Monday in SoCal

As promised, here is the next post on our trip.  That Monday, we went to Legoland!  Legoland is about an hour south of Anaheim, in Carlsbad.  This was our second trip to Legoland.  People keep asking me about Legoland because it's not nearly as well known as Disneyland.  So, here's my review.  Legoland is really fun for boys from about ages 5-10, especially if they like legos and/or theme parks.  I suppose it could be fun for girls who really like legos, but it's obviously geared more toward boys.  It's divided into play areas with themes like pirates, castles, adventures, etc.  There are lots of rides and playgrounds.  And there are tons of things built out of legos.  There is an area called "Mini Land" that has cities from across the U.S. replicated in legos.  There was even a lego Mount Rushmore.  We were at Legoland from 10 a.m. to about 5 p.m., and we had time to visit most of the park.  The rides are very tame.  Like kids can ride many of them without grownups.  There are a few roller coasters, but nothing too exciting.  Legoland tickets are expensive, but  there are discount tickets available at places like Costco.  We got our tickets through a program Wayne's office has membership in, called "Ticketsatwork."  And be warned that the food is crazy expensive at Legoland.  It's more expensive than Disneyland!  We ate the continental breakfast at our hotel and only had lunch at Legoland.

 

This is Benjamin riding the Kid Power Towers with me.  A lot of rides are  interactive.  On this one, you use the rope to pull yourselves to the top of the tower and then let go to drop to the bottom.  Obviously, you aren't really lifting your own weight.  But you do control the speed.  Very fun.

 

Another ride my boys really enjoyed was the driving school.  I think you have to be at least 6 to drive these cars.  But, unlike other cars I've seen at amusement parks, these cars aren't stuck to a track.  The kids are supposed to drive around all of the roads, following traffic signals and trying not to crash into the other cars.  I was relieved to see that my kids were pretty good drivers.  If anything, they were overly cautious. 

Legoland has several water attractions.  Many people wear their swimsuits or bring clothes to change into.  For instance, there is a pirate playground that has waterslides.  Another fun thing at Legoland is that several of the rides have water cannons for people to shoot at the riders.   Here's Daniel  getting sprayed on one of those rides.  Good thing it was a pretty warm day when we were there.

 

 

After Legoland, we headed south to a beach where we met up with Mark and Alicia and their cute kids.  They are some friends of ours that we met when we were newlyweds at BYU.  It was so much fun to see them.  And we went to a very cool beach where you could see seals, sea lions, and all sorts of birds (which was Daniel's favorite part).  We got some good video, but it was getting too dark for my camera to take very good pictures.  So I'll just give you this one, and Wayne will have to get me some stills from the video later: