So many blog posts so little time......
I am going to have to go way back in the photo archives for this one, but I wanted to post a bit about our Legoland trip before I get to Christmas, post Christmas, and New Years.
We bought tickets to Legoland back in August for Mason's birthday but could never find a good time to go after our original trip down got cancelled by a puking kid. Well finally, Thanksgiving weekend we made it, however it wasn't without its challenges. Our original plans were to hit Legoland on Friday, stay over night in Escondido and play at the pool or hit the beach Saturday to be home by Sunday. Well we got a bit of a late start on Friday so decided to move Legoland to Saturday as to make the most of our day there. Then the question became what should we do with our open Friday? As we were driving down we thought of all our options of things to do between home and San Diego County and came up with the La Brea Tar Pits. The kids and I had never been and the boys were pretty excited so that became stop #1 on our trip. It really was a lot of fun and the boys were incredibly fascinated with it all. (especially Spencer who has been learning about fossils in school. He even brought home some things for show and tell) After we blew a few hours at the Tar Pits, we stopped to take our picture in front of the longest continuous piece of the Berlin Wall in the US, we tried explaining what that was all about to the kids, and by that time we were all completely famished! So where, when your in the middle of Hollywood, do you stop for lunch? Why the Famous Pink's Hot Dogs of course! If you have no idea what that is well that only means you dont watch the food network nearly enough. It is a hot dog stand that has been in LA since 1939. Started as a hot dog cart and has evolved into a still pretty small hot dog stand. They make the most interesting combination of hot dogs you have ever heard of, things you would never think to put on a hot dog yourself. And if any of you know me very well you know that is just my kind of place! I love any and all hot dogs and will eat them at any time and in any fashion. (still frozen, still cold, hot, burned, petrified, you name it, I love 'em) So is it really any wonder that I would stand in a line for one of these famous babies for a good solid hour and a half? Not really, and even though they got our order wrong and I didnt notice until we drove off it was still good and now we can officially say we have been to Pinks. (I even kept the receipt as a souvenir)
After that it was late enough in the afternoon we decided we might as well head down to Escondido and check into our room. I had used our timeshare exchange company and had booked us a night or two at the Welk Resort. (you heard me, Welk, as in good old Lawrence himself) We really had no idea what to expect other than possibly quite a few "blue hairs" as my mom affectionately calls them. But were pleasantly surprised by a VERY kid friendly place with lots of pools, a water slide, game room (for our air hockey tournament), and even a theater. The rooms were themselves quite nice as well, again, we were pleasantly surprised and would highly recommend it for your next trip to San Diego County. Once we had sufficiently enjoyed the Welk Resort accommodations we tried to get everyone to bed early enough for another day of fun in the sun at Legoland. Shows how much we know. We woke up the next morning to nothing but a literal downpour of rain. Sheets and sheets of it, with no end in sight, said the weather man. But we were already there, the park website said they were still open and this was our second attempt at Legoland so we were bound and determined to get there come hell or high water (literally). And thus began our rainy day at Legoland. We got absolutely soaked within the first half hour riding a roller coaster in the rain, which was probably a once in a lifetime experience as I believe they usually close roller coasters down in the rain and we were the last people to ride it before they closed this one down. But after that, we were so wet we roamed around the park like it was the beautiful sunny day we thought we would have, and had a great time.
It did eventually clear up even though it never did really warm up. At least we could make frequent stops for hot chocolate and hot apple cider for a bit of warmth to get us by.
As we were driving to the park that morning in the rain, Mason asked if we could say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father to make it stop raining while we were at Legoland. We told him that even though our Heavenly Father could absolutely stop the rain if He wanted to, we really do need the rain to help our crops grow so we can have food. But maybe instead of asking Him to stop the rain we could ask our Heavenly Father to help us to have a good time today in spite of the rain. And I can officially confirm that our prayers were answered and we had a great time at Legoland come rain or shine.
Two weekends ago we had our ward campout, which is always a great time. We usually spend it at the beach which is an added bonus. This year we even brought our bikes and did a nice, fun ride together.
We also spent quite a few days at any number of the many parks around town this summer. We always have a hair-raising good time on the slide!
The beginning of August ushered in our girls camp for this year, which quite possibly could have been my all time favorite girls camp ever (my youth included). I love these amazing ladies I get to work with in YW, we have the best time together. We laugh harder and make bigger fools of ourselves than I can sometimes believe myself. But we ALWAYS have so much fun. We put this camp on all by ourselves this year and it really was a huge success. Better yet, much to Shaunas disbelief, we still like each other after the whole thing is over, and I think the girls had as much fun as we did.
