California Adventures! Day 7

Saturday was Rob's Birthday. Though it was technically a "down day" (i.e. non-park day), Rob and I snuck into Disneyland real quick to fix an error on our Annual Passports while the kiddos waited oh-so-patiently just outside of the gates.


Rob got a quick Birthday picture on the fire truck inside of the fire station next to City Hall, just below Walt's apartment.

And we also took a quick horse-drawn trolley ride down Main Street. Since it pulled up right in front of us we just couldn't pass up the opportunity!

Then we ventured to Downtown Disney and ate some lunch. After lunch the four of them did a random little boat racing thing and then we headed toward Rob's not-so-secret Birthday surprise. Technically it was a secret, but Rob had long suspected that we would do exactly what we did for his Birthday.

The kids were instructed to take him by the hand and without saying a word walk him toward his Birthday surprise. It didn't take a lot of convincing to get him inside of the Ridemakerz store since he's dreamt of building his own remote control car since the first time we walked through Downtown Disney together.

He got to splurge on accessories and upgrades to his very own hand-picked, hand assembled remote control car. It's kind of like Build-A-Bear for grown men!

Leeann seemed genuinely interested in watching daddy choose his car pieces and assemble his new creation. Titus was more interested in watching the Monster Trucks that were pouncing cars on a t.v. inside of the store.

Next we went over to the World of Disney store and picked up the last of our souvenirs.

After that we strolled through Downtown Disney some more and enjoyed some fresh kettle corn together.

Leeann chose to get some Minnie Mouse ears as one of her souvenirs.

We hurried back to the pool and Rob and the kids got some swimming time in before the pizza man delivered some pizza to our hotel room. Once they got out of the pool and our tummy's were full we all fell into bed exhausted. It was a nice way to celebrate the Birthday of an amazingly wonderful man!

California Adventures! Day 6

I know I'm way late in finishing out blogging our trip since we've been home for several weeks now, but it's better late than never, right?

I am afraid that the following posts will not be complete with play-by-play updates like I usually provide of our trips. Though I wrote down which rides we went on once upon a time, I currently have no idea where those details are written down at.

On day 6 of our trip we took our kids on "An adventure". We got in the car early in the morning and just started driving without giving them any clues about our destination for the day.

After getting stuck in Anaheim traffic and experiencing a scenic drive down the California coast we finally made our way to Carlsbad, California. Much to the delighted surprise of the three kiddos in the backseat we pulled in to... Legoland!



We have maps of Legoland from previous Disney trips we've been on (brochure freebies from our hotels) that Titus has religiously studied. He's dreamed about going to Legoland for quite some time now. We figured that now was as good of time as any to go to Legoland since Josh, Titus's Lego-loving cousin was with us.

The day started off beautifully, with hardly anyone else in the park. We walked straight on to most of the rides throughout the morning and enjoyed all of the Lego-themed rides and attractions.


Our first ride was fun, though we came to realize pretty quickly that this theme park was geared a little more toward the younger crowd.

Titus showed off his mad driving skills by intensely passing every other kid on the Junior Driving School race track.

Leeann showed off her less-than-mad driving skills in the Driving School where she broke just about every traffic law in the book. Granted, Titus had it much easier since his track was only an oval and Leeann's had multiple lanes, traffic signs and stop lights.

Rob... well... I have no idea what to even say about this picture.

Josh took the kids on some crazy twirly pirate ship ride while Rob and I sat by and watched. It was nice having Josh along!

Chewbacca and R2-D2 made out of Legos. Does it get any better than this?

There were huge Starwars scenes made out of Legos. The boys especially loved these exhibits.

Titus posed in front of a model of San Fransisco complete with trolley cars and vehicles that actually drove around the city.

This part of Legoland was especially cool. We loved seeing tons and tons of well known American icons reconstructed out of Legos.

I don't have any pictures from the rest of our Legoland adventures because it was about this time that I started not feeling well. I spent the next couple of hours leisurely shopping in the Lego store and hanging out on a park bench until I eventually met back up with the others and went on a few more rides to finish up our day.

I loved this bathroom sign so much that I just had to take a picture. Odd, I know!

The whole gang in front of Mr. Jack-O-Lantern.

On our way out we saw this really neat Lego family that looked like they were in desperate need of company.

It has to be sad to be so close to Legoland but never go in. Poor little family...

Hidden Mickey

You know your family might be a little bit strange when your 5 year old looks in his bowl of Cheerios and excitedly declares, "I found a hidden Mickey!"