LEGOLAND!

We went to Chicago for a little family vacation, of sorts.  We have been wanting to take Ethan to LEGOLAND for a while, and decided his 5th birthday was a good time!  We had a great time and he loved it!  Nora had a great time too and wasn't too young to enjoy most things!  As we were having some ice cream at the end of our day, Ethan said (without prompting) "I think this might be the best day ever!"  That was enough for us :)!  Here are a lot of pictures from our time over the weekend!

"Mini land" was up first.  It was a miniature version of Chicago made of Legos

The 2nd time through, they found all of  the characters from "The Lego Movie" hidden among the streets of Chicago.

Construction zone

Jared and his good friend Barrack ;)

Next up...the jungle!

Lots of Lego creatures and people to look at here!

Star Wars is next!

R2D2 and Ethan

Life-size Darth Vader and Nora

Then we rode a fun ride through a castle where we shot laser guns at different monsters and other 'bad guys'.  No pictures of this though.  I refused to pay $16 for the picture they took of us on the ride...

Next we went upstairs to see what was up there.  Turns out, they have a 4-D movie theater and show 2 different Lego movies (each about 10 min long).  It was so fun!  Actual water sprayed us during the movies.  Once, while a fire hose was being sprayed at the screen during the movie, and once while they went under a waterfall in the movie.  The kids thought that was pretty cool!

Glasses ready!

There was a lion outside of the movie theater :).  Ferocious!

Sweet Nora Lion

Next to the movie theater, there was a small "Lego Factory"  We got to see (a quick version) of how a Lego brick is made.  And they got a duplo sized Lego at the end of the process.

Checking the place out

At the end, getting a brick

Then there was a little cafe area, play place area and car building and testing area.  We hung around there for a while.

Nora in the soft Lego pit

Building their cars

Testing them on the test track

He's a serious builder :)

Testing another one.  I love his expression in the last picture! 

She didn't have to worry about getting in trouble destroying something here :)!

Action shot in the play area

Silly face!

There was one more ride- but they wouldn't let me ride it :(.  So, that meant Daddy got to go twice!

Daddy doing all the pedal work!

Flying Nora!

Sitting next to the sleeping man on a bench

Farewell LEGOLAND!  It was a great time!

We couldn't leave without letting Ethan pick out a new box...so here's the finished product in the hotel room.

We did lots of other fun things on our trip, but I only have pictures from LEGOLAND.  We ate out, had ice cream, swam in the hotel pool and finally, went to IKEA!  It was a quick trip through, with 2 kids, but still a good time.