The final state we hit in our seven-state vacation extravaganza was California. After all our family events and visits, we still had five days before we were scheduled to fly home out of Las Vegas. We thought of lots of different things we could do with the time but finally decided to go -- where else --?
Disneyland!
Lucy's favorite ride was the Indiana Jones Adventure.
Gavin liked the Star Tours ride, with the cool 3-D glasses you got to wear. Sometimes, when asked, he would say this was his favorite ride. Other times, it was Space Mountain or Small World. But most often, he said his favorite ride was the Pirates of the Caribbean, which we went on three times and would have done a few more if Gavin had his way.
Gavin insisted that we stand in line to meet Mickey Mouse himself.
Austin found a comfy spot to read the paper on Mickey's front porch while we stood in line.
We last came to Disneyland when Lucy was barely three. She wanted to go on no rides, she just wanted to meet all the Princesses and eat Cheetos. She wasn't interested in princesses this time, but she still loved the Cheetos!
The next day we went to the beach. We got a hotel near the pier in Oceanside and walked down early one morning, expecting to be the only ones on the beach. Nope, it was prime surfing time, and the waves were full of people on surfboards. It was entertaining to watch them.
Within a few minutes, the kids were begging to get in their swimsuits. They ran and played in the waves for hours. We don't live far from the ocean, I can't believe we don't take them more often!
They played in the sand and hunted for sea shells, completely happy.
Check out Lucy's curls!
Then we went off to Legoland. It's not as great as Disneyland, but it's also not as intense, so in some ways we were able to relax and enjoy it more.
Legoland is full of sculptures made entirely out of Legos. Our Lego-obsessed kids loved it.
One of the best parts was the Lego Waterpark. There was a lazy river with tubes that had Lego building platforms on them, so while you were floating you could pick up giant Legos from the water and build onto your tube. I wish I had some pictures of our creations, but I was too busy having fun to go get the camera. I did get a picture of the "family dryer" where, for just $5, the entire family can get blasted with warm air. Wish we'd have found this earlier, since we didn't bring towels!
There were some fun rides, like this Technic Car rollercoaster. There was also a dragon coaster that took you on a tour of a Lego castle full of amazing Lego creations before sending you through death-defying dips and turns.
Watching the Lego artists at work.
The Star Wars Lego creatures were a huge hit, of course.
I loved this -- there were Lego replicas of major world cities, including Las Vegas. Which means we got to see this Lego replica of the Las Vegas replica of New York City. Cool, but I think I'd rather go see the real thing. (Maybe next weekend?)
