San Diego!!!
We surprised the girls with a real vacation where we stayed in a fancy hotel AND we went to Legoland. The screams were ear-piercing when we told them the good news. They were so excited. We ended up having to make some last minute changes to our plans, which all worked out for the best though. We packed up and headed down south after church on Sunday afternoon with the DVD player going and their bags of candy from the trunk-or-treat!
We stayed with our friends, the Ankeny's, on Sunday night. It was such a fun visit! They were so kind and fed us a delicious dinner and a super fun Halloween dessert. We also had a nice FHE together. The kids played happily and then the girls slept with Brynn on the playroom floor.
Monday morning, we were up and out early to get to Legoland! We stopped at our hotel first to pick up the tickets and realized we still had some time to kill, so we went to McDonald's for second breakfast. It worked out great because it kept us full for a lot of the day!
Then back to the hotel where their shuttle dropped us off right at the main gate!
We were in line when the park opened and just beyond excited to finally be at Legoland. It was like all their dreams were coming true!
We started at the front of the park and worked our way around counter-clockwise. This is a 1:1 size model of the X-wing from Star Wars built with over 5 million Lego bricks. It was pretty dang awesome, but it could have been a bump on a log built out of Legos and we would have been excited about it at this point in the day.
We stopped at a building station for a bit. Each kid got a set of wheels to build a vehicle. Then they could race them on the race tracks. They thought this was a lot of fun. And Daddy enjoyed helping on this part too.
We had fun on this ride and the big roller coaster next to it. Rachel didn't want to spin extra fast. She also wasn't a huge fan of the roller coaster, but survived. She had a look of pure terror on her face in the picture we didn't pay $19.95 for!
Miriam was cranky that she didn't get to sit in a plane all by herself on this ride. She managed to pout through the entire ride. Rachel and Liz had a blast.
The girls really wanted these Pikachu dolls, so Daddy won three of them (for less than the price we could have bought them online). They loved them so much!!!
Waiting in line for the dragon roller coaster. Miriam was excited to finally ride by herself.
This jousting ride was hilariously lame! But the girls thought it was super fun. They rocked on those horses all the way around the little track.
"Mom! Mom! Take a picture of me bowing to Mimi as the king!"
"Mom! Mom! Take a picture of us locked up!"
This was after the water ride that Daddy was such a good sport to go on with the girls. Rachel saw that this pirate boat not only went back and forth, but also swung around. She promptly decided it wasn't for her, so we waited for these guys.
This boat ride was a lot of fun since there was no track and you really could get stuck! It was also possible to pass other boats, so we got ourselves a little mixed up along the way.
Driving school was another favorite. I was with Rachel on the 3-5yr old version. Her first car went super slow, so she got a second turn with a different car. The big girls loved the 6-11yr old version where they could go where they wanted and it had traffic lights and stop signs just like they were driving a real car!
Rachel didn't want to go up in her helicopter, but I convinced her it was a good idea.
Look, she survived!
The big girls loved this ride. You pull yourself up using the pulley and then let yourself down while the thing slowly turns in a circle so you can see really far.
We finished our day by shopping for souvenirs (Lego sets anyone?), a couple more rides (they're all the same after awhile), the Lego Chima 4D show and then eating at a pizza buffet where the kids were free after 4pm. The park closed at 5pm, but we were done by then anyway so it worked out great. We called the shuttle and they picked us up at the front gate. We then checked in and settled down in our awesome hotel room. We had a two bedroom suite! The girls' room had a double and a twin bed, our room had a king. There was a full kitchen and fireplace, TVs, DVD players, dining room table and everything. We were all pretty impressed.
We were also pretty exhausted. We all crashed in our respective beds and sofas and vegged for the evening. The girls watched movies and ate candy and snuggled with their Pikachu dolls. It was a lovely evening.
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