Legoland January 30, 2012

Lots & lots of Legos!
Highlights from today: (Click here for pictures)
Campbell ended up sleeping the night with us in bed and coughed a bit but not too much.  Keaton ate in the middle of the night and then again at 5 or 6.  Around this time, Graham woke up and climbed in our bed and he ended up waking up Campbell who ended up waking up Anderson.  I eventually kicked Graham out of my bed and made him stay in his sleeping bag, Anderson climbed in bed with me and Campbell and Robby ended up back on Campbell's sleeping bag for a few more minutes.  Soon we realized that none of that was going to work, so we sent Campbell, Anderson and Graham out the door holding their clothes.  Thankfully, Grannymom was up and dressed everyone and then they went to breakfast.
Robby went back to sleep and Keaton, only wearing her diaper, stretched out on the bed and also went back to sleep.  Of course when I had a few minutes to catch up on my sleep could not go back to sleep and had my shower.  Reagan was snoozing during all of this ever so peacefully under the desk (the most coveted spot to sleep on our trips!).
We were almost ready when the others came back and Robby, Reagan and I headed down to breakfast.  This was a good breakfast-usually I have a hard time finding things at hotel breakfasts that I really want to eat but not today.  There were waffles with chocolate chips, yogurt with granola and something else that looked really good at the time (but I can not remember at all what it was).  Soon we were loaded up (luggage and all-new hotel tonight) and ready to go to Legoland....
And the van didn't start.  We have rented a 15 passenger van for this trip that way Grannymom and Grandpa don't have to have their own car and we can all be together.  These big vans can get expensive to rent but Robby did find a deal with a local rental place.  And the deal is probably because the van is quite a few years old and is showing its age.   However, it does get us where we need to go, saved a little bit of money and usually starts!  But not this time.  Robby went in to ask the front desk and before he made it back to us someone had already come and another man was on the way with the jumper.  We were on our way in no time at all-just a bit relieved that the battery didn't die on airport day.  Though Robby will probably be worried about that happening.
Legoland was just a few blocks away and it didn't take us any time to get there.  The kids were so excited to see that we were there so soon.  We were there before opening at 10.  Oh, Mondays during the school year at Legoland are homeschool Mondays and you get a big discount for registering as a homeschooler.  Crazy discount-we paid 21 instead of the 75 per person.  So homeschooling does pay off!  Anyway, we were very impressed with Legoland.
It wasn't crowded today and we never really waited more than 5 minutes for anything all day long.  We rode more rides than I can remember.  People have always said that Legoland is for smaller kids and that is true.  Reagan probably only has 3 or 4 more years and then she won't enjoy it like she did today.  A lot of the rides are kiddie rides so Campbell was able to do most everything.  Only 2 rides that we did Graham could not do and Reagan and Anderson could do most everything else.  
Anderson is now laying in bed and said to Graham "remember driving the boats?"  I said I didn't remember the boats but  then I remembered he was talking about steering the boats in Miniland.  It was a huge area where they had cities constructed-D.C., NYC, Vegas, San Francisco-it was very impressive.  But steering the boats was the favorite of the boys.  
My favorite event happened as we were on a roller coaster.  The first hill was a steep drop (Graham wasn't tall enough for this coaster).  Reagan must have been pretty nervous because she smashed the lap bar so tight on her.  As our car was climbing the hill, she shouted "I can't do this!"  I didn't know what she was talking about thinking maybe she was talking about her tight lap bar but she said "go down this hill, I can't go down this hill."  I said "yes, you can and here we go."  She did enjoy it after it was over and later in the day when Robby let everyone pick one last thing, she picked this coaster again.
There was a little log ride that we rode on (very little compared to Magic Springs) but after the first drop, Campbell started to stand up and said "out"-after yesterday, that girl did not want to get wet at all.  Of course, they had 3 sprayers that would drench you as you floated by.  I took off my coat and held it up so we wouldn't get too wet and Robby mostly stopped the water from hitting his passengers with his hand but we all managed to get a bit damp.  And after yesterday, we had tried to avoid anything dealing with water.
Another neat ride/attraction was a fire truck that you had to steer, pump to make go and then hop out and spray water and then finally jump back in and pump back to the start.  It was tough work-I was with Reagan and Campbell and everyone smoked us.  The kids loved it and wanted us to do it again-not a chance I was too out of breath.  Same thing with the ride that you set and pull yourself up the rope.  Man, we did get a bit of exercise today-there was even one ride that we had to peddle to make it go.  
Graham really enjoyed a shooting game that had a Pharaoh theme.  It was nothing like Disney's Buzz ride but it was still neat.  Graham picked this again as his last thing to do.  Another neat thing was a boat ride around some of the lego creations.  I guess this was the only ride that Keaton was able to do-it didn't really impress her that much.  She was a great baby today except that she tried her hardest to kick her socks off all day long.  Finally, we just took them off of her!
They had slides that Campbell was not going to go down.  They were the slides with hills and I took her back up to help her down-those are my favorite and I didn't want her to not do it.  But after I sent her down, I saw that baby fly down the slide and realized that her fear of the slide was legitimate.  She made it down in one piece but didn't want to go back and do it again.  Another fear she had was on a roller coaster-the height requirement was 36 inches and she is exactly that so we put her on it.  We were in the back and as we went around the curve, that baby was slammed right into my side.  She was pressed there for the rest of the ride.  All of these rides take those pictures of you during the ride and I would have loved to buy each and every one of them-on most of them at least one kid has a look of pure terror on their face. 
They had lost of play areas and spots that the kids could play with legos.  The kids could have stayed forever in the play areas-if we would have let them they would have built with leogs all day long.  We had pizza for lunch and then rested a bit while they played in one of those areas.  This area had a train ride in it and Anderson ended up being in the engine.  As he went around the track, I heard him saying "this is the tree area. look at the fruit"-he was giving a tour.  What a good tour guide he was.  
Another exciting thing for the kids was a driving school.  Reagan was able to go to the driving school for 6-14 year olds.  It was real go carts (moving slowly of course) on city like streets.  They were told to obey traffic rules and what did my girl do-a u turn the first second she was behind the wheel.  She must watch her Daddy drive!  She finally did figure it out.  On the other side of the building, there was a track for 3-5 year olds and Anderson and Graham had a field day over there.  Anderson understood the concept but Graham only caught on towards the end.  When they left, they were all passed a driver's license.    
We made another day of it and around 4 headed out of the park.  We did a bit of window shopping before we left and then fought the traffic as we headed back into San Diego.  Our hotel tonight is right near Little Italy and looks like there are tons of restaurants nearby.  But this hotel has supper so after a long day of theme parking, supper in was nice.  They had salad, rolls and cheese manicotti (or something like it).  The kids were thirsty and ate quite a bit-mostly croutons, cheese and rolls.  Before supper, Keaton had a bath-that girls gets oh so smelly with all of her spitting up and drooling that she is doing right now.
Back in the room, everyone had baths and then they all laid in the floor watching a movie and eating popcorn-the life of a Dennie kid!  Robby laid down with Campbell and she fell asleep and is sleeping well so far and now the others are laying out in the living area in their sleeping bags.  I doubt they will get to stay there much longer as they are already on their second "be quiet" warning.  And Graham won't last out there anyways and will probably end up in our bed.  But maybe I will be wrong and we will all sleep all night!

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