I have always been an avid fan of American Girl. I remember staring longingly at the black and white picture in the back of the Meet Samantha book, of the 3 dolls available and just wishing and wishing for the Samantha doll. My parents gave her to me for Christmas when I was 8 and after that I carefully saved my money for years and years and slowly bought the original six historical dolls. (They were only $82 back then - now $115) Then I realized that they were just going to keep making new ones and I was getting a little old to be buying dolls so I called it quits and hoped that someday I would have a little girl who would enjoy them. Because I was older they were mostly on display and are in perfect condition still.
So, we go with my mom and I made it very clear to the girls that we weren't buying anything. I let the girls pick a doll to take with us and they were excited. We thought maybe we'd get an ice cream at the bistro in the store.
What a joke this place was! All it is is a store with a billion displays of hundreds of dollars worth of dolls and their accessories. The place was tiny and unless you were going to drop a few hundred dollars on some new clothes and accessories there was nothing to actually "do". They did have a doll salon where you could pay $15-$20 to have someone style your dolls hair or pierce their ears. What!? We went to the bistro that must sit about 17 people total and asked if we could get on ice cream to share but they were booked until 2pm and if you wanted lunch they were booked through October. We were there for about 25 minutes and were done. I enjoyed looking at the new dolls. It brought back fond memories of how excited I was when I finally had enough money to buy one and opening that box for the first time.
After today I decided that the girls aren't old enough to handle my dolls and they are put away. Well, Claire would be fine but Joy wreaked havoc on Samantha. Claire wants to get one of the ones that looks like her. I think she has a long wait though - she was already saving for a volleyball and goggles and now a $115 doll!