Waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning is NEVER any fun. Especially when you are waking up that early to make sure you can blow dry your hair and give it a little curl...I mean honestly, who cares. Hahaha! On this particular Saturday I had to make sure my hair was looking at least a little nice for our beach photo shoot with Tracy van Dam. I like to have our pictures taken like every five or six months, it sounds silly but when my kids are older they will appreciate it. So I got up the earliest (6:30) and then woke up the husband a little later, the kids woke up on their own from whatever noise I was making, and we were all pressed, dressed, and ready to go by 8:15 exactly as I had scheduled it (love when that happens). The shoot was only about 8 minutes away and we made it there right around 8:30. This was the first time Max or Gabriella had been on a beach in Southern California and Max was in heaven! Absolutely ecstatic to be so near the ocean. So after some family shots and a little adventure over some rocks, we let him walk into the ocean a little bit with Ryan. Meanwhile I was trying to get Gabriella acquainted to the beach and she was having none of it. At first after she had been sitting in the sand crying for a few minutes, she quieted down and started feeling the sand with her hands I thought she was going to do great...but then she sticks a handful of the sand in her mouth. She didn't cry while she was eating it, she cried when she saw the shock on my face and as I was trying to wipe it out of her mouth and off of her face she freaked out a little. So that wasn't going the way I planned, but oh well. Ryan took Gabriella into the water with Max and she was having fun sticking her hands in the water. Max was having a blast running from the waves (that were a little tiny bit faster thanks to the earthquake in Japan) and as he was running from one he tripped and ended up all the way in the water. Good thing the shoot was just about over because I would have been one upset mama if this had happened before we took the pictures haha! We all thought it was hilarious though and got a real good laugh out of it! So we headed back up the shore to our car and said our goodbyes to Tracy. She is surely becoming like a part of the family, like a distant relative we only see twice a year. She has watched the kids grow like crazy and I hope she is the one who photographs their weddings one day.
We headed back to the hotel room to change our clothes and get Max cleaned up. Max was still clueless to where we were going that day but he knew we were doing something special for him. After he saw we were all wearing some sort of Lego shirt he asked what was going on (sometimes hes too smart) I just told him we were all going to match and have a good time.
So we were headed out the door to Lego Land which was only about four minutes away from our hotel (smart booking) and after weeks of spelling out L-E-G-O-L-A-N-D I was finally able to let Max in on the secret! So as we were driving I handed him the map of Lego Land and he was looking at it telling us how bad he wanted to go there some day and telling me about all the different things we could do. So I turned around and said "Well guess what?! That's where we will be in just a few minutes!" Now, Max is very perceptive and he likes to make it seem like he knows everything so all I got at first was an "I know." but then he started talking SUPER fast telling me we had to do this or that from the map and Lego Land is his favorite place ever (we've never been there). So thats when I got to see him so excited to be going and all the planning and secret keeping totally paid off.
Before I get into the park with you I just wanted you to know that Max LOVES Legos. He literally has thousands of them in this box I keep in his closet because he cant play with them when Gabriella is around (she may choke on one). So I knew that once Max was old enough to enjoy all that Lego Land has to offer we would take him there. I figured his fifth birthday month was the perfect time. We also dont believe in only taking one kid somewhere, which is why even though Gabriella couldn't thoroughly enjoy everything she was still there. No matter what we are a family and a team. We will never leave one kid out even if it is to celebrate the others birthday.
Our first day was amazing. All of us loved it. Everyone we had to deal with (employees) were SUPER nice. The park in general was really clean. The lines was pretty short for a weekend. Parking was out of control amazing. When we went to Disney Land a few years back we parked where they told us to and I (7 months pregnant) was in tears basically by the time we got back to the car when we were leaving, Ryan would have carried me to the car but he was carrying a sleeping Max. Knowing that the car was not far at all was soooo great. I would definitely recommend to anyone with kids to bring your kids here. It was so much fun for Max, and the prices of the food were not bad at all. They allow you to bring whatever you need for your kids, snacks, drinks, diapers, whatever haha. It was just fantastic.
So ending day one was bittersweet. We were having so much fun that we were not ready to leave and Max didn't know he was coming back for a second day so he was really upset, plus he was super tired so we got an earful on the way back to the hotel.
I'll blog about day two later on. Laundry and other things need to be done around here.
Talk to you soon,
J
