Dallas!

The boys have been getting the Lego Magazine for a while and through that learned about LegoLand. They have been begging us to go, and we figured spring break was as good a time as any. Bonus...they found free tickets (kids get in free with adult) in their magazine!

So on Friday morning (3/13) we drove down to Dallas. We stopped for lunch at Chik-fil-A and went into the mall where we found out that tickets for LegoLand were sold out for that day. So we bought tickets for Saturday and spent too much money on Lego sets for the boys to play with at the hotel. Then we headed to the hotel and found out our room wasn't ready yet, so we went to Ikea! We got fun, exciting new things like a garbage can and cutting boards :D and the boys got to play in their kid zone. 

We went to dinner at Twisted Root where their burgers were ginormous and fantastic! The boys are in a corn dog obsession phase right now so they both enjoyed those.Then our hotel room was ready so we headed over there. We bought tires for my car last year and got a free 2 night stay at Marriott. They put us on the 20th floor, right next to the Presidential Suite...no pressure to keep the kids under control at all...

Looking out the window at the planes landing

We went swimming that night and finally got to bed after 11:00. Lily was amazing despite the twist in her normal routine and once I got her into bed, she slept through the night.

In the hotel room

The next morning we slept in and headed off to find The Original Pancake House. I had sourdough French toast with a cream cheese/strawberry syrup and strawberries on top and Dale had a massive omelet. The boy loved their chocolate chip pancakes and home-made hot cocoa.

Then we got on a trolley named Matilda (from Melbourne, Australia!)

and rode downtown to the Museum of Art.

Thankfully the Museum of Art is very family friendly, but it was massive. I think it would be a lot more fun in smaller increments, without three kids to chase/wrangle/juggle.

We boarded Betty the Trolley...

Then it was finally time to head to LegoLand! It was spring break in Dallas too, which meant every kid in Dallas was at the mall...or so it seemed. But the boys loved it! They were in little boy heaven with cars to build...

Cars to drive...

Lego movies to watch, rides to spin and shoot in, ninja training, climbing structures, and Lego pictures.

After LegoLand we got mediocre Steak n Shake meals and headed back to the hotel. The boys all went swimming and the girls worked on getting to bed.

The next morning we packed up and headed off to find a church building where we had the Sacrament and drove home. The chapel had stadium seating which was entertaining for little children to run up and down :). We stopped on the way home to take a few pictures since it was so green.

At one point on the trip, I mentioned how we were on vacation, and Kimball exclaimed "This isn't a vacation. We didn't bring a tent!" We chuckled and explained that vacations don't require camping. All in all, it was a fun, exhausting trip. Dale & I realized we have become very accustomed to small city life and felt a bit over-stimulated in Dallas. Way too many people! But the food was amazing. After years of living as poor college students, it's nice to finally be able to go on trips for fun! Budgeting and living frugally pay off in the long run.