Legoland was just the start to our Spring Break in Florida. After we took Mabel to the airport, we continued on to Dave’s parents’ house. As soon as the van was unloaded, the kids were in the pool.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the kids from our trip. They love that fire boat!

Dave’s mom made him a fun birthday cake.

Between the pool and the cake, the kids were thrilled. Maggie didn’t waste any time picking our her out bed.

As if my kids weren’t wowed enough by bunk beds (Legoland was their first time sleeping on them), these ones folded up into the wall – very, very cool.

I was able to get a video of Adam making his first goal of the spring soccer season last night. After he kicked the ball, a player from the other team accidentally knocks it in. It still counts as a goal for Adam though. He is the only blue player that touches the ball in this clip, so that should make it easier for you to keep an eye on him.

A Lego Princess came to visit us during our breakfast. The kids loved her. She told us all about her tiger, Karen, and had all of us laughing.

We ran into Max in the lobby, it was the first time we’d seen him. It was also the first time that Maggie willingly got her photo taken with one of the characters.

Here’s Luke showing off the newspaper that was left outside our hotel room door.

Once we were in the park, Luke convinced me to go on his favorite ride with him.

Dave and Adam hit The Dragon roller coaster again.

We watched the space shuttle launch.

The kids, Mabel, and I spent some time in one of the park’s playground areas while Dave got us all checked out of the hotel and loaded up the van.

They built a pretty impressive wall and then had fun knocking it down.

One of Adam’s favorite things was trading Lego minifigures with the people that worked there.

We spent a little time in the botanical gardens part of the park.

And then one last ride on the carousel before we left Legoland.

Dave snapped some pictures on the way out. Here’s the main park entrance.

And another shot of the hotel.

It was really an awesome trip and we’re already trying to figure out when we can go back.

Warning – there are a lot of pictures here. I don’t know how many we took – but I kept 366 and narrowed it down to 42 to share here.

Yes, I made us all Lego head shirts. I, I mean the kids, loved them.

Adam and Luke went on their first roller coaster ride. Luke was not a fan.

All the kids loved the Lego Boating School though.

Maggie’s driving needs help.

The boys went to the Ford Driving School too.

Here’s Adam with the license he got at the end.

Here’s a Lego hippo, because they’re Adam’s favorites.

There was a whole Lego Star Wars section. I think the boys (Dave included) could have spent all day there.

My boys with Benny the Spaceman.

Tired little lady.

Because the hotel is right next to the park, we were able to take a mid-afternoon siesta. One of the things on our to-do list when we went back to the park was to see the pirate water ski show.

We found Aunt Stacy’s spot.

You can sort of see the hotel and pool in the background here. You can also see Maggie’s awesome Lego bow barrettes.

Luke was thrilled to be driving the train.

And we found a ride Luke loved.

One of the park employees gave Dave a pass to skip to the front of any line because it was his birthday. So we used it to go to the boating school again.

That night at the hotel, Luke and Adam attended a Lego Master Builder’s Workshop.

They made parrots that they got to keep.

In this picture, Dave is watching the end of the Syracuse basketball game on his phone, Luke is fighting crime with the Lego light saber, and Maggie is done with photos.

A birthday picture of Dave and the kids.

Back in the hotel and ready for bed after a super awesome day!

They brought Dave a special birthday dessert during breakfast. We all shared it (and it was good).

Adam’s friend, Pirate Ruby, asked him if he’d be her Junior Chef for the day and help open up the hotel restaurant.

There was dancing and a little parade.

Then Adam read a statement proclaiming the restaurant officially open.

He was so happy that out of all the kids there, they picked him.

And here’s a video of it all:

I took a bunch of videos during our trip.

Here’s one of the elevator at the hotel. It played disco music as soon as the doors closed and we got lucky enough to ride it with Lego Jack during one of the trips.

The hotel had a pajama dance party each night. The boys loved showing off their dance moves during the PJ parade.

They also really loved the Freeze Dance portion of the evening. This next one is a little long, but I don’t feel like trimming it. So just stop watching when you’re bored.

Our second surprise for the kids was a trip to Legoland. Adam didn’t work out that we were actually going there until we were pulling into the parking lot. I thought for sure he’d have seen other signs on our drive. He even missed this big one I snapped a picture of on the way in.

We stayed at the Legoland Hotel and it was incredible.

We got to pick from four different room themes.  My mom had a pirate room and we picked the adventurer theme (think Indiana Jones). The rooms were so fun. The walls were decorated with Lego art.

Right off the hotel lobby was a big play area. The kids had a blast playing there.

They had characters coming in and out of the lobby fairly frequently.

Adam made friends with the pirate making faces in this photo, but more on that later.

Maggie didn’t care for the characters that had their faces covered. She loved the Lego Friends Characters though and ran right to Olivia and gave her a huge hug.

Here’s a picture from the adventurer room. The kids had their own little nook in each room. It had three beds (there’s a trundle bed tucked under the bottom bunk) and a TV. They loved having their own area.

The rooms were tailored to the kids, which I had expected, but they really thought of everything. There was a small stool in the bathroom to help them reach the sink, a scavenger hunt that resulted in lanyards, juice boxes, and Lego sets for them to keep, and “The Lego Movie” played on repeat on one of the TV stations.

Everything was awesome.

Now, the kids knew we were going to Florida to visit Dave’s parents. They didn’t know that we had a surprise planned before then. Dave and I pretended that the GPS accidentally sent us through the Orlando Airport (not a huge stretch, since it really did send us through the Atlanta Airport the night before).

The first of our surprises for the kids was that my mom had decided to join us for two nights in Florida.

As we slowly drove through the arrivals area, Luke nonchalantly pointed out, “Hey, there’s Mabel.” Adam, on the other hand, was completely flabbergasted.

This was the first of the two days we spent driving down to Florida. Adam was off from school. so when Dave got home from his class we loaded up the van and started our vacation. You can see Maggie in there all buckled in and ready to go (the mittens were her idea).

We stopped for lunch a couple of hours into our drive.

We also stopped at the Tennessee welcome center.

The kids were excited to do a little exploring and stretch their legs.

We had a lot of delays which added to our trip. We saw this car on fire, by the time we got up to it the flames were out. Thankfully it didn’t look like anyone was hurt.

So we got to our hotel in Atlanta later than we wanted to, but it all worked out okay. A couple of weeks ago, I got an email about  hotel points that were going to expire soon. They were from before we had kids and I used to travel for work. So we ended up being able to stay in a really nice room for free (well we had to pay $8 for parking, but still – a great deal). I still have points left too so we have two nights booked for another adventure in June.

The kids loved their big bed for the night.

We got up really early the next morning to get back on the road. Luke especially was not happy with this decision. He woke up so crabby – poor kid.

Thankfully it didn’t take too long for Luke to get back to his normal happy self.

The kids really did great during the drive. I had packed some new sticker books and magnet toys to help entertain them. Adam and I visited the library before we left and picked up some books on CD. I wasn’t sure how the kids would like them, but they loved them. The books were part of the “Magic Tree House” series and each one took about 45 minutes from start to finish. We listened to seven on the way to Florida and six on the trip home. I was really surprised by how much the kids enjoyed them. It almost has me looking forward to our next long drive so we can listen to more.