Legoland!

Going with the theme of Drew's birthday party, his gift from Grandma and Grandpa (Nathan's parents) was a trip to Legoland....aka boy paradise. Seriously. None of us had ever been before so I really wasn't sure what to expect, but from the very first walk up to our own gate from the hotel, I could tell, this place was going to be a hit with our Lego loving boys. Grandpa wasn't able to make the trip, but Grandma was and the boys ate up the time they got with her. Undivided attention in a place that surrounded them with their very favorite things? This was the ideal...I'm telling you, boy heaven!

This was the bunny that met us at the gate. We were amazed that the entire thing was made out of Legos. Little did we know however, this was minor in comparison to the rest of the creations we would see while visiting.

Drew and his maps...

 Full scale Chewbacca

All of these buildings were made entirely of Legos. There was a mini Washington D.C. and the White House, a mini Las Vegas, a mini San Francisco (including Lombard Street, Pier 39, China Town), etc.....all made out of Legos. Seriously, amazing.

Grandma and her boys

A picture "for Auntie Jenn" (Jenn has always had a Darth Vadar key chain on her key ring that Drew loves to play with). 

One of the Star Wars scenes. They had all of the Star Wars characters and a full scene from each of the six movies. We spent a lot of time talking about Drew's buddy Bradley (who loves Star Wars and has passed that love onto Drew, although Drew's never seen any of the movies!) as we walked through this part...

In the middle of all of the mini Lego towns there was a lake where you could choose a boat sitting out on the water and race it from the shore. The boys loved this....including that rather big boy over there on the right. :)

Grandma and Collin racing

The most handsome man on the planet. Enough said.

And what you might ask are all of these things made of? ...Legos.

...Legos.

...and more Legos. Pretty cool.  Notice the Q-Tip?

So this was one of the highlights of Drew's trip. We saw a roller coaster and Drew was insistent upon riding it. We weren't sure he would be tall enough, but sure enough when we walked up to measure, he was well past the lowest height marker to ride. We then let him watch the roller coaster go by a few times just to make sure he knew what he was getting into. He knew....and he was giddy to go. "Come on Dad! Come on!!!"....

...and off they went! Because I'm pregnant I couldn't ride, but I liked that I had plenty of places I could see them from to take pictures. :)

And even better than keeping me happy with the ability to take a few photos of Drew's first ride on a roller coaster, was the fact that Collin was kept happy with a fossil dig right next door. Literally, I stood on the outside of the fossil dig fence while Kathleen and Collin went to go play, and to my immediate right was Collin, and my immediate left was Drew and the roller coaster. Genius thinking on the part of whichever Lego guru put those two together!

Look right in the center of this photo...just in front of that green pole. That's my big kid!!

And when the roller coaster ride was all said and done...Collin was thrilled to be playing with Grandma...

...and Drew was beaming that he had just ridden a roller coaster! P.S. Notice that button Drew's wearing? When we came into Legoland, Kathleen happened to mention that we were there for Drew's 4th birthday. Well, the lady at the counter wrote Drew's name on that button that said "Happy Birthday!" and from then on out, any Lego worker we encountered either sang Happy Birthday or wished him a Happy Birthday wherever we went through out the park. Talk about special treatment!

 Aaaaaand, because of that birthday button, Drewski scored an ice cream sundae after lunch at the hotel too! (An added perk to that walking path from Legoland was the fact that we got to walk up to the hotel for a non-fast food lunch). It actually ended up working out really well in that Nathan and I took Collin back to our room for a quick nap while Kathleen and Drew went back down to Legoland to get into all sorts of trouble on their own. And trouble they got into! We came back from nap time and what to our wondering eyes did appear? A brand spankin' new tattoo on Drew's very proud arm! Grandma! How could you?? It was airbrushed of course, but we still had to harass her about the wild shenanigans that apparently go on when Grandma and Drew go out alone (*wink!*). 

As if I haven't said this enough already: all Legos! A full sized car! With real tires. Legos, legos and more legos; over 201,000 of them! Um, I was impressed.

Really, he's not having any fun.

Drew loved this ride too because he didn't need to have a parent ride with him. It was an honest to goodness race track too. He loved it!

And at the end of racing, he earned his very own license. Pretty big stuff.

Since Collin wasn't old enough to ride the race cars on his own, I was happy to see that they had the exact same stationary race cars Drew was driving just outside where the track was. So while Nathan and Kathleen stuck close by Drew on the track, I was able to take Collin to "drive" the stationary cars while still being able to see and watch Drew on the track.

My three favorite boys!

Drew loved his batman mask so much that we had to bribe him to wash it off for bed that night by promising that we could go and get another mask painted on in the morning. ....which, in case you were wondering, is exactly what we did.

During a particularly long wait for Drew and Daddy to make their way through a ride's line on Friday, Kathleen managed to get Collin to sit still for a caricature and he did great; smiled and everything! The fun part was that Kathleen arranged with the artist to do Collin while we were waiting for Drew and then add Drew in once he was finished with the ride. I was impressed with how much they were able to catch the characteristics of the boys. The picture turned out really cute, and we ended up with a fun souvenir for the boys' new room they will be sharing in the next month or two. 

On day two, we found the water section of the park. Collin was soaked (because daddy was in charge), but of course loved it! Thank goodness for a second change of clothes in the diaper bag!

And of all things, Nathan managed to find Bob the Builder for Collin

When it was all said and done, the boys were exhausted (and so were we!!). I left with nothing but good things to say about Legoland. It is the perfect place to go for kids under ten years old. Drew could ride almost any ride in the park and when Collin wasn't able to ride something, there was always a close-by play option that one of us adults could take him to while Drew finished his ride, making it so Collin never felt left out. Our first day we had extremely minimal wait times for every ride and there were very few crowds. The second day was a bit more crowded since it was a Friday, but we had seen most of the park the day before, so by the time it was overly crowded and the boys were getting near nap time, we felt no obligation to stay. We were planning to drive home that night anyway, so we plopped two tired boys straight from Legoland into the car and had a very uneventful car ride home thanks to two boys who both snoozed the time away. All in all, a really, really fun trip for both our kids. Thank you SO much Grandma and Grandpa! You spoiled all of us with a terrific trip!