Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Legoland Day 1

Two long anticipated things happened the first part of September.  One wasn't that long in anticipation, but it sure felt like it.  Cal was finally able to remove his temporary cast thing! He had his cast cut off a week prior to that. 
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Cal and I were VERY happy that this day came.  I am not happy about the medical bills that seem to never stop.  The first time we went to the emergency room was when Elden had a bad case of croup.  We were in Utah and his breathing was horrible.  I'd never dealt with croup before so I was clueless.  Add that to being out of town and out of state and "out-of-network", we ended up with a $5000 medical bill.  When Cal hurt his arm it was on a Saturday and I was going out of the Sunday morning for a few days with the kids.  We figured, hey, we're in town, "in-network", it won't be that expensive to take him to the emergency room.  WRONG!  The bills are now over $2000.  Blah.  We learned two painful lessons.  1.  We will never go to the emergency room unless we are dying.  2. We will not be going to the local orthopedic clinic associated with the hospital.  While the care we received was wonderful, it was outrageously expensive.  I mean, a $600 charge so we can sit in an exam room?  Really?  But we are so glad the cast and whatnot are gone!
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The next anticipated event has been in the making for a couple years.

Before the big event we had a super packed week, filled with fun.
Sunday-Eric's baptism in Pennsylvania (my nephew)
Monday-Beach day in New Jersey
Tuesday-Lee's birthday & shopping--kids back to school
Wednesday-? Can't remember?
Thursday-Surprise visit for Lois' birthday up in Maryland, scouts that night, then an all night drive!

Thursday I woke up really early and drove to Lois' to surprise her for her birthday.  I got there about 7:30ish and slept in the van for a little bit.  It was fun surprising her that morning!  In her ward a group of ladies get together to celebrate each others birthdays.  Mainly they'll get together for a pot-luck lunch, or sometimes go out to eat. I joined in on a fun pot-luck.  I had to leave at 12 though, so the trip was very short.  It was fun to surprise her though!
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I enjoyed being able to say happy birthday in person.  I am so grateful Lois is able to be here and has progressed so much since her stroke! Something that is fun too is that I know most of her friends up in Maryland.  Love it!
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All packed up and ready to go!
Sept 4 2015

Oh, the ladies at work found out it was Lee's birthday and got him this fun cake.
Sept 4 2014

Thursday night was the big night.  For a couple of years now we've had a big financial goal, and once we reached that goal we told the kids we'd be going to Legoland.  It was a good way to put off going to Legoland---they would ask all time--well, every time a free Lego magazine would come! Plus, it was a fun reward for our hard work in accomplishing our goal. Well, the goal was met the first of August, and September 4th (yes, the same day I drove to Lois' and back) we head to FLORIDA for LEGOLAND!  At first our kids didn't believe us.  It was soooo funny.  The librarian had given the kids free kids' meals at Chick-fil-A.  They of course were excited to eat at Chick-fil-A for dinner and didn't think anything of it.  Clark also had scouts at our church building so we went to that too.  On the way out of town, Haley was the first to speak up as she noticed we weren't headed home. The movie is a few minutes long, but it's worth watching.  Well, of course I'd say that...I'm their mom.

They were so excited.  My friend Sarah surprised her kids with a Disney Cruise and I thought the surprise idea was so fun.  Though my kids knew we were going to Legoland, they thought we weren't going till next summer.
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We drove all night to Florida.  It was my FIRST time in Florida!  I have now been to 48 states.  I just have Hawaii and Alaska left.  I need to get my kids caught up with me!
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Yep, I "slept" in my clothes (who gets good sleep while driving all night?!) I had on the day before when I surprised Lois for her birthday, and decided to wear them yet another day, ha ha.
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We pulled in to Legoland about 11:30.  I thought the park closed at 10pm, so we would have plenty of time.  It actually closed at 5, so we played, played, played.  It was super warm that day too!
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If you're into Nerf Gun fights, this was the ultimate room for that!
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We were very impressed with this life-size Ford Explorer.  I think it was an Explorer...
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At first we split up, but that didn't happen for very long.  There were only a couple of rides that Elden couldn't go on, so we decided to just stay together.
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Nice camera shot Lee captured with the spinner thing going right through the middle of the ring!
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There were different themed areas throughout the park based on their products.  Like a Duplo world for toddlers, Lego Kindgom, Lego Technic, etc. 
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So, this was the first "big ride" for Elden.  He did NOT want to go.  I knew he would love it.  Poor guy, I made him go on it, and bribed him too.  I sat really close to him and held not just his hand, but basically his whole arm. The workers saw that he didn't want to go and they were giving him pep talks and such.  It was really sweet.  And they probably thought I was a crazy mom.  Well, he loved it!  And he enjoyed all of the other roller coasters too!
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It was so fun seeing all of the Lego creations.  Amazing!
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We took one big break that day for ice cream and to walk around the Lego mini-world.  There were some great Star Wars displays along with famous cities made out of Legos.
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What a fun playground for lizards!
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Yep, both made out of Legos!
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San Fransisco
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DC
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New York?
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Amazing, right?!
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More lizard fun.
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Late afternoon it started to rain which meant all of the rides except two were shut down.  Thankfully there were some fun inside activities too.  And I loved going to Legoland the first week that school was officially in session across the US.  Of course other people were there too, but the lines were really short, or non-existent.  It was great!

We went to a Lego creation place where you can build a car and race it. 
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We had a fun first day even though it was cut short by the rain. 
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In a way it was nice that the park closed earlier than I thought.  When we left Legoland we had plenty of time to eat (Golden Corral) and get settled in the condo that we rented.  It was fun staying at the condo.  It was pretty roomy too!  Bedtime was late that night, but we all slept well. 

2 comments:

Andrew Bosley said...

How do you do it Ruth? Driving all night and playing all day! I'm super impressed!

Cardiganwearer said...

Your kids are outrageous. Looks fun!