lego crazy

Last weekend we took a quick trip down South to Carlsbad, just a bit north of San Diego to go to LEGOLand.  We figured we would take one last trip before the baby gets here.  We had come across an episode of Sand Masters where they did a giant Star Wars LEGO sand sculpture for the grand opening of the Star Wars mini land and it really made up want to see it in person.

So we picked Emma up from school on Friday and told her we were going on a special trip, but didn't tell her where.  When we finally did she was very excited, but still managed to pass out thanks to the long car ride and late hour!

We got there a little too early the next morning and had our picture taken in front of the park.  Emma was dying to get inside and ride some rides.

When we picked up the picture on the way out the guy at the counter commented on how we lucked out with our timing and got a picture with no one behind us.  Uh, yeah, lucked out as in got to the park and hour before it opened.  So yeah, that worked out nicely.

We headed out to the mini worlds first because that's really what I came to see.  It was cool because they had buttons everywhere that the kids could push that did something interactive with the scene.  It kept Emma from getting bored since she couldn't play with anything over there.

Washington, D.C.  They even had the Vietnam Memorial.

Las Vegas!

30 Rock!

This is harder to see because it's so small, but it was crypts in New Orleans.  The zombies are attacking!

Hollywood, CA

Pier 39 in San Francisco with the sea lions and all!

I loved it, but my favorite was this little scene:

SO AWESOME!  Even Emma, who has never watched an episode said 'Mama, I think that's Buffy!'  I'm not sure if this scene is here all the time or if it's just an addition for Halloween, but I'm glad we caught it!

Then there was the Star Wars Mini World, LEGOLand's newest edition.  I took at least a hundred pictures there, but I'll just post a few...

It really is amazing when you think about how much work went into these scenes.  It takes me awhile to do one building.  To do all this is mind blowing!  This would probably be my dream job!!

Halloween was getting started so we got to see some of the decorations that would be more prevalent in October.

Not a Halloween decoration, but we thought the bathroom signs were funny.

This dragon was huge!

We ended up getting an ECV for me because I was having some pretty bad cramping after the walking around the mini worlds. Instead of pressing our luck we got this instead and it helped immensely.  I was terrified of running over people.

I wish I had a video of Emma walking off this water ride.  It was hilarious!  They were soaked, but she loved it!  She just didn't love wet jeans afterwards.

The next day we spent the morning at the Sea Life Aquarium that is semi-attached to the park.  Took about an hour.  Nothing too special, but it was nice and fun to see all the LEGO aspects.  I didn't take too many pictures in there because I suck at fish pictures.

All in all it was a great trip.  I definitely would recommend LEGOLand if you've got kids between the ages of 4 and 12 though 12 might be pushing it.  Emma loved it and there was tons of stuff for her to do there.  There's lots of healthy options for the kids for food too which was nice.  They even had baby food in case you forgot!  We didn't go into the water park while we were there because it was chilly and we didn't want to get Emma's hopes up, but from what we did see it looked lots of fun!

home sweet home

Yay we're home!  We took a quick vacation down south to Carlsbad and Anaheim - no, we didn't go to Disneyland :(.  It's quite wonderful to be back home.  I'm uploading my pics and will have a much better post for everyone soon!  Have a fabulous Monday in the meantime!

quite a trip

This week Ray had a conference in Burlingame as I’ve talked about here.  Originally, Emma and I were going to go with him for the week and hang out in the city, but I’ve gotten to the lovely point in the pregnancy where sleeping just sucks so I thought it would be better just to wait until the end of the week and stay one night.

The plan was to go to Emma’s Fun Fitness Class (she has that every Monday & Wednesday) at 3, pick up my Timptations box at 4 and head out to Burlingame.  But then I thought it would be fun to take the train out there instead.  We’re almost at the beginning of CalTrain.  There’s a stop or two south of us, but we’re really at the beginning of the line.  Which means that there’s only 3 trains that leave from Morgan Hill and only one that stops in Burlingame.  That train leaves at 6:45 a.m.

My lovely friend Kim picked up my Timptations box for me and we decided to skip the class so we could take the train.  Emma was super excited.  I packed the night before, ran the dishwasher and set my alarm for 5:30 a.m.

Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the volume up on my alarm so when it went off I didn’t hear it.  I woke up at 6 in a panic.  Luckily, we live 5 minutes from the station, but still I was sure we would miss the train.  I threw on my clothes (I had the foresight the night before to set out the clothes that Emma and I would wear on the train) and woke Emma up, threw her clothes at her and told her to get dressed.  She cried because she was 1) tired. 2) grumpy & 3) thought we would miss our train and she wouldn’t see Daddy.  I ran and threw our stuff in the car, came back and miraculously she was dressed and we ran out the door.

We made it to the station with 10 minutes to spare.

She’s so tired!

Emma directed us to the upstairs and she squirmed around excited to be on the train and on our way.  Until the train took off the second stop and she announced she had to use the restroom.  We still had about an hour before we got to Burlingame and there are no bathrooms on the train. 

At the San Jose station there’s a train that leaves just about every 15 minutes and using the fancy CalTrain app I had downloaded onto my phone the night before I was able to figure out we could get off in San Jose and get right back on to the next train and make it to Burlingame.  It worked out perfectly!

We get off the train at Burlingame and I check Google Maps to see which way we’re supposed to walk to get to the hotel and realize the stop we got off on is 1.1 miles further away than I had thought.  We had to walk 2 miles to the hotel.

Now that might not sound like that much to you, but imagine this:  think about a woman who is about 30 weeks pregnant.  I am only 21 weeks, but I am as big as if I were 10 weeks further along.  I had my backpack that has my laptop, iPad, 3 hardback books, 3 paperback books, miscellaneous other crap.  Then Emma had her backpack with her junk to do in it, her rolling suitcase and I also had a slightly large travel bag that had the rest of our junk in it.  Emma pulled her suitcase along and wore her backpack, but after the first 1/2 mile of the almost 2 miles we had to walk she just couldn’t carry the backpack anymore.  So I took that.

Trucking along.

We stopped every other block or so to rest.  Finally, after we made it about a mile Ray was able to come and pick us up so we didn’t have to do the overpass over the freeway.  That was the best car ride EVER!

We hung out in the room, got some breakfast and then went out to the pool.  Of course, I had to fall in the hot tub paying more attention to Emma than myself.  I was able to grab the pole by the stairs, but that caused me to wrench my arm.  That was fun.

For dinner we took Emma to Benihana’s.  She didn’t want to go.  She wanted to go to McDonald’s.  Our kid’s palate is quite refined, you know.  She ended up in awe of the whole thing.  She loved our chef.  His name was Hiro, just like my uncle so that was instantly exciting for her.  She thought Hiro was pretty cool.

She’s expressing her disbelief at something Ray has told her.

Now she’s completely engrossed in the cooking!

When we woke up this morning I discovered that it was very difficult to move my entire body.  Good stuff.  But totally worth it.  Ray and I have spent the night apart very few times since we’ve been together so anytime away is no fun.  I just feel odd and sad when he’s not here.  And Emma too.  She’s got to have her little family unit under one roof to feel happy.

So now we’re all back home and everything’s back to normal.  Except for my friend Kim!  She’s broke her foot in two places last night!  Let’s hope for a super speedy recovery.  Until then, Emma’s decided we can temporarily adopt Kim’s kids.  This should be a good time had by all!