LegoLand

While in Texas we went to LegoLand in Grapevine.  The boys have been in a crazy lego phase for a year or two now with no end in sight.  Any opportunity they have to spend some time building, reading, watching, imagining and creating they take with great enthusiasm.

The first thing we did was watch a 4D Lego movie.  What makes it 4D you ask?  Well, there are gusts of wind and you get sprayed with water.  The boys thought it was amazing.  I was glad we adults managed to score seats that received only a light misting and not a torrential downpour.  Seriously.  There were some seats left with standing water.

There were some little rides there.  One of them was a little racetrack where you drove little lego cars.  Here they are showing the kids what to do should they get stuck on the track.

John did pretty well.  He didn't hit the curb.  It gives me a little hope that he will be able to drive a car one day.

Anders, well...

it was a good thing he paid attention to what he needed to do when he got stuck.  He got stuck many, many times.  It was very cute.

Gus did pretty well too.

We discovered a pretty, pink castle.  In the castle there was a stage with karaoke.  I though the boys would love karaoke.  Anders really wanted to try it out and John was trying to keep him from going to the dark side.

I tried to convince John to go in there with Anders.  John would not step foot on the pink tiles.  He was not amused by me.

Eventually he gave in because he is a super awesome big brother.

He even stopped giving me dirty looks long enough to sing Old MacDonald with Anders.

Anders was not as interested in building his own car to race down these awesome tracks, so he played in the huge, soft lego pit.

I'm sad I didn't get any pictures of the race cars the boys built. Or the actual races.  But the older boys and my dad had a good time designing, building, and racing their cars.

This LegoLand also had a fun splash pad.

I constantly had to remind Anders not to drink the water.  That is so gross.  

Can you tell that my mom and Hans are enjoying their time in the Texas heat?

They actually had a lot of fun.  Hans is a big kid himself, and my mom just loves watching the boys having a great time.

While I was in Cologne and Aachen

..the boys had another action packed day.

My parents took the boys to the C.R. Smith Museum where they had a traveling exhibit on Lego castles.  The boys were very excited.

There were also airplane rubbings for the kids to do.

If there is an electronic game to play, John will find it.  But at least this was game that made him think. He was able to build a castle by dragging lego pieces onto graph paper.  At the end it told him how many lego pieces he would need to build his castle.

While John played the game, the two youngest to decided that electronics were not necessary.

But even electronics can't keep this kid from the lego table.

After the museum it was off to Founders' Plaza to watch airplanes take-off and land.

They had a wonderful time watching the planes.

Look at these three.  They look so cute and innocent.  

Looks can be deceiving. 

But, on this day they must have been good because Grandma and Grandpa treated them to frozen yogurt at TCBY.  The boys were very excited to take me here when I came back from my travels.  They loved the fact that you picked your own ice cream and self scooped all different kind of toppings.  Their combinations were very, um, interesting.