lego my eggo

the teen and i had been wanting to take the bean to legoland for awhile now.  yes, despite our numerous visits to the happiest place on earth.  i remembered taking the teen when she was not much older than the bean, and thought she was at a great age to enjoy the attractions at the park.

after a couple of reschedules, we ended up taking a little quickie getaway along with the hub over 4th of july.  we found a home for mollydog to spend a couple of nights, priceline hooked us up with a hotel at the last minute, scored a pretty good discount on tickets via the legoland website, gassed up the pri-YES, and off we went.

i even had enough time to squeeze in a quick festive manicure.  please excuse the super dry cuticles.

the only sucky part (and i can't believe i'm actually complaining about this) was that the day dawned gloomy and overcast.  now, normally i love that kind of weather.  i even got up and went for a run early that morning, enjoying not having to wear a hat and squinting halfway through my route.  but since our tickets were "resort hopper," which gave us access to legoland as well as the adjoining water park and aquarium, i was hoping for some warm-ish temperatures.  oh, well.

at least one of us was excited to be there.  heh.

i wonder what the rates will be at this hotel once it opens.

and we were in luck - we didn't have to go looking for a fireworks show for that evening.  sweet.

after grabbing lunch at one of the cafes, the hub took the bean to a fun playground while the teen and i got in line for this.

back in the day, i was quite the roller coaster fanatic.  but it's been a really long time since i rode anything wilder than, say, space mountain at disneyland.  so i was actually a little nervous at the sight of this fairly steep-looking hill at the beginning of the ride.

of course, i survived.  and we met up with the hub and the bean to take her on a ride that the teen and i had a lot of fond memories of - a water ride that was jet ski-esque.  when the teen was little, we rode this thing over and over again until we were soaking wet.  good times.

next was miniland, one of the main attractions where landmarks all around the country are recreated using - you guessed it - tons and tons of lego bricks.  the bean, as predicted, was fascinated.  and i thought it was kind of funny that we were here instead of at the real thing, like two years ago during our crazy east coast road trip.

i haven't been to the vegas since i was way pregnant with the bean - almost five years ago.  this is the closest i've gotten since then.  ha!

next up, the bean got to drive mini cars just her size - with no track! - and earned her first "driver's license."

since the bean wanted to check out the aquarium, the hub took her while the teen and i headed out to find more non-bean-friendly rides.  this one was another attraction the teen remembered from her childhood:

of course, it was temporarily closed - so we did a little exploring.  here, the princess was out to lunch:

i totally would've gotten my face painted, if it weren't so dang pricey.  can you guess which design i would've picked?

instead, the teen and i settled for clowning around in the gift shop, for free.  heh.

and getting a treat.

we finally did get to ride that dragon, though.  and then got chastised for taking a picture of our ride photo.  whatevs.

this ride was totally the poor man's buzz lightyear ride - a jankified shooting game that was super lame, especially after the line we'd waited in.

despite our overall dissatisfaction with the park as a whole (as i said on facebook, either disneyland has completely spoiled us or legoland legitimately blows), we took advantage of these free passes for the fall.

by the time we headed back to miniland to snag a spot for the fireworks show, the teen was over it.

the bean and i were still engrossed in the inner workings of those lego creations.  and look, it totally looks like we were actually "there," doesn't it?  sorta?

while the fireworks spectacular we'd been hoping for didn't quite materialize (the whole shebang was over in less than 7 minutes), at least we hadn't gone down to san diego and waited for hours, only to be rewarded with a glitchy show that was over in all of about 15 seconds.  heh.

still, we had a great time hanging out together.  and the bean was especially stoked about the hotel.  much like her sister (okay, and her mother too), she LOVES staying in hotels.  awwww, our little traveler.