vacation Wednesday, part 2 (June 10): Legoland

 We had one last big ride to do.  It was a crazy back-and-forth ride, so Ben and Cheryl elected not to do it.  I didn't think it was too bad, but there was a lot of direction switching.  It was fun enough that we still did it twice!  Joshua almost did it three times as he couldn't escape from him harness, but the workers helped him out.

We hit the Temple next, an indoor ride in which you shoot at things for points.  It was a normal ride, but we all had fun and did a pretty good job of getting points.

We did the polar coaster again!  Then we wandered nearby, as we were starting to think about lunch but instead found a water play area with simple machines.  

It started raining again, so we had a little snack under a good roof with the polar bears.  It also had some fun inside activities - you could make a vehicle and then drive/fly it around by in interactive screen to find gems/whales, depending on the story.  Once you figured out how to do it, and if no one else was trying to do it at the same time, it worked really well.  A few stairs up was another landing with other interactive items.  If you stood near the yeti's home he would come say hi.  You could step on ice to break it and find a surprise underneath.  Nothing huge, but a nice fun thing to do while it stopped raining.

Speaking of the rain, it stopped just long enough for us to go over to our lunch place.  Ben said this was the only place in the park that had good food (based on the ratings) and it was amazing.  There was some baked chicken that was probably the best I've ever had.  I also got the kids meal because it had LEGO French fries.  They were seasoned mashed potatoes shaped into LEGO bricks and I thought they were much better than normal French fries.

Although it rained while we were eating, that was the last of the rain for the day.  We had done a nice job being under or inside when it was raining and outside when it wasn't.  We had a plan to split up soon, but first we went to the Haunted House.  It was rather interactive without being all that spooky, so everyone had a good time.

We did a little boat ride.  (Isaac is trying to smile here but it's just so sunny!)

Ben and Cheryl went to do some shopping while the other three of of did a ride again.  I expect it was the polar one because that was our favorite, but I don't actually have any pictures so I can't remember.  Before too long we met up again in the Ningajo area.  They had the same 3D virtual shooter game that the other Legolands have.  It was fun, but it is hard to figure out exactly how to position your hand.

The other item in that area is a laser maze and it was really cool.  There are two different hallways and you can choose your difficulty.  You get timed and for each laser you hit you lose five seconds.  We did this several times because the line was short and it was a lot of fun and we wanted to see how different settings and hallways worked.

We took a short safari before heading to the store to actually make purchases.  Ben had found another pick-a-brick wall and the kids got some t-shirts.  I made a bridge of bridges while waiting.

At this point all the rides were closed, but we still had a bit of time so we finished up in miniland again.  This time we looked at all the places we would be traveling to soon.  We realized, with about fifteen minutes to spare, that we had wanted to get churros.  Well, we were rather close to the churro place so we got some!  Then we headed out of the park...fairly quickly, but still stopping to take some pictures.

Aarhous, tomorrow's visit

Bergen:

For dinner I went to the grocery store for sandwich stuff.  Ben did a ton of work throughout the vacation dealing with where we were going to eat, so I was glad that I could make at least this one decision.  I was trying to translate the different types of cheese but they wouldn't translate.  None of them would, and I found that rather weird.  I picked two random ones and they were good, but cheese is good.

Isaac worked on a stop motion during the evening.

Friday

Tornado has been sleeping on my chair more than normal the last few days.  Sometimes I move him onto my lap and sometimes I just sit on the edge of the chair if I don't need to do much.

I tried two braids today.  I didn't really like it because they didn't fall correctly and my headphones didn't fit on very well.

Thursday: walk

We went for a walk with Cheryl this morning.  Well, Cheryl and I walked and Isaac and Joshua scootered.  They made a goal to sit on every bench, which was rather funny to watch at the gazebos.

I forgot yesterday's story.  We went to PetSmart to get some kitty litter.

Wednesday: pencil drawer

One of Joshua's chores this week was to make a divider out of LEGO for the pencil drawer.  I had some dividers in it, but they weren't working all that well.

Joshua initially thought it would be more work than he was hoping for, but in the end I think it was just a little bit more work than he was hoping for.  The divider fits in the drawer quite tightly.  It didn't have quite the same dimensions as previously, so I needed to move a few things around.  It is actually probably better to move them around as the stuff we use the most is closer to the front.

Ben and I went out to dinner because we needed to discuss a few things without kids.  We ended up having several similar thoughts - it didn't really surprise me, but at the same time it was fun to be on the same page.

Tuesday: Isaac's bedroom

This morning Isaac was ready to rearrange his room.  Since we had several of the furniture items out of the room for the carpet cleaning, it was a good time to move things around.  He had been trying a few options that weren't working well.

In order to make things fit, we needed to take off a bifold door.  His bifold doors have always been a bit of a problem - they're really sticky so most of the time they're open.  So removal was not a hard decision.

We got three of the four corners free but could not figure out how to get the forth one.  Eventually we thought that the thingy might be stuck in the plastic holder.  We decided to take off the other bifold door and then take off the railing.

We got three of the four corners free for the other bifold door.  We were starting to get more serious about destruction when it suddenly popped off in my hands.  I had been holding it and moving it around a little bit, but I wasn't doing anything amazing, so I was rather surprised when it was suddenly free.  It was exciting though.

Isaac started unscrewing the rail.  I was holding the other bifold door.  Pop!  That door was free.  Again, I don't know what caused it to become free, but we were all quite glad that it did. The rest of the room change was rather trivial after that.  We took out drawers of the dresser and it was a bit lighter than expected.  The desk fit in just fine.  It extends over the corner of the wall by less than a half inch, so Isaac shouldn't run into it.

When we bought the house, there were six bifold doors.  I've now removed five.  I'm not a fan.

Saturday: karate judging

People have been trying to get me to compete in a karate competition for years.  I've thought about it a few times, but for the one thing I want to do the price tag is too high.  This year though, I went to judge.  I thought it was going to be an all day thing, but it ended up only being two hours and that was perfect.  I'm happy to spend two hours volunteering, but when it is closer to five it starts to actually become a commitment.

Anyway, I starting by judging the 3&4 year olds.  They were super cute.  I was judging with two older guys, and it was also cute to see them watch the cute kids.

Then I was put in a ring for slightly older kids.  The judges I was paired with knew what they were doing.  It was a little intimidating when I came up with a different score than they did, but Will just said that it's good and that it's ok to look at different things.  We did often have the same scores, so that was good.

The scoring was a bit weird.  The participants were ranked and then the best person was given a score of 9.9, the second best 9.8, etc.  It was standard and everyone knew what was going on, but it still seemed a bit weird.  Also, there tended to be 2-4 participants per round and every round got medals.  We were handing out medals left and right!

So, a few odd things but overall a good experience.

Friday: busy

Today was a busy day.  I was thinking it would be a bit overwhelming, but it ended up being perfect.  

We went on a walk with Aunt C first thing in the morning.  Well, I walked and the boys scootered.  The temperature was nice and it was cloudy and it was a lovely walk.

At home we put the LEGO towers back in the LEGO room.  Due to painting we put the towers on the opposite side of the room, so we'll see if we like them over there or not.  The kids acted like the LEGOs had been out of commission for a year.  They immediately started building and had a sense of relief that they were back.  (They were only gone for about 40 hours and that included two nights.)

I went to donate blood.  I was hoping to give power red (two units) but my iron was too low and I could only give whole blood.  It was fine.  The guy doing the needle poke did a great job and I had hydrated well.  I was done about five minutes after starting, which was really fast.  When I remember to hydrate well I can go fast, but this was one of the fastest.

I got home and the kids were working together on a tank with special features.  I laid out a quilt since I wanted to rest for a bit.  I noted that we should eat lunch soon and they could barely be dragged away from their project.  It was ridiculous in a really good way.

After a short nap I was the driver to bring Joshua and some friends to Grandville for the Soar N Bounce.  (Think SkyZone, Urban Air, etc.)  The day ended up being quite a bit of driving, but not too bad.  While the kids were playing I was free because another mom was the designated adult.  I went to Bricks and Minifigures to look through their loose LEGO.  My expectation was that I'd spend an 45-60 minutes filling my bag and then still have 45-60 minutes to do some computer work.  Well, after 60 minutes my bag was only half full and I was still going strong.  There were so many cool pieces to find!  I spent about two hours looking through their pieces and found several that I'm excited for the family to be excited about.  I didn't get any work done, but I did have a really good afternoon.

Isaac was in charge of making dinner and he chose tacos.  I really thought he had made them before, but he hadn't.  So I guess it was a good thing that he didn't see my text that we'd be home in 30 minutes, hoping that he'd have dinner ready.  In the end I just asked leading questions and he could have absolutely figured it out, but he enjoyed having the confirmation that he was doing it correctly.