Everything is Awesome!!

Heavens above, you would think every single one of my kid's dreams came true yesterday when we took them to Legoland for the first time. 

 We spent the night before in a hotel in San Diego and they were all up at the crack of dawn, ready to go, despite the fact that the park didn't even open until 10am.

The boys had both brought minifigures to trade at the park and we ran into a trade guy first thing - Peter picked out the "Honey? Where are my paaaannnts?" guy and here he is laughing his head off in response.

Benji went with this eclectic cowboy hat dude.

Meeting a 'real life lego guy!' Benji and I actually ran into Emmett from The Lego Movie later in the day but Benji was in his meltdown phase and did not want to meet or take his picture with him. Oh well.

Peter decided he wanted to drive a car first - which was lots of fun. The kids really drive the cars, sorta like bumper cars and get a drivers license afterwards. There was also a separate track for 3-5 year olds that Benji got to drive on. It was pretty popular with my little men.

Driving the firetruck, and getting ready to go put out some fires.

Travis being crazy on the airplane ride with Peter.

Poor Nora. The boys were more interested in riding rides than stopping at the play areas where Nora could get out so for much of the day she spent in the stroller or baby carrier. But she was sooo good and enjoyed her moments of freedom when she got them. She's an excellent little traveler, our baby.

I took Nora on a boat ride (one of the few she could go on) and took this selfie -- and now have undeniable proof that I am getting old. Heavens! Look at all those wrinkles!!

Benji has always been our more...tricky child, I'll say. That kid has strong opinions and emotions about everything!! This ride for instance, he did NOT want to go on. But Travis convinced him to...

 And look! There's a smile. Proof he was having fun!

 In fact, he really wanted to ride this little horse ride (which Peter did get to go on), where the horse galloped around the track by itself but he had to be so tall and 4 years old -- which we didn't realized when we suggested it. Well, of course he told them he was only 3 and so didn't get to ride it and, well, queue meltdown. It was quite the thing. I felt like telling him just to say he was 4 but that just sounded like every Sunday School lesson there ever was against lying, so end the end, Benji did not ride.

 Luckily he found his happy face again (after getting something else to eat)

 And got to go on safari with momma.

Later came the real reason we were at Legoland in the first place. Travis has been coaching Peter's Jr. First Lego League team and they presented their model and poster of the spaceships Rosetta and Philea landing on the comet that happened earlier this year. The kids did such a good job - their team name was The Specials and Travis made them these red box 'backpacks' so they'd look like Emmett wearing the piece of resistance. It was awesome.

At the end of the day we finally made it to the actual movie set of the 'basement' they used in filming The Lego Movie. The boys thought this was so cool - actually we did too. It was pretty intense.

 Emmett's double-decker couch.

 Turns out the day we were there was actually the one year anniversary of The Lego Movie coming out in theaters so that was pretty rad.

 On our way home, we stopped by the Legoland Hotel and found this in the lobby. It's the actual model used in the movie's credits. Pretty dang cool. 

We had such a fun day there. I was impressed with how friendly the staff were and how short the lines were. I don't think we waited more than 20 min for a ride, which was really nice. Since we were busy part of the day doing JrFLL stuff, we didn't get to see quite all the park but we still had a very full and fun day. I think we'll probably go back again once Benji is at least 4 and in the summer so we can do the water park and aquarium as well. Otherwise we had a great day!