Legoland! (part 1)

Our school district changed our calendar this year and it was the first year when we actually had a whole week off for Thanksgiving break, instead of just 2 days.  We made the most of it!  haha.  On Sunday we told the kids we were heading to Grandma Dangerfield's house - we had loaded up suitcases in the back of the van the night before without the kids knowing.  We thought the kids would start asking questions when we got on the wrong freeway, but they were oblivious - we had to drop hints about our surroundings to get the kids to notice that something was up.  They finally asked why were going the wrong way and where we were headed.  Ben yelled boisterously "We're going to LEGOLAND!!" The video below shows their lacluster reaction - the pic shows more excitement yes, but they were pretty weird about the surprise - haha.  I'm not sure I'm going to do vacation surprises again!

Emma was the only one who showed some excitement, Jake acted like he always knew and was super casual about it, and Claire never changed her facial expression at all... hahaha!  Our dear Becca who is soooo organized with a plan-ahead personality, was flabbergasted and absolutely did not believe us - when she finally did believe us, she was just grumpy and later told us that she was actually sad we weren't going to Grandma's house like she thought.  What the heck?! hahaha!  They all ended up LOVING the trip though, despite the disappointing reaction at the beginning.

We arrived at our hotel in the early evening - we stayed at a beautiful resort - the Hilton Carlsbad Oceanfront resort.  There was a walkway to the beach from the hotel - so we quickly checked in and unloaded our van - then walked down to the beach before it got too dark.  We got some pretty sunset, silhouette photos :)

 

The next morning we were excited to start our Legoland day!  It was a long wait in the lobby for the shuttle :)

First ride!  We had to take a pic in line of our first legoland ride :)

Because it was holiday time, they had a snow area- the kids liked it, although it's definitely not a substitute for the real thing!

 
Lego factory - it was really cool to see how legos are made!

Lego Ewok village...

Emma and Ben rode level 2 on the Knights Tournament ride - they have 5 settings - Becca and Jake were able to ride it but only on level 1.  Emma could do up to level 2.  The higher the level, the faster and crazier and more upside down and twisting you end up doing...

This ride cracked us up - Emma definitely looked too old for this one - hahaha!

Jake got a caricature of himself - it's currently hanging in his space themed bedroom...

Last ride of the day!  This dragon coaster ended up being the girls favorite of the day - they rode it a couple of times...

We ended our day with ice cream!

After our first Legoland day, we explored downtown Carlsbad and found a yummy pizza place for dinner and got some treats at a chocolate shop- then went back to the hotel to swim in the pool (mostly the hot tub though!)  It was a little cool at night even for the heated pool.