An Adventure to LegoLand

We got more snow last night, but nothing like a few days ago, so we didn’t get too excited about it.  It won’t get in the way of any of our exciting plans for the day!

We started with a trip to LegoLand.  What a cool place!  I think Raj and I had just as much fun as (if not more than) Shawn!  We were greeted by a giant Lego model of a giraffe spanning the entrance, a huge replica of Albert Einstein’s funny face (with moving eyes!) and two little statues holding toothpaste and a toothbrush right inside the door.  We were hardly inside the building and we’re already very impressed.  It just got better from there…

There was a mock-up of downtown Chicago with flickering campfires on the beach, working lights and sirens at the fire department, and a light timer set up to show how the city changes in daylight and nighttime.  It was complete with Buckingham Fountain, Hancock Tower, Navy Pier, the elevated train, Water Tower Place, and even construction!  (With the amount of detail shown in this display, I wouldn’t be surprised if the model city was to scale.)  As if that wasn’t complicated enough, the Lego artists kicked it up by invading the city with Star Wars characters!  There was a scavenger hunt set up so you could search for specific characters, but we just had fun taking it all in and seeing what we could find on our own.  It was incredible. 

  

When we left the city, we walked right into a Lego Jungle!  There were life size tigers, monkeys, alligators, birds, giant spiders, a few safari guides (the only things that weren’t life size, though Shawn may disagree), and then… Indiana Jones from the Temple of Doom!  Later, we even saw Darth Vador and R2D2!

 

There was a ride through a Dragon Quest where we saw wizards and royalty and, of course, a very large dragon.  We took a very brief “tour” showing how Legos are made accompanied by a mini history of the toy.  Then we watched a 4-D movie featuring Clutch Powers, a Lego character.  Not only did we wear 3-D glasses (Shawn didn’t keep his on, but he liked playing with them), but during the movie you could feel wind blowing when the characters were outside or driving fast and there would be a light mist of water when the characters got rained on, which was the fourth dimension of the movie.  Though the movie was a bit cheesy, it was a pretty cool concept and a fun way for Shawn to experience his first movie. 

After the movie, we went to the Build & Test center where there were buckets of all sorts of Lego pieces to experiment with.  Shawn got a LegoLand hat, in similar fashion of the old Burger King crowns, to give him official Lego Builder status.  After building vehicles, we launched them down ramps to see how fast they could go.  We also played in Duplo Village with giant foam rubber Lego bricks.  Raj and Shawn built towering structures on an earthquake platform to test how long they could withstand the vibrations.  I think Shawn had more fun playing with the buttons and dials that controlled the quakes, but he was still Dad’s helpful assistant.  Finally, after working hard in close proximity to the café, we decided it was time for lunch.  We weren’t overly impressed with the café selections, so we headed out. 

We decided to try Sweet Tomatoes for lunch, but Shawn barely made the five minute drive across a few parking lots before he fell asleep.  Once we got inside, he decided that lunch was worth waking up for.  The enormous buffet was inspiring to our rumbling tummies and the quality of the food was impressive.  We sat a table that was in the path of most people making trips to fill their plates, so Shawn was thrilled to flirt with most of them, as long as they didn’t stop to talk, which made him shy and a little nervous.  We made dozens of trips to the different areas: soups, salads, pastas, pizzas, baked potatoes, desserts, etc.  Empty bellies no longer!

Shawn and I took the rest of the day/evening off.  We had plenty of excitement from the day.  He napped, I did laundry.  Raj went out with some friends to watch the SuperBowl.  Since it was painful that the Packers made it and he wasn’t interested in the Steelers, Raj claimed he was rooting for the Blackeyed Peas, who were performing at the halftime concert.  (Obviously, he wasn’t upset by the Packers enough to keep him away from the game entirely!)  Not interested in the game myself, I had it on in the background while I folded and put clothes away, just so I could catch a few of the famous exclusive commercials.  There were a few funny ones, but not enough to keep me interested in actually sitting down to watch!  (Raj was impressed I had it on at all.)  It’s a good thing we had a so much fun earlier in the day because Raj was a little resentful when the Packers won.  Sorry, honey, but the Blackeyed Peas just couldn’t score any points on the field!