Birthday at Legoland

Spring break always happens right around Dallin's birthday. So this year we decided to take a short weekend trip to Chicago to take the boys to the Legoland Discovery Center. On the drive up there, Dallin got to open his first birthday present from his Easton grandparents: The Lego Movie.

They were silently glued to the screen for the rest of trip.

When we arrived, Dallin could see the Lego logo on the building and got very excited because he thought we were going to a Lego store. It was a little bit cooler than that.

Now, I've never been to Legoland in California or a similar place before, but I knew that this Discovery Center wouldn't be on quite the same grand scale as the theme park. I DID think it would be a little bigger though for the money we paid and have more than two rides. I forget that things cost a lot more in big cities and that we are so used to not spending our money. Every time Mckay or I felt a little underwhelmed by the experience, we reminded each other that this was for the kids. And our kids had a wonderful time.

There was a replica of the Chicago skyline made from Legos.

And a rainforest filled with lego animals.

They liked the hippo.

Dallin was VERY excited to see Darth Vader.

 And R2-D2.

We watched the short 4D movie (the boys were not impressed with the 3D glasses and kept taking them off) and went on the two rides.

There was a big play area with tunnels/slides and big foam bricks for building with. There were tables for building with duplo blocks and tables for building with regular Lego bricks.

We built several different models of cars and then put them to the test on the track.

Most of them crashed into pieces at the bottom of the ramp but Mckay managed to build a pretty sturdy car.

We ate lunch at the cafe there. The website said that outside food would not be allowed and that we could buy sandwiches there for $3.

This is how big a $3 sandwich is. One piece of bread folded in half with a slice of turkey on it.... No cheese, just turkey. They did have closer to normal-sized sandwiches for purchase at $8-$10 each. 

*sigh* "This is for the kids. This is for the kids..."

We bought a few sandwiches and shared a tiny snack size bag of chips for $1.

We were pretty hungry by dinnertime. We left Legoland and drove to the nearby hotel we had booked for the night. Then we picked up our dinner: a 30 inch pizza.

I don't remember how exactly this idea came to us a few weeks before the trip. We were talking about how we should get pizza in Chicago because Dallin loves pizza and Chicago has great deep dish pizza. Then we thought about how some places sell really big pizzas, so we did some searching to find the biggest pizza available in Chicago. Bacci Pizzeria won with 30 inches. That's almost as tall as Connor.

And this was GOOD pizza too. Good sauce, good cheese, nice crust, better than most chain delivery pizza places. It cost $35 and we had leftovers for a week, but it was totally worth it.

We spent the night at our Homewood Suites hotel. (Suites are the way to go when you have kids at a hotel. The kids slept in the living room on the sofa bed and we got our own space in a separate bedroom, with Bennett in the pack 'n play.) We ate a big breakfast at the hotel, had a relaxing morning and went to the nearby mall to walk around/play before driving home. We all had a really fun time. And now we'll have to go to the real Legoland sometime. 

Day 24: new experiences

 I'm thankful that we get to try new things. Life would be pretty boring if we had to choose one thing to do for the rest of our life and we never got to do anything else. I like experiencing new things. When Mckay and I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to learn curling, we were pretty excited.

Yes, Curling. The winter sport you always see on the Olympics but have never actually known how its played. Well, now I know!

Mckay has a Chem.E. friend here at Purdue that curls and was even on his college curling team as an undergrad.

Erik is connected in the Curling community and still plays regularly. There is a Chicago curling club and they often invite new comers in to learn how to curl. So we found some wonderful people to watch our children all day on a Saturday and we drove to Chicago (2.5 hrs away) to go curling.

Curling ice is a little different from ice skating or hockey ice. Right before a game, it's misted with a hose so lots of little drops of water freeze on the ice and make it"bumpy."

 The guy in the middle is spraying the ice. The guy on the right is leveling and evening out all the bumps.

We were brought onto the ice, taught a few basics and then we curled!

 

I felt a little goofy at first, but once I got the hang of it, I felt very graceful gliding across the ice.

After we played a game with the whole group, they let the three of us stay on the ice for a while longer. Mckay and I played a few rounds against each other and Erik helped and directed us.

 We had a lot of fun! It is a really cool sport to learn. Everyone was very nice and accepting of us beginners, even the experts who have been playing for 30+ years.

 There was a little museum in the building where we got so see some really old curling stone and brooms.

Worn out and starving after a hard day of curling, we got some traditional deep dish Chicago pizza.

We had never tried authentic Chicago pizza before and it tasted beyond amazing! The crust, the cheese, the slab of sausage that covered the entire pizza.... all soooo good! It was already night and we still had a long drive ahead of us to get home to our kids, so Mckay snuck in a few bites of pizza while driving.

 Don't worry, Mckay while eating pizza is still safer than most of the Chicago drivers who were texting or looking at their phones while driving.

I'm grateful for new experience and learning new things. I especially love new food experiences. And now I'm really excited to watch the winter Olympics in a few months so I can see more curling.