Regular admission to Legoland is as expensive as any other amusement park : too expensive.  However, they have a great deal on Mondays during the school year.  Admission price for Education Mondays is $20/person when a group of 10 or more purchases tickets together.  This turns into Homeschool Mondays for the Theule Family.  Toby organized a couple other Homeschool families to join us along with The Bernards.

Jan told her kids that they were going to Legoland for Emily’s birthday, but didn’t tell them that we would be joining them.  So it was a fun surprise for Em & Nate when we showed up at their hotel for an evening swim.

We stayed at a La Quinta Inn the night before and then had a great day at Legoland.  I spent the morning with Roly doing the little kid stuff, while Toby, Jan and the older kids were on their own.

After the day at Legoland, we stayed the night in the Legoland Hotel.  We had an Adventure room.  The room and the whole hotel were laid out especially well for children.  There was a safe in the room with scavenger hunt –like instructions for discovering the combination (like the 3rd digit is the number of balloons painted on the ceiling in the lobby).  Inside were mini-fig sets as souvenirs.

A radiator hose in the van developed a leak, so I had AAA tow the van to a local shop.  The shop had trouble finding the right part, and the van wasn’t fixed until the next morning.  So we went back to the La Quinta Inn for one more night.  For dinner that night we went to Benihana’s, but we couldn’t wait for a table at one of the hibachis, so we had regular dinner in a booth. 

Having to wait for the van repair was a hassle, but as we told the kids, it could have been much worse.  We had all of our toothbrushes and extra clothes with us, for example.  No one had any un-cancellable meetings the next day.