From Legoland With Love

Friday, we woke up and headed out before 8:00 to go to Legoland.  It’s about a 2 hour drive to get there, and it opened at 10:00.  The drive was a combination of great scenery, a 4-mile long tunnel, and a lot of fast driving on the autobahn.  I’ve learned that once you pass someone, you need to go right back to the right lane.  Even when you’re going over 85 mph, someone can still come screaming up behind you out of nowhere.  

Part of our drive included listening to our new “learn German through jazzed up children’s songs” CD given to us by Ryan’s officemate.  I attempted to learn German before coming here and got through the first Pimsleur course...and then life got in the way.  And I found out that the entire first half of the course lead up to me being able to ask someone if they wanted to have a drink together at my place or at their place.  Clearly I’m not their target audience.  So we’ll give it a try with “she’ll be coming round the mountain”.

We got there pretty close to opening time, and stayed until it closed at 5:00 p.m.  The last time we did an amusement park was when we did Disneyworld a year and a half ago. Chloe was only 2, so she was too small for almost everything, and Andrew was too scared to even ride Dumbo. We’ve come a long way since then.  For the first time ever, I had four kids who all loved going on rides.  And with the exception of a few, Chloe was tall enough to do the rides with us.  The day couldn’t have been nicer, and there were almost no lines--which is a great recipe for success in an amusement park.

Sheer terror.  Riding "Bulgy the Whale" scarred him for years.

Our one little glitch came when Mason lost his iPod touch.  He remembered having it on a ride, and then 2 rides later he realized it was gone.  This is his miracle iPod that survived an entire wash cycle that was followed by a good 10 minutes of thumping around the drier before I stopped it to see what was making the noise.  And it lived to tell about it.

We retraced our steps, asking first at one ride and then going to the next.  It continues to be the miracle iPod, because at the second ride, it was sitting in the little office where the controls are.  I don't know who it was that turned it in, but I hope there's some good karma coming their way.  After that, it got locked in my purse.

We had a great time together, everyone had fun, and no one got sunburned.  And most important for me, I didn’t spend my day waiting in lines.  Hooray!

We got home in time for Ryan and I to go to watch the Avengers.  Movies in general require you to suspend belief, but this one really took it to a new level. Even so, it was a fun movie to watch.  Expensive ($25/person for the movie and 3D glasses), but fun.  Just as memorable as the movie was walking the 1/4 mile back from our house through the pitch darkness at midnight.  Over the bridge, up the trail, etc.  A little freaky, but I didn’t get eaten by wild animals so I’ll consider it a success.