The Land of Legos

On Wednesday we journeyed to the land of Legos. Where the selfies abound...

And the frowns shine?

My parents came with us as my dad felt amusement parking needed a "man on man" strategy as opposed to the "double teaming" Jeff and I would have had to endure sans the extra adult helpers. He was right.

Plus who would have taken this picture of us without the help of my parents?!?

Oh look! Here we are waiting in line at the Ninjago ride that had a sign posted assuring us that there was no minimum height requirement and when I double checked with an employee WORKING AT THE RIDE (leaving me to believe they knew the rules of this specific ride), whether or not Jonah would be able to go on it, 2 employees for sure 100% absolutely no problem told me Jonah could hop aboard.

I waited in line for 30-45 minutes. Got seated on the ride with baby. Pulled the lap bar down. Only to be told by a ride operator that oh actually Jonah can't ride unless he's awake because he might get scared. I start waking him up. Then they tell me, Oh actually he just can't ride at all.

Eye roll, Legoland. Eye. Roll.

At least I got some cute pictures while I inched through the line with the rest of the group.

When I was in California with my siblings, Abe called out during a picture, "Everyone do your best superhero pose!" Upon looking at the picture, we saw this was my mom's pose:

What we failed to realize then was that my mom's superhero was a ninja as that hand positioning is what got her first place in the family on the Ninjago ride busting out her ninja hands to fight fireballs or whatever exactly it is you do on that ride. I wouldn't know. Thanks for bringing it up.

Then we had lunch where Eli got the idea in his brain that he was going to get a new Lego set as soon as we were done with the park...so to speed things along, he decided he was done with the park immediately following lunch. So I spent the second half of the day making cheerful threats like, "Don't make me put a smile on your face!" "You WILL have the best day of your life today if I have anything to say about it!" or "If you don't ride that roller coaster, I'll ride it for you!"

There was one thing that eventually brought a smile to Eli's face:

My kids' favorite part of the park was the giant play area that we had totally missed when we were at Legoland a little over a year earlier.

If I were to pick one picture to sum up going on vacation (or really anywhere) with Carson, it would be this one:

He is just here there and everywhere when he's somewhere new. Keeping an eye on him is as difficult as dizzily trying to keep up with a magician's hands to determine which cup has the ball under it...only to discover the ball was behind your ear the whole time.

He's never where you think he'll be even if you've logically been watching him whiz back and forth in front of you the whole time. As soon as he's somewhere, he's just a jump and a flash away from the next somewhere. He is a ball under a cup...and that ball is a ball of energy that refuses to be contained by a cup.

My dad tried to assure me if all his energy was fostered correctly he could be something really awesome, but for now we're just trying to keep his picture off the milk cartons as we try our hardest not to lose the lightning bolt of a boy.

Note the hand on the shoulder. Ha. The only way to keep track of the right cup is to keep a finger on it.

Our tickets came with passes to this aquarium part of Legoland which saved the day for me and Jeff. We truthfully thought Legoland was a bit of a bust until the aquarium. It was so cute! The exhibits were awesome and they had a little scavenger hunt for the kids that Eli especially got really into.

We ended the day the same way we started -- selfie time!