Legoland

In April Church Specialties (aka my brother's in law) asked Lorin if he would drive some materials out to Santa Maria, CA for them.  He agreed.  Originally Lorin was just going to go by himself but we decided to all go and make a little trip out of it.  Give Kids the World gave Cassidy a passport to go to a bunch of amusement parks across the country for free.  Legoland in California was one on the list.  So we decided we would try to make it there since this would be the only opportunity we would have to go to California before it expires.

Road trip here we come!  We look so thrilled!  I didn't get a picture but we had to drive our truck pulling a 22' trailer.  Lorin does  a great job pulling a trailer even through big cities and construction.  We only had a couple of frustrations with the trailer.  One being that in CA you have to go 55 mph if your pulling a trailer and two, good luck finding a motel on the coast that has any parking for a truck and trailer.  The second night it took us until nearly 3 AM to find one where we could park.  We should have done a better job at planning ahead.  But we never know what we are doing.   

We made it to Santa Maria and dropped off all of the materials at the two churches.  The kids thought this palm tree was really cool and wanted a picture by it.  Logan calls them "fancy trees".  I remember when we went to Disneyland, nearly 2 years ago, one of the first things Logan said was "Wow!  They have fancy trees!"  We drove to Pismo Beach but it was so busy we couldn't even find a place to park.  It was windy and chilly so we turned around and went back to the church and helped for a little while.  It has been over 12 years since I have worked on church pews and it brought back a lot of memories for me.  I had a lot of good times working for my Dad refinishing and reupholstering church pews.  It was very hard work, and had it's frustrating moments, but I learned a lot too and enjoyed working hard and seeing new places. It made us close as a family to work together.  I even had really strong arm muscles back in the day.  I now get to enjoy what I call my "upholsterer arms".  My arms ache and go to sleep a lot at night especially if I have used them a lot.  They are worn out. My dad still plugs away at it, though, so who's complaining.  Oh the funny stories we all have to tell from our CFI days!  It's a good life!  Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent there.

Apparently our Bishop is from Santa Maria and this was his ward building.  The ward members helped build it.  So he was excited that we saw it.

That night we headed on down to Legoland in Carlsbad.  And that is when we had our adventure of trying to find a motel.  The original idea was to go maybe half way to Anaheim.  We made it there and drove around but it was packed and there was no parking anywhere so we continued on down stopping at what seemed like every exit to find a motel.  We were just soooooooo long that there was no parking.  So we kept going and going and finally found a Ramada Inn that happened to have one RV spot in their back corner.  Lorin had to back her in really easy and we barely fit.  I could tell the manager was so scared that Lorin was going to hit one of the other cars.  It was kind of funny and he had one of those middle eastern accents.  Whew!!! We made it and the next day hit Legoland!!!  

Logan refused to look at me and smile.

I think my kids had the most fun shooting these water guns at the people riding in these ships.  Of course, they can shoot back.

It was very intense!

Ok the next pictures are of this boat ride that seemed easy enough for kids to do themselves.  All you have to do is push a foot pedal and steer.  Off they go!

Logan left first.

Then Megan and Cassidy were to follow.

Oops what is going on here?  I thought Logan was first!

Hmmm!  How do I run this thing?  Why is that guy in front of me taking my picture?

I can see where I need to go.  How do I get there?  Maybe if I concentrate really hard!

I seem to be causing a big traffic jam!

Why won't this boat go!?!  I look like I am making it go!

We left Logan in our dust!

I just don't get it!

I give up!  Maybe I will eventually float where I need to go!

Not as easy as it looked.

Phew!!!  I made it!    

(He didn't cry but felt like it.  He wasn't pushing the foot pedal down the right way.)

Oh how we love to squirt people!

Lorin and Cassidy going down a miniature log ride.

Teacups, Lego style!

The sun came out and now we are getting cooked as we stand in line!

Cassidy was fascinated with this witch and wishing well.

All in all it was a fun day!  It was really busy so I didn't get any pictures in the mini land where they have all scenes built out of Legos.  The kids loved the Star Wars displays seeing as how they are into Star Wars.  Legoland is not as handicap friendly as Disneyland so that made it kind of hard.  But I think the kids had a lot of fun.  It was overcast and chilly for most of the time but the sun did come out and we got quite sunburned.  My fault, I left the sunscreen in the car...................it looked like it was going to rain!

A really nice guy asked if he could take our picture out front but what he really wanted was our ticket stubs so his brother could come back for half price the next week.  He begged and begged so I gave them to him but I was really annoyed!

We debated on whether to try to spend the night in San Diego and then go to the zoo the next day or to start heading home.  We decided that we should head home.  But first we stopped for some pictures by the San Diego Temple.  It is BEAUTIFUL!

A nice girl jumped out of her car quick to snap a picture for us. 

We then drove on back to Barstow to spend the night.  The next day we stopped at the outlet mall there in Barstow.  There was a bunch of Asian tour buses stopped there.  I so wish I would have had my camera handy.  We got a good chuckle out of this old Asian man who seemed to be so fascinated with this RV that was parked.  He was taking all sorts of pictures and then as we were pulling away he took a picture of us.  We laughed and laughed.  I guess they don't see many big vehicles in wherever they were from.  Oh and they all had lunch at the Panda Express!  

Our next stop was to say hi to Lorin's sister Julie and family who were camping at the Valley of Fire.  It is a really cool place!  They kids had so much fun climbing on the rocks.

Cassidy insisted on climbing to the top of this rock.  If dad wasn't going to help her she was going to go anyway!

We are so glad that we stopped in to visit Julie and that we took this trip together as a family!  We made it home safe even though the truck had a bad battery. Thanks for all the prayers, Julie!