Moving West: Legolanded Out

We went to Legoland, on the 30th of December, and then again on the 31st, for the New Year's Eve party - the second day was free, if you went on the first day. My camera died part way through the two days, so you don't have to sit through as many photos as you might have done. In particular, there were some quite impressive Lego structures, as you can imagine (or if you can't imagine, search Flickr for Legoland).

This is the entrance, in case you're not sure where you are:

This was a signpost, which I thought quite clever. It said things like Legoland: Denmark, 17,342,232 Lego bricks, and Tipperary: Long Long way.

Family photo:

Earthquake zone. One of the boys' favourite things to do was to build structures on this special vibrating table, and then turn it on so that they collapsed (the structures, that is).

Lego Christmas tree - strictly speaking, it's made of Duplo, not Lego.

Train ride: Unfortunately, only one adult was allowed per carriage, so I had to miss out on my turn.

This was a very large maze structure, to be used when children had too much energy.

The other favourite thing of the boys was the Driving School, where they drove a car around in circles. This came in two flavours - the Junior - for 3 to 5 year olds, and the non-Junior (they didn't give it a name) for 6-13 year olds. The smaller one was a little too dull for the boys, but they weren't officially old enough for the big one, and each child was asked their age before going on. We had a brief period of moral turmoil (well, S did) before training the boys to say "Six!" when asked how old they were. I was worried they'd fluff it at the last moment, so I kept poking them and asking them how old they were. Alex almost got it wrong once or twice in practice "Fff..Six!", but when the crucial time came, they got it right.

The driving school was sponsored by Volvo - here's a Lego Volvo (except for the wheels).

On the second day we hired a stroller, which was a bargain at $12. It got us the odd strange look, but it made for much less tired (and therefore grumpy) boys (although slightly thinner boys, 'cos they had to be squeezed in it). It also made for less tired (and therefore grumpy) parents, because the extra energy we expended pushing them around in the thing was a whole lot less than the extra energy we would have expended telling them to hurry up, pleading with them not to sit on the ground, consoling them because of their sore knees/legs/feet, and picking them up when the other had pushed them over.

There had been some stuff on the website about bringing dry clothes, because there was a water play area. We ignored it - it was December, after all. But it was also Southern California, and so on the second day it was (just about) warm enough (which means that Susanne thought about taking her jacket off). The water play area was fairly large and elaborate, with water coming from all kinds of different places. Notice the big bucket at the top.