Our adventure started on Wednesday. The girls got to pull off the last piece of
our countdown calendar. Each morning for
two weeks, they took a piece from the paper chain and opened it to find out
what the day’s activity. They did things
like rebuilding kits we have, watching the Lego Movie, making lego brownies,
coloring lego pictures, doing lego math and more. Finally, they helped me pack and as soon as L
was off the bus from school, we piled into the car and began our road
trip. We drove five hours south reading
books, coloring pictures, playing with Barbies and playing with their
tablets. We finally arrived at their
aunt and uncle’s house, ready to run and play, despite it being past bedtime. The girls were thrilled to see their cousins
and stalled as long as possible, playing, dancing and watching cartoons. Eventually they settled into a big cousin bed
on the living room floor and we all slept for a few hours.
At 5 am the next morning, we slipped all the sleeping
kids into their car seats and began the next leg of our drive. With the girls asleep, the car was quiet and
I was so tired as I followed Bryan down the freeway. After two hours, we stopped to let everyone
stretch and get a little breakfast. It
had been raining on and off and we were rewarded with the most beautiful
rainbow I’d ever seen. It was a perfect,
complete arch, rich in color and with a double rainbow shadowing just
above. The girls loved it! The girls mixed up their seats to sit with
cousins and we headed out again.
Four hours later, we parked at the beach. It was gray and very overcast but the girls
were definitely ready to wiggle and so excited to see the beach. We had a picnic lunch, bribing the girls to
eat with the promise of playing in the sand.
We decided not to put the kids in swimsuits, thinking it would be too
cold, but we took sand toys down to the water’s edge and turned them loose to
play. Their uncle soon started a game of
drawing a line in the sand and letting the waves chase them in. L, E and cousin A loved it, dashing back and
forth from the water’s edge. Cousins C
explored and A started an ambitious sand castle. Just as we were taking bets on who would get
wet first, A came to the water’s edge to fill her bucket with water and got
caught by a sneaker wave. It took her
feet from under her and spun her several times.
She came up rather shocked and upset but recovered quickly. Moments later, the same thing happened to E,
but she was much more delighted. L and
cousin A got more and more brave, chasing the waves deeper into the water,
hoping to get a spin cycle themselves and soon all the kids were soaked. But they didn’t care. They had the time of their lives, playing in
the water, chasing waves and pretending to surf. Especially little E melted my heart as she
stood dramatically, hands out, wiggling her hips as she declared she was
surfing without a surfboard in the receding waves.
We reluctantly left, wrapping the kids in their dry cover
ups and drove to the hotel. Grandpa had
booked rooms for us at the Legoland Resort.
Even as we drove in through the winding entry, the girls squealed in
delight at the large lego figures lining the drive. As the hotel came into view, they were beyond
excited. I left the car and luggage with
the valet as we went into the hotel to check in. The girls were so excited about the amazing
lobby with bright colors and lego décor in every direction. And in the middle of the lobby, there was a
giant lego pit. The girls played and
built as Aunt Stacy and I checked into the rooms. The kids followed us down the hall, nearly shrieking
at each new discovery. The elevators
were especially thrilling. The doors
closed and it transformed into a disco with music and lights. From then on, every time we used the
elevators, the girls would countdown to begin the music and break out dancing.
We made it to our room and again, the girls were beyond
delighted. We were in a pirate themed
suite, perfectly decorated to every detail.
The girls raced around the room to check it all out and immediately dumped
out the bucket of legos provided for them to play with. We took a few minutes to get our luggage organized
and then Husband, Grandpa and Auntie Lu arrived, having drove in from the
airport to meet us in California. Once
the girls were done exploring and ready to go, we played in the lobby for awhile,
amazed at the giant lego castle/pirate ship play area. And eventually, we left for the evening,
driving up to the Oceanside Pier to have dinner at Ruby’s. It was Grandpa’s suggestion and was so much
fun. It was like a 50’s diner with great
burgers and shakes and the kids favorite—cardboard vintage cars that they
played with all weekend and even brought home after the trip.
After dinner, the girls finished their treasure hunt
provided by the hotel. The clues they
found were the code to a locked treasure chest in our room. In the chest, they found a lego figurine and
gold coin for each of them! They
figurines were Halloween themed and we would later spend more time in the
giftshop trying to find a few more desired favorites from the Halloween
collection. Somehow we pulled them away
from their new figurines and lego cartoons for a quick shower and said good
night to cousins. Then I fell asleep immediately
while Grandpa settled into his sofa bed and Husband tucked the girls into their
pirate ship bunk beds. E was so excited
about her “treasure chest bed” (trundle bed) but ended up firmly attached to
Daddy and slept curled up next to him.
Very early the next morning, L woke us up very concerned about the noise she could hear coming from around the corner. She nervously begged Daddy to help her. So he got out of bed, they donned hats and shoes (she was still nervous, he was rather comical), they prepared themselves with flashlights and cameras and they peeked around the corner slowly. It was grandpa snoring! So she cuddled down into bed with us and watched lego cartoons until everyone was awake.
On Friday morning we had breakfast at the buffet
downstairs. The food was pretty good,
especially for a buffet. The omelet I
had made was fantastic and the kids loved getting to pick out all of their
favorites and played through breakfast.
Truth be known, pregnancy got the best of me and I had a
rough morning. But other than that, I
was fine all weekend. There were a
handful of rides I didn’t get to do but that was ok because Grandpa doesn’t do
rides and A has a tendency to get sick on fast/high rides too. We did lots of wandering, Grandpa built a
cane out of legos that made his weekend much easier and A took care of keeping
my water bottle full. Love my thoughtful
little girls so much.
We finished getting ready for the day and shuffled
through some group inertia before we were finally at the gates and ready to
go. Being resort guests, we were given early
entrance to the park where a handful of rides opened early. We picked out our first ride and wandered to
it. We got in the line and let the kids
loose in the play area so they could build legos and race them down ramps while
we stood in the line watching them.
Turns out, many of the rides had waiting areas like this which made the
wait much easier for the kids. The
downside was that the lines were much longer than they looked. In fact, Husband took L on the ride to us
while we waited. A decided to brave that
ride as well but didn’t enjoy it near as much.
We rode the pedal cards together and then wandered back to Heartlake City
where our girls were delighted to meet the characters from Lego: Friends. In fact, they had no lines so one of the characters
Emma, spent 20 minutes with them, even riding the merry go round with them and
taking them to meet two other characters.
We wandered the set of the Lego Movie, where A and L took turns with our
camera and then we went to the Lego: Friends show. It was super cheesy but the girls liked it
and had a blast dancing and singing along.
Meanwhile cousins wandered away to something else. So we did a few more rides as we caught up to
them and had lunch together. The girls
especially loved the drivers training and the mini figure store. We made it about halfway around the park and
stopped at a play area. The girls ran
laps around the maze of rope climbs and slides while the adults shared the
infamous Legoland Apple Fries. We made
it around to Adventure Land, where the girls were eager to show Auntie Lu the “Egypt
stuff”. We did a few last rides and then
explored the Big Store where the girls made lengthy wish lists.
Back at the hotel, the girls finally got to go swimming. Husband and I sat poolside, watching them
splash around and build with the large foam legos floating around the
pool. Cousins came to join and the girls
wore themselves out playing together.
After swimming, we put them in pajamas and headed downstairs for a quick
dinner in the café. While we waited for
our table, we stopped in at the kids pajama party and the girls went crazy all
over again. In less than one song, they
made it to the middle of the dance floor and danced like crazy people
(especially A with her ninja moves). We
pulled them away to go eat dinner, including a birthday dessert for Auntie Lu
and then went back to the dance party for one last song before tucking them
into bed.
The girls slept in on Saturday so I finished getting
everyone packed while Husband took Grandpa to pick up his rental car. Then the girls and I went to breakfast while
Husband loaded the car and soon we were back for another crazy fun day in the
park. The girls built their souvenir
minifigures (L and A built witches, E built Santa) and we tried out a few more
rides. Husband took L on the “crazy arms”,
by far the wildest ride of the weekend, (quote of the day from E: “if anyone
needs me, I’ll be in the stroller with my mango.” ) and we had lunch with the
family. We changed into swim suits before
braving a few of the “you might get wet” rides and then let the kids play in
the splash pad. Husband, Uncle Bryan and
Grandpa went to a MindStorm class while Stacy and I got the kids dry, dressed
and took them to the duplo play ground.
We met up at the crazy arms again to watch Husband and Auntie Lu ride it
at level 5 (L did it at level 2) and did a little more wandering and riding
rides. Usually Husband and L went on the
ride while A and I wandered or cuddled (or rode a less intense ride) while E
went back and forth between us.
Our last stop of the day was the Big Store where the
girls made a beeline to their item of choice.
We told them they could each choose a souvenir less than $30. L picked out the Lego: Friends Juice Shop, A
chose the Lego: Elves ship and E settled on the Disney Jasmine kit. She rambled to the cashier (and to several
other strangers) “I really wanted the Cinderella castle but its lots more money
so I picked the Jasmine today but I really want the Cinderella castle.”
We finished up our shopping and got everyone and
everything loaded into the cars. We
stopped for dinner at Rubios. The girls
raced through their quesadillas so they could play with their new lego
figurines while the adults finished. We
gave Lu a lego set as a birthday gift and gave Grandpa a lego set as a thank
you gift. Then we all said goodbye,
sending Lu and Grandpa to the airport while we drove back to Bryan and Stacy’s
house. The girls were all asleep within
minutes and the drive went quickly. (at
least for the girls. And me. Since I slept most of it while Husband
drove.) We arrived at their house at 2
or 3 am and slept for a few hours.
Sunday morning, the girls were eager to play again. Bryan and Stacy made us delicious pancakes
and we walked to a nearby park with climbing walls. The girls climbed to the top several times
and had a great time. Then we hid under
some shade while a short storm caught us by surprise. We walked back to the house and went out to
lunch at El Pollo Loco (one of my favorites that is too far away to enjoy
regularly). Then the girls spent the
drive home playing again. We arrived
home for a quick dinner, showers and just enough time to build their new lego
kits and add them to our growing lego city.
