Legoland

Somehow, I was able to get all six of my kids down to San Diego in one piece, by myself.  God is good.  We decided to do a little trip with our kids for their birthday present. Rinar went down for work at the beginning of the week and then we would drive down to meet him.

I decided to leave late Tuesday night so that I would not have to stop and feed Noelle mid-drive. We ended up leaving around 8:20 p.m. and pulled into my Grandma's driveway at 12:15. I didn't even speed!

Grandma was kind enough to let us crash at her house. I carried all of the sleeping kids into her condo and put them on make-shift beds. Everyone was pretty darn tired.

After a short visit with Grandma in the morning, the rest of the drive to California was pretty uneventful, thank goodness!  But when I got to the hotel I was beat. Fortunately, I got some much needed sleep/ Thursday morning, we were ready to go to Legoland. My kids were very excited. The weather was ideal and it was not crowded. We were able to ride all of the rides with very few lines. It is definitely true that Legoland is for little kids. Raef and Zach are too big for this place now. Zach wanted to ride the scary rides. The only roller coaster was closed for maintenance. That was a major bummer. But we still found fun things to do. 

This was the 'scariest' ride in the park. Zach actually wanted to ride it twice. Raef did not.

We split up at the end for that second ride and while they were gone, I misplaced my phone. Fortunately, it was turned in to lost and found. Hallelujah! While Harry, Julia, and I waited for everyone else to return, we took some pictures. And this girl really likes to pose.

From early on in the day, Eli had his heart set on winning a Despicable Me stuffed animal at one of those silly midway games. This was another reason we split up, so that he could try. And wouldn't you know, the kid won a huge purple doll on his very first try! He did it on his own. He had to toss a couple of really bouncy balls into a basket. Rinar, Raef, and Zach all tried and failed. But not this amazing kid...

I think the best part of Legoland was the fact that all of our kids expressed their gratitude many times to both Rinar and me. They would give us spontaneous hugs and tell us thank you, especially Eli.  Even today, he gave us both a hug and said thank you for taking him to Legoland.