For the past two years for Joseph and Ella's birthdays we have gone to Legoland in place of a big friend party which has been awesome. This year we decided to step it up a bit and also spend the night at the hotel! We planned the trip in the middle of their birthdays for Saturday, December 16th and the kids were so excited about it!! We got to the park around 9:00 a.m. on Saturday and although we couldn't check into the hotel room yet we did walk through the lobby to check it out which got everyone even more excited!
It was pretty awesome to walk into the hotel and have this life-size Ninjago lego there to greet you! Right up Joseph's alley!!!
Even Charlotte was impressed with the massive amounts of legos everywhere!!
We had secretly planned to meet up with Joseph's best buddy, Jeremy, and their family who were also going to be there that day so once out of the hotel and with a quick stop to get birthday pins and a few photo ops we made our way to the Ninjago ride where we were going to meet them.
It was such a fun surprise to meet up with them! They spent the morning with us and then headed home after lunch so it was the perfect amount of time of friend and just family time. We got to go on a bunch of rides with them and since they are annual pass holders they showed us a few things that we had never experienced before which was cool, too.
If you look closely you can see Rich, Justin and all of the big kids (including Julia) on this ride. Julia loved it!!
Ella got to go on a ride with Miss Jen and had a blast!
This was the second year that they didn't have snow to play in but it was still decorated for Christmas which was fun to see so we had to grab a photo with the Santa built out of Legos.
Charlotte was ready to nap at this point so was not having any of the photo ops!
This year seemed a lot more fun because Julia could go on almost all of the same rides as Joseph and Ella and if she couldn't we would find another ride for her to do so she just really seemed to enjoy it.
Char and I hung out together on a few of the rides that the other three could go on but she was such a trooper! She took a pretty good nap in the stroller so we were able to hang at the park until it was time to check in to the hotel.
Julia and Ella did the smaller car ride while Joseph and the boys did the larger one and loved it just as much.
Having fun with Daddy!
We spent some time at the playground which Charlotte loved!
I took Ella and Julia to see the Lego Friends Christmas show which was filled with dancing and songs which they loved and they ended the show with fake snow so that was super fun!
And then we popped onto the carousel quickly before going back to find Charlotte, Joseph and Daddy at the playground.
Love these sweet girls!!!
We could check into the hotel at 4:00 and the kids knew this so by the afternoon they kept asking if it was 4:00 yet and if we could check in so right at 4 we made our way to the hotel. Rich went to the car with Charlotte to get the luggage while I checked in. I gave the receptionist our name and she said it wasn't pulling up so she asked for another name and figured I must have put it under Rich's since we used a military discount but his name didn't pop up either. I told her that I had the reservation saved on my phone so pulled it up for her...as I showed it to her I glanced at it as well and my eyes were immediately drawn to the check in date of 11/16/2017!!!! I about died. Seriously, I got tears in my eyes and said, "Oh my goodness!!!! I made the reservation over the phone and they must have typed in 11 instead of 12 for the month (because I was pretty positive that I hadn't said November but anyways...) and I'll have three kids who will be SO disappointed if we can't stay tonight. I kept blabbing on about we'll pay more if needed and it was a mistake" She finally cut me off and told me not to worry that there were available rooms and that this is a common mistake so I'm not the first one! Ahhhh, phew!!! I definitely panicked for a minute but thankfully it all worked out and we got our room key and were off to find our room.
The hotel is awesome and done so well for kids!! Everything, and I mean everything, is decorated and there are just Legos everywhere!!! We got to the room and there was a treasure hunt for mini figures so we had to do that immediately. Once we found all of the clues we went back to the room to open up the safe in our room with the code so that was super fun for them!
The room set up was great with bunk beds and a trundle at the front of the room and then the bathroom and then a king sized bed towards the back so the kids felt like they had their own little room.
We decided to do the buffet at the hotel which we definitely could have skipped. Rich actually wasn't feeling great (he thinks the bbq at lunch caused it) so he hardly ate anything and the kids and I definitely did not eat the cost of our tickets, either. The only thing that made it worth it was that we got a family picture with Lego Santa (just not sure if that was worth $100!!!). Ha.
The kids were entertained throughout dinner though with the guests that stopped by our table such as this pirate.
And Charlotte was a fan of the yogurt!
So, crazy enough Julia threw up in the middle of the night! We are convinced that the lunch was bad and that it bothered her stomach enough to throw up-she threw up just once and then was totally fine but definitely made for an eventful night. Thankfully in the morning everyone was feeling fine and she ate a great breakfast so whatever was bothering her was gone (and Rich was feeling back to normal, too!). We spent a little bit of time lounging in the room watching Lego shows before going to breakfast.
Here are some pictures of the room-so well done!
The bathroom
The front room where the bunk beds were
The elevator which was our favorite!! Every time that you went into the elevator and the doors closed dance music started which we all just loved!!!
We hung out in the lobby with all of the legos for a bit after breakfast the next morning.
Ella built a lego tower taller than her
Then I took the 3 big kids down to the pool as soon as it opened at 9:00. I didn't bring my suit so since I didn't get in, Ella and Julia had to wear a life vest since they didn't meet the height requirements. We brought Julia's puddle jumper so that wasn't a a problem but Ella wasn't happy about it since she is a strong swimmer so didn't quite get why she needed one. She hung out with me for awhile on the edge of the pool and we built a castle out of the large lego blocks and then I was finally able to convince her to get in and she had a good time!
Not sure how I didn't get Joseph in the picture but it ended up being a really nice morning so was nice to spend about an hour at the pool! Gotta love southern California!!
This was such a memorable experience for all of us. The kids just LOVED all of it and were so excited. Ella actually cried on they ride home because she didn't want to leave. It was such a fun little getaway and we are so thankful that everything turned out so well. It was the perfect birthday celebration for our big 5 and 7 year olds!! Happy birthday to Joseph and Ella!
No comments:
Post a Comment