Legoland

We planned a spontaneous trip to California this month. Josh had a business trip in Newport Beach & San Diego, and we thought it would be fun to fly me and the kids down at the end of his work trip to hit up Legoland, the beach, and Disneyland. With little time to prepare, I called up my cousin Chelsi to ask for some tips and she was a wealth of information! I'm soooo glad I called her. Her best advice was to to basically "chill and enjoy" the days at Disney, instead of be tempted to try and maximize every minute. And I'm glad we listened, because I applied that advice to every location and we had the BEST time over the whole vacation!!

Josh went down to California ahead of us for a conference, and the kids and I were busy with school speeches, packing for the trip, and prepping the house/animals to be gone. The night before we left, Papa Wayne and Grandma Jill asked to stop by and deliver a surprise for the kids. They brought them Disneyland spending money, and the kids were so excited! Thanks Grandma and Papa!

The kids did awesome with their presentations, and it was really fun to get to do them alongside the Ortons this year! I'm so glad we're all in the same school (with Gina and Nora too!)

From there we drove up to stay the night with Sheri, Isaac and Evan. We watched some Chip & Dale cartoons after dinner, which was really fun because they were ones I remembered from my childhood.

They were so nice to let us crash there before getting up early the next morning to head to the airport. Without having Josh with me I was a little worried I'd oversleep an alarm and be racing up the freeway, but their house is only 30 mins from the airport. And I felt like it would be easiest to just wake up and head out the door with our van already packed, and it was. Plus we got to hang with our buddies! Thanks friends!!

The kids and I were pretty excited driving to the airport, getting parked in long term parking, and taking the shuttle. We made it easily through the check in process and it felt like we were boarding the plane in a blink. The kids were awesome travel buddies!

Josh picked us up from the airport and we were so happy to all be together again! We picked up our rental car and headed for lunch at In n Out Burger, since our kids had never been. They approved of the lettuce wrapped burgers! We then drove to Legoland. 

We loved the hotel! It had a disco party elevator with music, so we danced every time we were in there. :)

Our room was adventure theme, which was great for our Indiana Jones loving eight year old. The hotel had a little scavenger hunt for the kids each day we were there, to figure out the secret code to the treasure chest in our room, which held a little Lego set for each of them.

View from our room:

Because we were there mid-week in the off season, the park felt empty! It was kind of crazy. (Plus we got a screamin' deal on the hotel and admission with the special they were running!) It was a good precursor for Disney, because it eased us into the theme park setting and ride levels. Legoland is definitely geared toward younger kids, so we were happy we went there first.

This was the back of our hotel:

The kids each designed a mini-figure on our last day, to remember the trip:

Our favorite ride was the Dragon roller coaster. We probably went on it half a dozen times in a row because there was no line and we thought it was the most fun ride in the park. It also had an ocean view from the top of the ride. ;) 

Here are some random photos... we definitely had fun goofing off as the Fegles Five!

The afternoon of our second day, Josh had to go to a work function for a few hours, so the kids and I planned to swim that half of the day. Our hotel's pool was being repaired, so we got to swim at the castle hotel's pool next door, which was a lot of fun.

Selah and Ben built a boat out of Legos and played in it for quite some time. I loved their creativity.

The kids did lots of swimming races in the deep end, and silly jumps.

We were really impressed with the outdoor movie theater and playground at that hotel. We'd read reviews ahead of time that said the other hotel was much better, and maybe it was inside, but we all agreed that this hotel had the better outdoor areas! :)

I'm really glad we did this trip when we did, because I feel like our kids were really on the cusp of being too old for the park. We loved it and made awesome memories. Thanks Legoland!