California, Here We Come!

After years and years of saving, we were finally on our way to the west coast.  The boys were SO excited.  We left early on Sunday morning the 7th and were able to listen to general conference in the car on the way down.  We actually got to pay attention to a lot of it this time around!  The kids were really good for the first half of the trip.  In between conference sessions we played games in the car and watched Disney movies.  Matthew and Ryan were excited every time we entered a new state and Zachary liked looking at all of the cars on the road.  Andrew chilled out, played with lots of noisy toys, and was bribed by lots of M&M's.  :)  I wish I had gotten some pictures of us in the car.  For some reason I just don't think about it, but I am going to be better in the future.

The last hour in the car was pretty brutal, but we made it to the hotel and the kids were much happier when they were able to stretch their legs a little.  The funny thing is, we broke in the room fairly quickly.  We immediately had to put the phones away because Andrew thought it would be fun to call room service.  The boys also made many trips to the bathroom, Ryan being the last of the bunch.  He had been in there a while when all of a sudden we heard him yelling for help.  We open the door to find Ryan standing in the tub, fully clothed, with the toilet flooding over and about one inch of water on the floor.  This meant that Ryan had seen the problem, jumped into the tub and watched the bathroom floor continue to fill with water until he realized he wouldn't be able to get out without getting really wet.  So we made a call to the front desk and eventually got it taken care of.  Funny boy.

 

The next morning we got up bright and early and headed out to Legoland!  It was about an hour drive to Carlsbad and the kids weren't super excited to be in the car again, but we kept them busy with I Spy and the promise of seeing the ocean along the way.  Before long we arrived and were excited to check out the place. 

The boys were excited to see all of the creations and ride some of the rides. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent most of our time, however, at the Star Wars Miniland.  There are dozens of Star Wars scenes built out of Legos that the kids were drooling over. I have lots of pictures, but here's a couple to get the idea. 

 

 

Ryan was especially delighted with the Endor scenes that featured little Ewok villages and hidden Storm Troopers.

Watch out for those Sith!

 

 

Some other fun things - The White House and some of New York

 

And what would Legoland be without the chance to build something?  I'm sure they had gone through withdrawals during the long car ride, so the chance to create was very welcome. 

 

 

Andrew just hanging out.  He did get a chance to get out and walk around every once and awhile and had a great time at the Duplo Factory, but I think Kevin had the camera with the other boys at the time so I didn't get a picture.  I'll have to check for video.

 

All tuckered out

 

Overall, the kids had a fun time and it was interesting to see everything made out of Legos, but we will probably not be visiting again.  The kids were ready to move on by the end of the day and were more excited for Disneyland!