Spring Break San Diego - Days 2-3: Legoland

The first and second full days in San Diego were spent in Legoland.  Legos and Star Wars and rides all in one place - I don't know if there could be anything better!!!

Legoland has a large area that for miniature versions of US cities, including New York, Washington DC, and New Orleans.

Jared had memories of visiting sites in New Orleans depicted and also thought the New Orleans cemetery, hearse, and funeral procession were particularly interesting!

The levels of detail was pretty impressive!  We took a number of trips to visit the mini cities.

The kids were really excited to see large-sized versions of Star Wars characters, character minifigures, and scenes.  The girls were the only ones willing to take a few minutes to take a picture with their favorites.  

 

The full-sized Chewbacca was pretty cool!

 

In addition to the mini city and Star Wars displays, Dani took the babies on a cruise to see some additional Lego sites.  It's amazing some of the things that were built with Lego bricks and how big they are!

 

 

The Lego Movie came out a few weeks before our trip.  Legoland had a large exhibit dedicated to the Legoland movie.  It had the entire Legoland city set.  The kids loved it!

There were even random Lego guys sitting around the park.  We found this guy especially funny.

We took a couple selfies on the Sky Cruiser ride.

 

Kate and Liam loved their rides - and they brought Jared along, too.  And he was loving it just as much!

Jacob and Claire rode on a couple different roller coasters (and loved them!), 

There was a good mix of rides for Kate and Liam and for Jacob and Claire - and for pregnant Dani!

 

Legoland had a great way of entertaining the kids while "in" line - let the kids play with Legos while the parents waited in line!  It did make for a little bit better waiting in line experience.  Fortunately, there weren't too many long lines.  There were a few, but not too many.

We caught a precious moment with Jacob and Claire holding hand in one line!

Fortunately, most of the lines in the little kids' rides didn't have very long lines so that Kate and Liam could literally run in the lines to get to the rides.  Check out the expressions on their faces!  Hilarious!  

 

They were long, fun days!!!

Spring Break in San Diego - Day 1: USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum

We took the family to San Diego for our first Spring Break trip as a family.  The first thing that we did right after landing in San Diego was to go to the USS Midway Museum in the San Diego harbor.

We got to see a lot of different planes under and on the deck.  There were planes from different wars and lots of different helicopters.  One of the cool things was the automated tour guides system with head sets where you could hear stories told by pilots or other servicemen.

 

We learned about the process of launching a plane off the runway, told by a former serviceman who had experience in the plane.  Jacob and Liam took turns acting like the 'shooter' in the middle of the runway.  We learned about the different colors of jackets on the deck.

We got to sit in cockpits of planes and helicopters.

It was so much fun to walk the deck with the kids.  Jared could have stayed all day!

 

2.5 gallons of wipes

Kate and Liam have developed a new routine after they are supposed to be asleep, only discovered because it was suspiciously quiet.  They emptied more than 2 Costco-sized packages of wipes and stuffed them between the headboard of Kate's bed and the wall.  The majority were still stuck there, with a large pile under the bed.

As we walked in, Kate was laying down, and Liam was stuffing more and more wipes down.  Kate looked very guilty.

We stuffed the wipes into 2 gallon-size bags plus a quart-sized bag.  Dani thought it was hilarious, and Kate pretended to sleep.

Over the next week, they repeated this 3 more times (taking the bags of wipes and re-emptying them!).  At that point, we took the bulbs out of their light fixture.  No light, no empty wipe bags!

A visit to daddy's office

Every once in a while, the kids come in to the office.  They have a way of taking over.  

Claire and Jacob are in charge of redecorating the white board, Claire with goofy pictures (the long-hair, pink lips person is labeled "Dad," and the short haired person is "Mom.") and Jacob with math problems.  After he left, I had to correct the top one for my own sanity. 

Liam mans the candy machine

and Kate kicks her feet up and pretty much takes ownership of the rest of the office.

A beautiful Sunday calls for a trip to visit the temple

We are so grateful to live so closer to a temple.  A beautiful Sunday begged for a visit with the kids to the temple!  The flowers are starting to bloom and the sky was completely blue, so we figured that we could take a few family pictures around the temple.

Dani at 28 weeks pregnant!

A proud mama and her 4 beautiful kids!

Claire and Jacob pictures

Claire and Jacob took their (almost) 8-year-old pictures with Kate West this week.  We got some beautiful ones!