Legoland Water Park and meeting up with Josh and Tanya

August 8th

Since Paige was still feeling sick, I decided to stay with her at the hotel, so she could sleep and try to get better.  Garrett took the other 4 and headed to Lego land to try out the Water parks.  

Paige slept for awhile, then she watched movies in bed most of the day.  I blogged and watched episodes of 24 on my computer.  

Meanwhile, the others had lots of fun!  I think they stayed at the water park most of the day, but then did a few other things in the afternoon.  

Here they are eating lunch

Hanging out in the kid area.

It looked like a pretty neat place, but I don't remember much about what they told me.  

I'm not sure why Bella is grumpy in this picture, but it's pretty common for her.

These were the actual sets used to film the Lego Movie.  They said it was awesome! (Of course)

Noah and Emmett

Then they rode some rides--The Safari Trek

And then they came home around 5.  

Noah fell asleep on the way home, so I came down to watch Bella and Lydia swim in the pool while Maggie went up to the room with Paige and Garrett stayed in the car while Noah slept.  When Noah woke up, they went swimming for a bit, too.  After they were done swimming, Garrett got Panda Express for dinner and we ate, then cleaned up and packed.  Then next day we were heading to Anaheim.

August 9th

This morning after breakfast and packing up, we headed out to the car to load everything up.  Much to our surprise and disgust, we found ants EVERYWHERE in our car.  In the snack bag, in the cooler, in bags, on the seats, up and down the seatbelts, on the floor, in the front console.  It was SO GROSS!  I got rid of all the snacks in the bag and we tried to wipe out the ants as best we could, but there were so many of them.  So, we had to ride in the car to a gas station that had a vacuum/car wash.  We got quarters and sucked those babies up.  We cleaned as best as we could with wipes and whatever we had and got rid of most of them, but even as we were driving, we'd see some here and there.  I'm not sure how they got in our car that quickly because they said they didn't see any in the car the day before driving to and from Lego land.  It was so weird.  

It took us about 2-3 hours to get to Anaheim and when we got there we ate lunch at Chipotle and then found our hotel.  Josh and Tanya were there already so we hung out with them and talked for a little while.  They live in Northern California and drove down to go to Disneyland with us.  They all decided to go swimming, but we were in desperate need of some clean clothes, so I had to go and find the laundry room in the hotel and do some laundry.  There were only 2 washers and dryers and it took awhile to get 2 loads of our clothes clean and dry.  I had to keep going back to check on availability and then people would leave stuff in there and not come back!  So finally, I had to take people's stuff out of the dryer so I could dry my last load because we were heading to dinner soon.  Such a pain!!

Maggie, Lydia, Garrett and Bella swimming at the hotel pool

Lydia, Maggie, Caleb, Garrett, Bella, Paige, Josh and Hannah.

After swimming, we went out to eat at this little Italian place.  It was nice and had pretty good food.  We went back to the hotel and went to bed.  The next morning we were heading to Disneyland!!

Sabbatical Trip #3: Amusement Parks in California

August 5th

This morning before piling into the car and driving the whole day, Garrett took the kids swimming after breakfast while Maggie and I got ready.  It was already so warm at 10 in the morning.  It was a nice pool!

We started to leave around 11:30, but before we got out of St. George, Garrett wanted to make a quick stop at one of his early relatives house, Jacob Hamblin.  He was an early settler in St. George and Arizona, I think.  

In front of Jacob Hamblin's house

Inside the house

Had to get pictures of St. George's famous red rocks on our way out.

Stopping to see the beautiful St. George Temple.  

Before heading out, Noah had been complaining about his sore throat, so this is what it looked like.  Lots of sores and redness in there.  Poor guy.  He had sores on the outside of his lips, too.  

Pictures of our drive.  We drove through 4 states that day.  Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California.  

Passing by the strip

These two girls being silly to pass the time.

We didn't get to San Diego until about 10 that night.  It was a long day!

Glad to be out of the car and getting ready for bed!
August 6
Beware, there are lots of pictures!

The first amusement park that we went to was Legoland.  We have been to Legoland one time before, when we were in England.  It was cold and rainy there, but today was nice and sunny!

The first ride we went on was "Fairy Tale Brook" It was a little boat ride that took you around to see fairy tale stories like The 3 Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood--all built from Legos.  

Next we got in line for something called "Sky Cruiser" which was supposed to be pretty popular.  The line was so ridiculously long!!  I bet we waited over an hour!  It was pretty hot, too!  I don't even think the ride was worth it.  It was fun, but you had to pedal yourself around.  You got to see lots of the park because you were up above the ground.  It was ok.  

Bella trying to pedal.

A view of the park

Another view

Maggie and Lydia ahead of us

Paige, coming in behind us. 

The next ride was "Sky Patrol".  We flew in helicopters. 

Noah loved it!

Driving in a police car.  Next, we took them over to actually drive Lego cars, but Paige was the only one who wanted to (out of the little kids.)  I waited in line with Noah for about 20 minutes and about half way through the line, he said he didn't want to drive a car.  I was really shocked, because he loves any kind of car.  So, I tried to talk him into it while we finished waiting and when it was his turn, he still refused.  So, we didn't go.  

Then we came over to "Skipper School" to drive some Lego boats.  There was a really long line for this one too.  But, they had stuff for the kids to do while they waited.  It was hard to find a place in the shade to wait--it was really hot!

Building with legos before it was our turn

Finally getting our boats!

I drove with Bella and Garrett took Noah.  Everyone else was by themselves.

A quick selfie of Bella and I

After this, we went over to the castle/medieval area for some lunch.  

This is where we ate.  It was so good.  They had bbq ribs, chicken, baked beans, cornbread, and fruit salads.  My favorite kind of meal!

After eating, Maggie, Lydia and I went to ride 'The Dragon' roller coaster, while Garrett and the younger 3 went to watch a medieval show.  

It was fun.  (This is just a picture from the internet)

When we met up again, the kids were in line for a horse jousting ride.  So Maggie and Lydia took these pictures.  

Paige jousting

Noah really enjoyed this one.  

Bella 

Lydia and Chewbacca

Then we went over to their Miniland USA and we came to the Star Wars section first.  These were so cool!

Noah and Han Solo

Paige and Leia

Noah and Darth Vader

Maggie and heart throb Anakin

We were all so amazed by all the scenes from Star Wars.  I didn't even include them all, they had so many!

Then after walking through the rest of Miniland, we rode on one last ride called 'Coast Cruise'.

These are Lydia's pictures from that ride

Then we took the kids into the stores and they could each buy one thing.  They mostly came out with new Lego sets, but Maggie got a key chain.  I think they were all pretty excited.  

These two LOVE Lego Friends!  

Lego land also has a water park.  We didn't have time to do that today, so we were going to come back in a couple of days.  

When we got back to the hotel, Bella and Noah's throats were hurting and they each had sores in their mouths.  I had them drink some Onguard mixed with water, so it could start fighting off whatever virus they had.  I kept thinking to myself that they had hand, foot and mouth disease.  Noah had some spots on his hands, too.  Luckily, I think the onguard worked, because they were both getting better by the next day.