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The last thing I thought I would be doing today was heading downtown to visit the new City Creek Center. The only thing on my mind today was finishing a book and scheduling the review and giveaway for a later date. And then my husband texted me while I was working on my review at Red Eye Express today and suggested we go there.

We were smart enough to park at Gateway Mall because of course there would not be enough parking at City Creek Center with all the masses of people that the new mall would be attracting during its first week of business. It was incredibly lively downtown; I honestly wasn’t expecting the hundreds upon hundreds of people that were crowding every walkway in the new City Creek Center.

City Creek Center, March 24th 2012

Years ago when this project was first in talks, I was working at Crossroads Mall. I can still remember my very first visit to that mall as a 13-year-old. I felt as if I were in a very big city. I had that very same feeling again today. The first thing I thought as we tried to navigate our way through sheets of people was, “I’m not in Utah anymore.” I felt like I was in New York City! Downtown Salt Lake City looks so different than what I remember!

The City Creek Center is impressive looking, and nothing like I had imagined it would be. It’s filled with a bunch of high end stores that I’ll never be able to afford in this lifetime (Hugo Boss, Coach, Porsche Design, Tiffany & Co.) and will probably never even walk inside, to be perfectly honest. It’s one gigantic mall that occupies two sides of the street and is connected with a covered walkway. I also learned that for poor weather there will be a glass enclosure that will cover any open spaces, but that it takes 3 hours for it to get secure. They’ll only do this when they are absolutely certain that there will be bad weather. I always thought that Utah was the worst place to have an outdoor mall.

This was also the first time that we visited a very populated area and didn’t have Zoe in a stroller. My mommy mode was operating at full blast, and I was watching her every move to make sure that she didn’t get separated from us. For the most part she was pretty well behaved, but toward the end of our outing tonight she got a bit cranky, and so did I.

I was pouting tonight, and for what most will think is a very silly reason. First, you have to understand that it has been years since there has been a Disney Store within a reasonable distance from us. I only found out minutes before we entered City Creek Center that they had re-opened a Disney Store downtown. I was literally jumping up and down, clapping, and squealing that I was mere moments away from setting foot inside our very own Disney Store. Only…that didn’t happen. No kidding, there was a really long line to even get in the door of the Disney Store. I begged my husband to leave me there in the line and I’d find my own way home later just because I wanted to get inside so badly.

It’s slightly funny (but actually not, because I’m still pouting), but the next time my toes cross the threshold of a Disney Store will probably be when I touch down in just a little over a week in San Francisco for a Disney sponsored trip to Pixar, the Walt Disney Family Museum, and a couple advance screenings of upcoming films.