Open House 2015

Today was Open House at the boys' school. They both performed a couple of songs in English and Mandarin. Then they took us to their classrooms to show us all of the hard work they have been doing this school year. These are a couple of my favorite projects.

Alex's "I Am" poem.

Zachy's Vines sculpture.

Keep up all of the great work boys!

SJTM

Alex's class had a field trip to the San Jose Tech Museum today and I was able to chaperone. The class watched an IMAX movie about under water creatures, and then were free to wander around the museum and try out all of the experiments. Alex had a chance to design his own roller coaster on a computer, test the crash rating of the ride, and once it passed the safety test, he got to take it for a spin.

And a still picture of the build up.

The kids spent a large portion of the time waiting for a computer to draw their portrait.

A good group of boys.

 A bunch of awesome 2nd graders!

Legoland!

The boys had a 4 day weekend from school, so we decided to surprise them with a trip to Legoland.

We picked them up from school on Friday with the car loaded and ready to go. It's a long drive to Carlsbad, but we planned to arrive at the hotel between 10 and 11. That didn't happen. Somewhere along I-5, (it was dark, and there aren't many landmarks) the freeway was closed down. Fortunately, at the point where we came upon the stoppage, there was a truck stop and we were able to pull off the road and regroup. Phil was able to find some back roads that would get us around the problem (and around the detour being set up) and we were back on the road.** After all of the chaos, we finally arrived at the Legoland Hotel around 1am. The parents were tired, but not the kids.

I suppose it is hard to be tired when there is a giant pool of Legos just waiting for you. Right after this, another family that had been stuck on the freeway came in to play.

The next morning, (early, no sleeping in for this group) Alex and I went down to the lobby to look for clues for the treasure chest. There was a lot of activity and people wearing race bibs. After asking a couple of people, we discovered that there was a kids' fun run through Legoland and it was about to get started. We gathered up the family and rushed to the start area to sign up! Alex and Mady decided to run the race (Phil ran with Mady, Alex was ready to go alone!) and Zachy and I cheered them on.
Here's Alex walking up to the starting line with his age group.

A very happy race finisher. 

We didn't have time to pick up his race t-shirt before he ran, so after we saw Mady off on the start of her race, the boys and I collected Alex's shirt and some post-race snacks. We even saw the Chik-fil-a cow!

Mady and Daddy are off and running.

The race wound through Legoland, and not being a serious runner (yet), Mady had a pretty slow time because she was distracted by all of the awesome Lego creations. 

But she did finish strong! And then tried to climb the scaffolding. We're so proud of our two race finishers!

Our original plan was to spend the day inside the park, but we decided to wait due to the large crowd associated with the fun run. Instead, we went back inside to finish looking for clues. The clues revealed the combination for the safe in our room.

Inside the safe the kids found Lego Mini-figures and chocolates!

After resting for a little while, we headed out to the Museum of Making Music. There were lots of fun instruments to play along with interactive displays about the history of music.

In the evening, the kids hit the pool! It was pretty chilly, even in the heated pool...that's January for you!

Zachy swam, Alex worked on building a Lego block raft, and Mady kicked her feet.

We spent the next two days playing at Legoland! Since we were staying at the resort, we had early entry both days, which gave us a chance to ride some of the more popular rides before the lines grew to unbelievable lengths! Before planning this trip, we made sure everyone was the required heights. Alex is over 48", and can ride alone. Zachy and Mady are both over 36" and can ride with an adult. Additionally, Zachy can ride some rides alone! The following pictures will be mostly without comment...enjoy!

OK, not a ride, but she loved it!

 Alex's old favorite, driving the Lego cars!

 Mady loved being able to ride with her brothers!

So much enthusiasm!

Fun with Lego Sculptures

Even more fun with Mini-Figures!

Speaking of mini-figures, the employees have mini-figures on their name tags, and encourage trading. Alex and Zachary had lots of fun tracking down the mini-figures they wanted and making trades.

Who's that knight in shining armor?

Legoland was so much fun! Everyone is eagerly awaiting another trip!

We also had a chance to meet up with Natasha's Aunt Catherine, cousin Craig, and Craig's wife Carrie for dinner! Craig and Carrie live in Southern California, and Catherine was visiting them from Iowa. We're hoping to get some pictures from the evening, but don't have any yet.

Over the weekend, the weather was perfect, and on the day we were heading home, there were some sprinkles.  On the way home, this incredible fog bank took over the road. Traffic definitely slowed down for this mess!

**Remember the traffic problems? The next week at school, one of the teachers asked me if we had been in LA over the weekend. I said yes, and she said, "I thought I saw Alex and his dad at the truck stop, but it seemed so random!" That sure is random!