. We don't care about Demi, the Disney girl. Never heard of her, lol. So my Mom goes and gets Desiree and we try to get out of the crowd, with the huge stroller in tow, lol. Mean people! A man finally helps my Mom, he leads the way and makes sure we can get out of the crowd and to our car. People are trying to pass us and go ahead. Mean people there! We finally got to the car and we see that the car next to us is SO close, they HAD to have hit Desiree's car getting out. We didn't see any marks, but that was rude of them to park so close with their junky car, next to Desiree's nice one. I'm sure they wouldn't have cared if their car got a scratch, it was already trashy. Desiree is really upset by this and leaves a pretty mean note on the car and finds a water bottlea and throws water on it. LOL. What is water going to do? Clean the car? lol. Anyway, Desiree chickens out and takes her note off, and my mom leaves Katie's pee diaper on their trunk. My family is nuts. Then, getting settled in, we had trouble closing the double stroller. We couldn not figure out how to do it, and considered leaving the stroller in the parking lot and going home without it. I try one more time and finally get it. We stop by Carl's Jr. and get food on the way home. We see that the tree is now lit. We missed that part, I'm sure the kids would have been awed. But at least we beat the crowd out. It was nice to get out for the day, but I'm not sure I'll ever go back for the tree lighting, no matter who's performing. Way crowded!