Disneyland: Day 2--Legolanding

We woke up on a cloudy Sunday morning and got ready in our LEGOLAND clothes. Actually, I didn't have anything Lego-y but my colors matched. Easton and Dalton had their matching Ninjago shirts and I made those for Jason and Autumn. But, we headed down poolside where the hotel hosts their continental breakfast.


As suspected, there really wasn't anything that worked for us diet-wise, but we had counted on that and came down with the honey-sweetened, whole wheat, peanut butter chocolate chip muffins we eat on a near-weekly basis (recipe here). I'd made them before we left home and packed them up in a few Ziploc bags and stuck them in a shoebox to prevent squishage.


After breakfast we headed down to Carlsbad (near San Diego) where LEGOLAND is. What hadn't occurred to me was to check the San Diego forecast and as we neared the park it became clear that it was much cooler than Anaheim was supposed to be that day. Well, about 10 degrees cooler per the forecast but still. Oops. Luckily we brought jeans for the kids in the car so they switched to those and we headed in:






We arrived just a few minutes before the park officially opened and had a sec to take pictures with "Buddy":


And whoever this dude is from Chima:


And then we were off to some rides. This was called some cool Bionicle-y name but is basically just "tea cups":




And even though it was just tea cups, they still said Autumn was too short. :(


Planning the next move. He loves maps. It's quite cute.


Not too many of the rides there are "thrill" rides, it is geared towards a much younger crowd. But poor Autumn ran into height restrictions a few times.




So, while the guys did this:

(That happy "scream" you hear is Easton.)

Autumn and I did some tamer/lamer things:


We met up again and did something as a family:


To toot my own horn, while I copied the idea above, I made those KISS minifig heads myself. We got so many comments and compliments. Especially from employees. I even had a guy give me his business card to send him the jpg to make one himself. :)





Dalton adopted a roly poly in the line:




We stopped for a snack (homemade granola bars for most of us and trail mix for D):


Potato sack rides:


More stuff:








I came out of the bathroom with the boys and we were surprised to see Autumn riding a horse around a track while "jousting":

Apparently she wasn't old enough for that ride, Jason had to tell her to lie and say she was 4 which she did no problem but then Jason felt really guilty about it. We won't be doing that again anytime soon. 

Waiting in line for the best ride they have there:


Well, if the kids weren't so short, it would've been the best ride. There are 5 levels of intensity. Autumn wasn't tall enough at all. Dalton was only tall enough for a 1 out of 5 and had to wear a special harness:


Easton was only tall enough for a 2:


The 5's looked fun! Dalton wouldn't have wanted to do that anyway but E sure would have. Me too! Oh well. And it's not like we're ever gonna go back to do it when they are taller. LEGOLAND was fun to do once, but even my Lego-loving children didn't think it was the best time ever. And it was so expensive for what it was, even with our coupons! We were glad we kicked our trip off with that rather than Disney first and then the lamer LEGOLAND.

Moving along....I told you it was cold that day!


We really liked Miniland with all sorts of famous building and towns and such building to 1:20 scale:




The French Quarter!


And some of our favorite Star Wars characters:




And Lego Star Wars builds of the Lego Star Wars versions:






We stopped for lunch at their Garden Restaurant which seemed to have some of their healthier options but my salad was still kinda lame. Dalton got chilly at lunch:


We parted ways again for a bit for height reasons...Easton and Dalton went on this thing where you pull yourself up and Dalton was having fun at first but Easton kept pulling them up and Dalton freaked.
He put his hand in the way so E couldn't go anymore and started crying. But E was a nice big brother and took them back down.


While Autumn and I did this:




We all did a fairy tale boat ride:






Easton loved being the one to push Autumn in the stroller:


Fine by me!

More fun:







The 3D Chima show...not that cool:


I wouldn't let them do this water thing where you got soaked. Too cold with too far of a drive. I'm not sure they really wanted to anyway when they thought of it that way.

But they sure had fun watching it for a few minutes.


We were over LEGOLAND well before their 8 p.m. closing so we drove back up towards Anaheim.  Jason dropped me off at the gates to Disney to buy our tickets.  You see, I had more than $1200 in $50 gift cards (bought at a discount from Target) to use to buy our Park Hopper tickets.  I wanted to go in the off hours so that I wasn't making anyone too mad with my lengthy transaction.  No one was going to be in a huge hurry at that point in the day, you know?  The Cast Member I walked up to was GREAT about it and very very friendly.  It went smoothly and that way we already had our Park Hoppers for the next morning.  We'd be able to walk right in.  I timed my walk back to the hotel where I met Jason and the kids: 7 minutes.  Excellent. 

Once I joined them again we walked over to the Anaheim Garden Walk. We used a gift card and coupon to have dinner at California Pizza Kitchen (they have lots of vegan options for J plus a honey wheat crust--not totally whole grain, though--for the rest of us). We stepped in to Cheesecake Factory next door and picked me up a slice of my favorite kind to go. Autumn enjoyed some of it with me. I couldn't eat it all. Too much for my tummy that's not used to such decadence anymore. I put it in the mini fridge.

That night, Autumn yakked all over herself in her sleep. Groan. What a mess. We had to call housekeeping for all new bedding and give her a bath and change her jammies. She was so tired she fell asleep on the floor while we waited for her bedding. I panicked about her potentially being sick, me just having shared the cheesecake with her and all plus "living" in such close quarters with everyone. But she was fine through the rest of the night:

Does she stay healthy? Does anyone else get sick? Tune in for Day 3 here.