Mom to the rescue!

My mom and step-dad went to Legoland with us. And my mom didn't lose her camera. Lucky for me . . . than means I just multiplied the number of pictures from our trip by about 4!

There is another slideshow to the right for your viewing enjoyment :) I'm sure you loved spending about an hour reading my synopsis of Disneyland. So, here's one of Legoland. I'll I'd like to say it'll be shorter, but I just can't do that.

Legoland is in Carlsbad, so you're right on the beach. Also, if you go in March, you can see the massive fields of flowers that Carlsbad is famous for. We stayed in Old Town Carlsbad and Matt and I ran to the beach in the morning while the kids ate bfast with Grandma and Grandpa. I love the beach!

Legoland was a blast! Everything is on a smaller scale - like a Lego scale. The park is smaller, which is nice because you actually know where you are most of the time! There are a lot of rides and tons of kiddie rides and kiddie "play areas." (No super duper roller coasters.) The one roller coaster they have is pretty thrilling though and kids 40" and up can ride it. Like I said, we rode it at least 10 times and Liz and Josh were allowed to ride it alone, without an adult.

There's a whole area for kids to play in the water. They have fountains shooting out of the ground, buckets filling and dumping from 20 ft. up, swings near the fountains, etc. And a whole additional area (that wasn't open while we were there) that is like a water park pirate ship. If you're comparing it to H2Oasis, come on . . . it's WAY WAY better than that! There were some kids there who actually brought swim suits and were having a great time. But the majority of kids under three were partying it up in their diapers.

Our favorite kiddie play area was the ball shooting tent. The kids on the lower level retreive all the balls and place them in a vacuum machine. They are then sent upstairs to where the smarter kids are waiting to shoot them back down at the next unsuspecting parent who walks in or all the kids who are unknowlingly supplying them with endless ammo. Josh and Liz developed an even better system (and Matt and I also participated, of course). Liz would go downstairs, fill her shirt with balls, bypass the vacuum machine, and bring the balls directly to us. We would line them up for Josh and let him shoot, except when an adult would walk in. Then Matt would aim at the unsuspecting adult, shoot, and hide behind Josh. Sounds pretty juvenile, huh? Matt was one of about 10 dads doing the exact same thing. Everyone gets nailed when they first walk in. Then they go upstairs for payback.

One of the coolest things about Legoland is . . . The line for every ride surrounds a kid Lego-building area. So, while you wait in line, you can watch your kids play with Legos. There is even a big Leg0-building area at the restaurant. So your kids can play Legos (and you can play with them) while you're waiting for your food.

The Lego drag-car racing building is also pretty neat. Again, there are quite a few proud dads racing their own cars and getting overly excited when they beat all the 5-year-olds. There is also a store at Legoland where you can buy Lego pieces individually. I'm sure there are loads of "special" pieces that Lego afficionados might want. Liz and I were most interested in the bins of girl-colored Legos. You can buy all pink, all teal, whatever color you want, per pound. It's just like at the M&M Store where you can buy a whole bag of pink M&Ms.

Lastly, the Lego sculptures there are amazing. They have a whole area called Minitown. It has replicas of downtown NYC, the French Quarter in New Orleans, most of the Las Vegas Strip, Mt. Rushmore, and on and on -- all built entirely of Legos. And they aren't that small either. The Sears Tower is about 20 ft. tall and everything else is to scale. There are even battery-powered Lego cars cruising through the cities. Then, all through the park there are Lego sculptures of everything from Indiana Jones to random dinosaurs. There is a boat ride similar to "It's a Small World After All" that cruises through Lego sculptures.

Okay, one more thing. We bought park-hopper tickets so we could also go to Legoland's Sea Life Center but we never made it there and I hear we missed out.