Adventure to Legoland

A few months ago Meg asked our children if they would prefer to visit Disneyland or Legoland. Apparently, they overwhelmingly voted for Legoland, much to Meg's disappointment (the kids are somewhat price-conscious, but I don't think that influenced their decision). Meg had thought to drive down with just the kids, but I convinced her to let me come, too, and to use our Southwest points to fly to Southern California (I'm not much of a road-tripper). We had thought to visit the Redwood forests of Northern California on our return drive, and although this omission disappointed Aaron, I think everyone enjoyed the relatively easy travel arrangements--plus, this leaves us with another travel destination for the future (we don't often repeat our travel destinations).

Early Saturday morning we picked up some friends who drove us to the airport (and babysat the van for the week so they could pick us up again). We had to change planes in Sacramento, and that flight was delayed, we were soon on the ground in Los Angeles. We retrieved our luggage without fail--the children still helping out without complaint--and took a shuttle to the rental car office or, as Meg would probably like to call it, Satan's Lair, where it took an hour or two to tell the representatives we didn't want a bigger, more expensive car, and telling them we didn't want to rent a car seat for Ian for like 30 bucks a day and having to listen to them threaten not to let us leave the lair without one. After finally getting the keys to the car, Ian and I took a walk around the block where we rendezvoused with the getaway car and drove a few miles into LA to buy a booster seat for Target. Meg found the last one in the store (Ian didn't mind the stylish shade of purple, either) for less than what Satan wanted to charge us for one day. We did have reservations for a restaurant that Meg really wanted to eat, but the delays at the lair prevented us from making our commitment.

We drove about 20 miles south of LAX to San Pedro, where he had a hotel for the night. The town was nice, and they even had a festival going on a few blocks from our hotel--where, surprisingly, only Ed wanted to hang out explore with Meg. We later walked down towards the waterfront, where the boys found a fountain and ran through it until their street clothes were soaked--they just couldn't wait 30 minutes to walk back to the hotel and swim in the pool.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at a quaint, neighborhood cafe and then drove south to San Diego county. Meg wanted to drive along Highway 1, so it took a little longer, but tablets in the backseat kept the kids somewhat contained. When we reached our hotel in Encinitas, about five miles south of Legoland, the children stripped down and hit the pool.

Monday morning couldn't have come sooner, especially for Ian, as the boys were absolutely stoked to visit Legoland. We arrived at the giant parking lot (bigger than the actual park, from my estimates) before the park officially opened. We had no idea what we wanted to do, or really what was in the park, but knowing we had five days to explore we took a very leisurely approach to our visit. I don't want to do a play-by-play for each day in the park, so here are some of the highlights:

• Two Teams: We did not get along very well when the five of us were together, so Meg and I took a different combination of kids and did our own thing most of the time. I think each kid got 1:1 time with each of us at some point.
• Mini-fig Trading: The boys loved trading the mini-figs they bought in the mystery packages with this guy who wore a vest full of mini-figs (his job was to trade with kids). Ian traded so many times it was silly.
• All-you-can-eat: The price for food inside the park bordered on the illegal, so we ate lunch a couple times out in the parking lot. But for dinner one night we took advantage of the "kids eat free" with each paying adult and stuffed down pizza at an alarming rate (at least for my picky kids).
• In-and-Out: We had never eaten at in-and-out burger before and loved it, eating there twice during the week. The simple menu--hamburger, cheeseburger, or double-cheeseburger--didn't phase the kids, and they ate burger after burger after burger--even Aaron-the-granarian.
• Neesa: A family friend of the Boorens--Neesa--lived nearby, and she invited us to hang with her family on two occasions: Monday, at the beach at Oceanside; and Thursday at their house about 45 minutes from where we were staying. Her family brought body boards to the beach, and the older boys grabbed them and enjoyed the surf for an hour or so, even after a lifeguard chased them down and yelled at them for getting too close to the jagged rock wall jutting out from shore into the ocean. After spending the day at Moonlight beach, we drove about 45 minutes to Neesa's house in Fallbrook. Their house sat on a couple of acres in the California, and it was populated with fruit trees galore: lemons, limes, grapefruit, oranges. And they had chickens, which Ian and Edward fed and played with. I'm guessing the family would name the animal gesture game as the highlight of the night, particularly Edward, who ended the game the last-and-proud King of the Animals.
• Moonlight Beach: We decided to take a day off from Legoland and spend the day at one of the many beaches nearby. We had been watching Shark Week a bit at the hotel at night, and it caused a bit of anxiety for Aaron wanting to go back out in the ocean again, as he thought a shark was going to take him down to the depths of the ocean, never to see the light of day again. But after I took our $8 body board from Wal-mart out in the ocean and proved that no sharks were going to eat us, Aaron loosened up a bit and returned to have fun again in the surf. Meg relaxed on the beach the whole time, while I tanned my skin to a devilish red. We left the hugely crowded beach mid-afternoon, picked up donuts and a cake at a local bakery, then headed to Neesa's house for a fun evening together.
• "She's not 13": Meg and Edward were waiting in line for a ride where participants had to be between the ages of 6-12. When they got to the front of the line, the worker asked Edward how old he was to verify he was in the proper range. Meg then gleefully added that she was 13 and thus too old to ride. Edward replied, "She's not 13 . . . she's 12."
• First and Last Rides: Our first ride in the park was a boat ride through an artificial lake in the middle of the park. Before leaving the park for the last time on Friday evening, we all enjoyed one last leisurely tour of the park.
• Water Park and Aquarium: Legoland also has a water park and a sea aquarium, which we visited briefly. The water park failed to attract the attention of the boys; we spent a couple of hours there, the bulk of which Aaron and I just floated around the lazy river. We walked through the aquarium a few times, but it took less than an hour to casually stroll through and experience everything.

After waking up Saturday morning, packing, and eating our final, free continental breakfast (unfortunately, the menu didn't change once during our week-long stay), we drove north towards LAX. Our flight didn't leave until 7:00 p.m., so we had most of the day to burn. We stopped in Long Beach to tour the RMS Queen Mary, a decommissioned cruise ship that is now purportedly America's most haunted hotel. Even though we spent an hour or two walking around the gigantic ship, I think we felt rushed and didn't take in the tour as deeply as we did other things on our trip.

I can't recall anything else of import that happened on our trip home. Meg deserves a lot of credit for planning and executing a great and, I hope, memorable trip for our family.