Life on the Clayton Farm: California Trip - Day One

As you may remember, last November our family went to Florida for Bryce's Make-A-Wish-Trip. As part of that trip, we stayed at Give Kids the World Village. When we checked out at the end of our stay, they gave us a packet filled with places that we could visit one time each, free of charge, over the following year. Many are in other states, or countries so of course we will not be able to use many of them, but there were a few places in California. We decided to make a trip up through California and visit a few of the parks. The first one was Lego Land.

We left Sunday July, 24th and drove to Carlsbad, CA. When we arrived, we drove by Lego Land and then looked for a hotel. The ones near Lego Land were few, expensive, and full, so we decided to stick with the Holiday Inn Express that we had found online before leaving for the trip. It ended up being a nice place that included breakfast the next morning...bonus!

After breakfast, we headed over to Lego Land. We were able to get tickets for the main park and the aquarium, but we never did make it to the aquarium. There was plenty to keep us busy in the park.

The boys all had to get a map and check it out while we were waiting to get into the park.

Petting a Lego Dinosaur

Bryce thought that was pretty funny

Our navigator

Inside the gift shop there were these familiar characters from Harry Potter.

Lego Land, and as we soon found out, many of the parks in California have a strange way of handling handicapped visitors. They give you a piece of paper and then you go to the exit of a ride and they will sign the paper saying what time you can come back and get on the ride. The first two rides we got to, gave us a time of about 20 minutes later. So it seemed like kind of a waste and a weird way to do it. But...we figured out a way to make it work better. While the kids and I stayed in the little play area that they have, John went around and collected times for a bunch of the rides. Then he came back and it was time to start riding. Luckily we found out that we could ride anytime within the hour following the time on the card. It ended up working out pretty well.

Here are some Lego frogs and alligators that the kids could squirt water at. The mouths would open and close and the kids would squirt the water from little guns and try to hit the open mouth. They all seemed to really enjoy that.

Watching the frogs. Annalise loves frogs right now, so she really got a kick out of this.

Spencer trying to hit a frog with water.

Lego animals

This was a pretty cool display. The instruments are all made of Legos. There are little pads on the ground all around this display. When you step on one of the yellow pads, the water comes out and the music begins to play. Again, the kids all enjoyed watching/ doing this.

The boys all had to take a turn at being eaten by a Lego lion.

William

Jacob

Spencer

This may have been Annalise's favorite ride. The train. You can see her here doing her sign for train. It was one of only 4 rides she was able to ride at this park. She and William rode it twice. The other boys and I rode along the first time also. The Lego garden was pretty cool!

There were lots of slides and toys to climb on in this part where we stayed while John got times for the rides. We finished up in these shaded areas where there were a bunch of big Legos for the kids to build with.

These are pictures from the storybook boat ride. It is amazing all that they can do with Legos.

There were many rides that Bryce and Annalise were too small to go on, so we did a lot of waiting throughout the day. The park has some great places for the toddlers to run and climb while they wait, however, that really doesn't help when your toddlers aren't able to do that kind of thing. That became the most frustrating thing for me as we traveled to all of the parks. How little there really is at places like these for children who are not able to walk and climb.

Luckily, Bob the Builder was out and about a couple of times while we were waiting, so the kids got to say hello to him. Bryce really enjoys seeing the characters.

Here is Annalise "driving" her Lego car while John and the boys rode the helicopter ride.

Jacob and William

Here you can see Spencer and William up high and John and Bryce in the lower red helicopter. We had to take Bryce into the first aide station to be measured since he is not able to stand up under the little height thingies that they have. I'm glad we did since he was able to go on a few more rides then he would have been able to otherwise.

This was a pirate boat ride where the boys were able to ride and shoot other people with water. Another one that Annalise was too small to go on, so she and I stood and watched and tried to get wet. It was hot by the afternoon and the water felt good.

This was Bryce's reaction when I asked him if he liked the ride. I'll take that as a big yes!

These Lego boats were a lot of fun.

There were a few traffic jams along the way.

This ride and another roller coaster ride were fairly close to each other. Since Bryce and Annalise were too short to ride, John and I took turns staying with them while the other would ride with the older boys. Then we would swap. We did these a few times. This particular one, I did not really care for, but the dragon one was a lot of fun. The boys all thought I was crazy for not loving this one though.

Jacob. "No Hands!"

Bryce was just barely tall enough to ride this ride. He wasn't so sure about it at first, but soon began enjoying himself as he bounced up and down.

While the boys were on this ride, a total stranger started calling out to Bryce and encouraging him to have fun. It was kind of interesting. Bryce catches a lot of people's attention, everywhere we go.

There was over an hour wait for this ride. This was one that we were very thankful we had the pass for. John went once with the boys, then we swapped and I went with them...all in less then 60 minutes!

This ride was crazy. Spencer wanted to go on it, but only with me. I had no intention of going on it, but he finally talked me into it. It was actually quite fun. You are on these arm things and they take you out over the water and you twist and turn and go upside down, and yeah, it was fun.

I have no idea who the people in this picture are, but I added it since it shows you a good shot of what this ride does.

The mini Lego towns were very cool to see. The kids all enjoyed walking through and looking at this area.

It truly is amazing. All of the cars and people move around the city. It was fun to watch. I bet it was even more fun to create!

That is a giant q-tip coming out of his ear. There were two little Lego guys moving it in and out...cleaning his ear.

This was in the Lego room...packed full of all types of Legos.

Just as we were about to leave, they found the game room. This was full of all types of Lego games on Wii, X-box, etc. They even got to try out some kinect games. They now think we need one of those in our house!

I loved this little area that was wheelchair accessible. Bryce loves video games, so I pushed him up to one of the games and helped him move the controls. Check out his face in these pictures as he plays the game.