Lego Center

We surprised the kids by taking them to Grapevine (Dallas area) to the Lego Center. It's the closest one to us, and it was actually outside Dallas, which meant we didn't have to deal with the awful metro traffic.

We left on Thursday morning and arrived after lunch. We ate at chick fil a and boy, were we surprised it was SO busy. there was nowhere to sit. I had to wait for someone to leave....it's was New York all over again. We knew we wouldn't have all day on Thursday, so we just walked around the mall. The center is essentially inside the huge Grapevine  Mills Mall. We walked around and basically looked at outlets the rest of the day. The food court had a huge merry go round and lots of food my kids would not eat....go figure.  It was also kinda raining.

We checked into the hotel, and Dominic kept telling me about a party in the elevator.  I was so confused as to who had told him that, and then later he showed me a youtube video of an elevator party in the legoland hotel! Ay mijo....I had to explain to him that this was NOT legoland...but a lego center. Legoland is only in CA and FL.  He was a bit sad, but he had fun nonetheless. Once we checked into the hotel room, the kids ran around opening doors and looking into the bathroom and I heard "ooooo....this is beautiful" (that was Ethan haha...what's wrong with your bathroom child?!).
Spencer got us all 4 to take a dive in the pool, but later got caught in the heavy rainstorm....we were so cold! And it was tricky to get back inside without making much mess.

We were able to get tickets online for the Lego Center before we left. There was a promo code floating around for buy an adult ticket for $21 and get a kid in for free (less than 3 yrs old are free). There is also a combo ticket that you can get that includes the sea life aquarium right across from the Lego Center. I figured out that buying the combo ticket was more expensive than doing the promo code deal online AND buying sea life tickets separate(which were also discounted!). I think I saved about $3 a person...haha...not a lot, but it adds up....$10 is half a meal.

Ready to go...you can see the clouds were not going to
cooperate

He loved that they had legos inside

He loved that truck. He kept asking me how long it took to
build. 

He was trying to figure out a way to get legos out

The cool thing about this lego center....that no other center has..is a splash park! It's the only one of its kind.  We spent about 2.5 hrs in the actual center.  When you go through  the entrance, if you wait, they tell you how legos are made and the kids get to take a duplo home.

Entrance

everyone gets a lego

First ride...something about knights

You were suppose to shoot bad guys with it, but the our front seat
had no guns...lame

They had three rides, a couple of building places to test cars and build. The rides were ok, after all, you only pay $20 to get it. Don't expect Disneyland rides here. It's definitely geared toward smaller children. They had a play area named after the Ninjago series.

spent like 25 minutes making a car

testing it 

Of course, Ethan wanted to do it too. 

By far, the most popular place. 

The tunnel in the blue building actually rotates...the kids
were loving it. 

test your ninja skills here.  We discovered that Ethan is an
amazing climber. 

They also had a 4D cinema- which has 3 different 10 minute movies. Most people don't know that, they watch it once and leave, but if you check the screen, it tells you what's coming up next. I got to watch two of them- the lego movie adventure, and the nexo knights. I think the third one is about lego city. Either way, 4D means you get to wear 3D glasses and every now and then they shoot stuff at you- wind, water, bubbles....and the kids like that. Ethan was loving it. Dom....didn't really care for it. He had his googles off the entire time....he said they looked too close.

the most still I have ever seen him 

didnt' care for the movie experience

Then we spent some time outside in the splash park...probably a couple of hours. The kids were loving it! Ethan wondered off and played on his own, and Dom found friends to build with. We were there from about 10:30 am all the way to about 4pm. It was an intense day. We actually didn't eat anything because I was told to not bring food or drinks inside AND they had a cafe there where you could buy food. First of all, ALL moms brought snacks and the kids were eating them in the splash park (they had picnic tables to sit in). Second of all, the sandwich shop is a bit lame. The sandwiches are all wrapped....they make NOTHING there...and it's $7 a sandwich. The kids didn't want anything, so I didn't force them. Once we got to be outside, they forgot about being hungry. We made sure we had a big breakfast at the hotel to hold us up a bit.

They had cool lego city cars track, but you had to be at least 4 to ride.

he really loved it. And best part? only 6 kids at a time, which
means there was no bumper car action. 

cute. 

he found lego batman. 

The only reason we left the splash area was because they actually turned it off due to incoming rain. So I had to catch the kids (because they were still running around) and we got dressed super fast. Once we were trying to leave, it started pouring on us. We, then, took the dreaded exit to the gift shop. Since this was Dom's present for finishing up school and music class on a good note, he got to pick a $20 toy.  And since Dom had to pick one, so did Ethan....except he was already asleep lol. I picked one for him.

it was cloudy, but so hot! It was the best for the kids

Obsessed with the big blocks

and climbing the slide and sliding down again

kids came together to build a huge fort. 

Overall, it was a good experience. I'm not sure if it's worth going more than a few times a year, but the kids really liked it. If we go next time, we'll definitely bring snacks. A full day, is more than enough to get our Lego fill. Also, we were able to go to the Sea Life aquarium. It was late in the day (they close at 8pm). It was so empty, it was almost sad. But it was good for us, nobody rushed us and we were able to wander around. The aquarium is ok- nothing super exciting. They do have a cool shark tunnel and really big stingrays. they also had an octonauts exhibit. They do a lot of conservation talks, but because it was so late in the day, we missed all of them. They also feed the rays at noon and you can participate. Spencer really wanted to go, and it probably took us about an hour to get through. You get a log book and if you get all 9 stamps, you get a prize (spoiler: it's a plastic medal). The kids were quite obnoxious (because it was so late) so I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted.

Dad had a lot of fun with the octonauts
exhibit

my little cuties

The shark tunnel

They had these bubbles everywhere and my kids
loved watching the fish from here. 

It was a good long weekend. I like these kind of vacations- minimal eating out, minimal hotel stay, and being all together. I miss my home too much, and my kids cannot handle being in a single hotel room all day. I think we may be done with overnight stays for a while. We may go camping overnight here in the next month, but then again, we'll have to see what Spencer's schedule is like. We'll just have to enjoy what our little town has to offer for the next month or so.