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Well, it happened.

We came and we went.  We took a trip that we will never go on again and had an incredible time.  We had even more fun than we set out to have, and everything was even better than we could have imagined it.

We started here, headed to the Edmonton airport in our hoodies (it wasn't that cold, hovering right around the freezing point), and took a plane to Denver, Colorado and then one more to San Diego.  We picked up the massive SUV that Dad rented for the six of us and the luggage and headed for bedtime at the Sheraton Carlsbad, which has a private entrance to Legoland for it's clientele.  Saturday morning we woke up, had breakfast, went to Legoland until it closed, had supper, went to bed, and did the exact same thing on Sunday and Monday as well.

Lego Star Wars miniland with scenes from each movie!

Legoland was nothing short of magical.  I mean, this place has everything.  The park is divided into sections that have a theme from kings and knights to dinosaurs to pirates.  Each section has it's own music, decor, rides, and restaurant.  It would take us FOREVER to explain to you all of the things we did there, all of the rides we went on, etc, but here are pictures of some of our favorite things.

The Sky Cruiser - It's a roller coaster that you PEDAL around the track!

Pete and the boys on the biggest coaster in Legoland, Zack's favorite of all the rides.

Even the bathroom signs are cute.

The Volvo driving school - a little city with traffic lights and signs and lots of kids driving around in little Lego cars!

Zack rode on every ride - even the scary ones that turn upside-down!

After our last sleep at Legoland, we checked out of our hotel and headed to our next one in La Jolla (pronounced la hoya).  We spent Tuesday at a couple of different beach areas, where the boys saw the ocean for the first time.  They loved every second of being in the water, on the sand, finding shells and hermit crabs, everything.

Captivated.

Wednesday was another exciting day as we went to the San Diego Zoo for the day.  Another spectacular place to go.  It was so great that we went back for the day again on Friday!  Our favorite animals there were the polar bears, the pandas, and the orangutans.  The great thing about this particular zoo is that the animal exhibits are designed to put as little space between the animals and the humans as possible.  The giraffes could bend over an lick us because we were that close.  It was amazing to see these animals within a few feet of our vision as opposed to far off in the distance.

In between our days at the zoo, on Thursday we went to the San Diego harbour and took a harbour cruise.  There is a US Navy base in the harbour, so we got to see not one but TWO aircraft carriers as well as many other ships.  This was a huge highlight for Zack, he was lit up and fully engaged for the entire 2 hours.  We also did some more wandering around San Diego and enjoyed the sunshine.  It was great to be able to eat outside at least once each day.

On Saturday morning, we packed up and said goodbye to the ocean one last time, and took three plane rides home.

The boys made special trip journals for the experience where they each wrote a page and drew a picture for each day of our trip.  Hopefully some of you will get to see them and get to hear about everything first hand!