Year 3, July 24th, 2018: Tuesday, V10, Legoland Discovery Center Chicago

The day started out ok.  Benaiah had to get up early to finish mowing Grandpa's yard because he forgot to get it done on Monday.  He did work on Monday, but could have gotten up earlier to mow.  If I had known I would have make sure that he was awake in time.  While we waited for him, the rest of us rushed around making sure we were ready to go as soon as possible.  I don't remember exactly what time we left, but I know it was a bit later than I hoped.  I just wanted to make sure we left enough margin at the end of the day for Legoland and the pool at the hotel.  The drive up was fine with gorgeous weather.  The kids took naps because their travel medication makes them sleepy.  I think I also slept a bit.  We ate a late lunch at Chick-Fil-A in Merrillville near Gary, IN, before we headed into downtown Chicago.  All 4 kids were with us because we were driving straight to the Legoland Discovery Center, while Mom and Dad were going to shop a bit in the area around our hotel and then check in.  We of course had a time change again and gained an hour, which helped.  We stayed in the "Village" of Hillside south of the Chicago O'Hare airport.  It was right near a main highway in and out of Chicago, so that part was easy to navigate.  We encounter traffic in Chicago no matter where we went.  Sometimes it took 2-3 times longer than it would have if we could have gone the posted speed and it didn't matter what time of day it was.  But we made it intact.

I'll explain more about the Legoland Discovery Center-Chicago below (not to be confused with the Lego store in downtown Chicago), but I bought tickets online through Groupon so we didn't have to be there at a certain time.  If you buy through their website, it's a bit cheaper, but you have to be there within 30 minutes of your slotted entry time.  We wouldn't have made it on time, so I'm glad I didn't go that route.  I wish it had been cheaper, but it was ok for a one time treat.  I had looked up reviews of it, so I knew what to expect and it met those expectations just fine and the kids had a grand time.  We wrapped up the day with having pizza from a local chain, Home Run Inn, that we could walk to from our hotel, and then the kids swam.  We tried to get bed early because Wednesday (which will take two posts to get through) was going to be a super long, exhausting day.  Despite having a 2 hr morning nap, Abishai went to sleep quickly.  It was a great day!

Time to wake up  snuggle bug, it's time to hit the road again!

Wind farms in northwestern Indiana near Remington.  They started installing them in 2009 and now there's a gazillion of them!  Throwback to the wind farms on Nova Scotia and northwestern PEI! No one was really awake when we passed them on the way up, but since the oldest three do remember them, it wasn't crucial to make them look at them.  We did attempt to get Abishai interested in them on our way back though.  It was getting late when we reached them so he only wanted his paci and blankie.  Check out Thursday's post about the Museum of Science and Industry for some beautiful sunset pictures!

Pictures will never do them justice.  You have to pull off someday when they are close by the highway and really look at them.  I'm not sure if you can actually visit any of the "farms" but you could try.  They are owned by private energy companies, not the farmers.  And no, they don't hurt the crops.

Here's some specific information on the impact they have.

Here is some information on one of the bigger farms I could find.

Guess where we ended up for lunch?  CFA of course! 

This CFA is much larger than ours, with a nice outdoor patio, too.  It also has these little snacks of cherrios on their condiment station for the babies!

Why doesn't our CFA have a cool car?

"I'm tired."

Back to Illinois, but up on the very northern edge!

Here we go, getting closer, and the traffic and drivers are getting worse!

"Mom, what's a tollbooth?"  Well, I guess they haven't been through a toll booth since our last trip through Maine before Abishai was born.  I grew up with a tollbooth practically in our backyard. Ok, there were some across the river and through the woods that affected us often as well as one that we went through on our way to my Grandmother's house every week.  But these automatic ones are neat.  You just go under them, they take a picture of your license plate, and then they bill you online.  You have to remember to go online and look for it though.  And I think some pay for a special device on their vehicle that allows it to accumulate it especially if you are driving a lot for business.

Jared always notices the airplanes and trees.  Here's a big one heading into O'Hare.

Legoland Discovery Center in the "village" of Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago.  We were prepared for the worst, aka, long lines, equipment not working, overpriced food based on some reviews, but were pleasantly surprised with some of it.

Giraffe made by Duplos, the bigger blocks for toddlers.  The Discovery Centers were the first big "attractions" for Lego in the United States, coming many years before the Legolands in Florida and California.  I think Chicago's is one of the oldest locations, and well, it shows.

It was easy to have them scan the code for the Groupons directly off my phone, which thrills me.  I have used Groupon for years, but not as frequently as other things.  I check the fineprint 100 times every time just to be sure.  There was no line in front of us since we didn't get there until 1:30pm local time.  It was busy, but not crowded.  Just like any attraction/museum, the layout flows pretty well.  After a picture in front of a green screen that we didn't buy and a quick potty stop, we went through the first room of actual customized Lego scenes that were all about Chicago.  Here is the O'Hare airport.

The Chicago Bear stadium, with real mini figures in the stands.  The lights of the room cycled from daytime to nighttime, from wind, to rain (see below), and dry weather.  They also had different moving images projected on the walls like Buzz Lightyear and the Death Star.

"Rain" streaks on the background and the _______ Keturah spotted from the original Lego movie.

I won't bore you with all the details, but here are some.  I love how Master Builders pay attention to all the details in a project like this.  I could stare at them for hours admiring their handiwork.

Part of the Chicago skyline including the John Hancock building to the north.  I'm not sure if all those buildings are accurately located but I'm sure they are close and a great representation of the famous buildings.

The Navy Pier at night.  You could press some buttons to make parts of the exhibit move or lights go on and off.

Navy Pier.

We went through this exhibit a second time and Jared figured out that this is a scene from a Blues Brothers' movie.  Abishai loved it because of all the polic vehicles and flashing lights.

Lighthouse.

A flyby set of Blue Angels?  Or some kind of famous jets.

There's the Sears/Willis tower in the background there.  And whatever that diamond shaped famous building is.

The famous "bean" in Millennial Park.  Now I KNOW this display is not 100% accurate because there's no big building next to it and there's not that many steps.

Such a cool looking diamond shaped building.

Another one of Abishai's favorite parts of the display, the 'struction site!  Complete with sounds and movement of a jack hammer and small construction vehicles.

Lego jungle!  It was dark and little scary in there.  There were some Lego monkeys that were moving, too.

I wish Justin would take the time to separate our Legos like this.  This is how Master Builders have exactly what they need at their fingertips without sifting through a big box.

Then we moved on to an all Star Wars room.  Lifesize minifigure light saber battle up above Justin's head.

??? I forget the silly name of this bar!

Lego has a sense of humor.

This is the collector's edition of the Millennium Falcon that you can use full sized minifigures in.  It costs around $800, backdrop not included.  It's incredible!

There was this huge death star with these little mini displays of some of the scenes from the movie.  Engine room battle.

Trash compactor.

Episode I?

Bigger than life size Darth Vader.

Can I have your light saber Darth Vader?

The death star is all warmed up!

Batman!

Keturah loved seeing all the life sized figures she plays with in her "Friends" sets.

Nice! And all the information for every girl, too.

It doesn't matter what color the Lego bricks are or what surrounds them, in our household, when we see Legos, we jump in and build.  Well, they do and I take the pictures.  I just build realistic houses and accurate Noah's Arks (in my childhood).

Another favorite girl.

They took a bunch of the hotel sets and put one on top of each other!  And anyone could take it apart, I believe.

Abishai saw a blue plate with just a bit of brick around it and declared it a swimming pool.  So he decided to build it up!

Sharkboy!

Never too old for Lego building.

All of these models are made up of mostly the 2x2, 2x4, or 4x4 basic bricks.  Sometimes they will use special pieces to round corners or make slants, but the basic build is made of these standard bricks.  Lots of hours of designs and tweaks to the actual model as it comes together. 

Castle/pirate cove/caves.  Not made of Lego, but made to look like giant Lego bricks.  Remember, they are Lego bricks, not Legos.  We learned that in Canada.

The original pirates (not Pirates of Caribbean) and the original castle (not Nexo Knights) sets were popular when I was little and that's what we had.  This canon certainly looks familiar.

Pirate ship playground!

Building a race car like they did at Legoland Florida and at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis during the typical May race month Hot Wheels exhibit.  It's interesting to see how the same types of exhibits keep popping up.  I know that executives visit different museums for ideas, so it's fun to see how each museum uses different elements.

Daddy made the most stable car, which promptly flew up and over the collection bin at the end of the ramp.  Let's race!

Can you see the way the pegs for the railings looking like the round "barrel" bricks?  So neat!

Blown up replica of what a real Lego palm tree looks like.  We have many of these from my childhood sets.  My sister Kristina liked the pirates and Islanders sets, where as I like the more girly sets (way before the Friends sets came out).

Pretty accurate Pirate minifigure.

There were two rides, one soon after the Star Wars exhibit (see pics below) and this one.  It's a Lego glider that you have to pedal to make it go up as it goes around.  You had to be a certain height to go on it so you could reach the pedals or have an adult go with you.  One kid didn't have an adult willing to go with him, so they asked an employee to go on it with him.  How kind!  The staff were friendly enough, and for the size of the crowd, there were just enough.  I felt that it was pretty much an explore on your own/play at your own risk kind of place with no real supervision.  But those operating the rides and the 3D movies were friendly enough.

They did have an area for the smaller kiddos with Duplos, which are the bigger Lego bricks.  They had this little house and a slide with some animals nearby.

Abishai calls this the "ball pit" although it's full of Duplos!  This area is where I realized just how dirty some of the areas are.  It looks like that this ring around the Duplos has never been steam cleaned.  The mats are filthy and out of place.  Who knows if they actually clean and sanitize any of the blocks.  I'm kind of glad that Abishai didn't stay and play in this.  He did play in the Lego store next to the American Girl store the next day.  I honestly started getting grossed out and I don't get grossed out easily.  Hand, foot, and mouth disease is going around heavily right now, which makes me nervous.  That's just a virus with some spots, but I still don't want the kids to get it.  We washed up really well after Legoland.  There is also a bigger "pit" with the rubberized oversized bricks in the corner there.

A lion made from Duplos!  I was surprised that you can take apart these statues a bit.  I know it's a "discovery" center and it's meant to be more interactive, so there was a sitting area where moms could take a break and the kids could play, but to be honest, I'm not sure anyone would want their children playing in this back corner.

I love that there are big windows, but it makes it hard to take great pictures from certain angles.  I'm glad dI found this angle though.  Great view of the pirate ship.  I thought Abishai would run around it more, but he was just happy trying to stay away from us.  Which again, made me nervous because there was very little supervision otherwise.  I must not have felt led to load up the pictures, but there is a water element in the bottom left corner of this picture, similar to the river basin exhibits at other places we've been where the kids can put a boat a the top and let it float down.  The area around this element was gross.  It was very wet, there were no aprons to wear, and the "boats" wouldn't float down.  We discourage Abishai from spending much time there because he hates his shirt being wet.  There were no hand dryers there like at the Children's Museum in Indy. 

Here's a great view of the racetrack for the Lego cars.  We shred one car among us because it was extremely hard to find wheels.  Perhaps they should go through their stock and take out the unwanted pieces and put in more wheeled elements.

Here's our very solid race car.  It ran fast and didn't break.  Win!

Our car and another one Justin made with the big wheels that you could find in this area.  It stayed together as well.  I just wish there had been more options.

Yeah! Wild Style! aka Lucy from the first Lego movie.  Cousin Nora dressed up for Halloween as Wild Style a couple of years ago.  I'm glad the kids wanted to pose with the characters.  Cute!

There were some neat elements to Legoland DC-Chicago like how all the bathroom stalls had Lego decals.  Keturah of course picked the one with the horse.  They also covered the hand dryers with a multi colored basic brick pattern.  At least it was well thought out.

Just a few of the minifigures we saw.

Now that's impressive.  Hagrid and Harry from the Harry Potter book series.

Abishai is OBSESSED with the police Lego series!  He asks for it every time he gets tablet time.  He starts there and then tries out other related videos (he's supervised, don't worry).  So his eyes got really big when he saw the sets from the videos in real life!  He even said, "I want all of them!"  I bet you do, buddy.  And Christmas is coming.

Grandpa gave each of the kids souvenir money and 3 out of 4 of them spent it on Lego sets.  Go figure!  I don't call it a waste though.  Better Legos than some nameplate or figurine just sitting on a shelf.  Abishai carried these sets throughout the store and all the way out to the car and into the hotel.  His very first Lego sets picked out by him, bought for him, and put together with him and Daddy.  It's going to be really hard keeping them separate from the others, but I'm going to try.  We let him look at the boxes on the ride to the hotel so he wouldn't fall asleep.  And we had to remind Keturah a couple of times that she wants to spend her money on American Girl stuff.

The kiddos with their purchases.  I told Grandpa that we would cover the cost of this attraction because it didn't interest him or Grandma at all.  And it was well worth seeing all 4 kids loving and enjoying the exact same thing.  My family growing up also enjoyed buying the different sets in a series and that's why we have so many of them.  If we had the room, I would set up one of those big displays for them all to work on.  I had even thought of doing it in the garage until I realized that so much other stuff needs to be in there.  And no, I actually don't step on many Lego bricks because the kids do pick them up.  And when I do find the random pieces, I give it to the appropriate person and they put it away right away.    We LOVE Lego!  Some day I would love to go to the Netherlands and see the factory and the Lego house.  It's just so fascinating how one little brick can be turned into so much more.

It was late by the time we got back to the hotel, ate dinner, swam, and started building Abishia's first set (the pictures for those events are below in the rest of the iPhone pics).  But, Daddy had promised to build one thing for Abishai and save the other box for opening at home.  They opened the fire truck one.

Jared has the patience of a saint (sometimes) and made sure Abishai was a part of most of the process.  And Abishai is surprisingly good at reading the instructions, picking out the right piece and putting it in place.  I know that some families will have kids do activities that help their fine or gross motor skills like picking up certain objects with a pincher and moving it from tin to tin.  Well, we just play with Lego bricks and get the same results.

He already knows the different parts of the fire truck and what goes where, mostly because the official Lego YouTube videos use the actual sets they sell.  He definitely recognized the police station for example in the store because of the videos.  But that one was too much money, and they didn't have the smaller sets.

Blurry, but he was stir crazy and wanted to put his feet in the box.  Also, for the record, I despise florescent light bulbs.  They do a number on the exposure and lighting when I'm taking photos.  We have some in our hallway at home and I can never get the pictures to look right as I take them.  I'm sure in post processing I could take out the yellowness, but I don't have room for a program like that on my computer.  My camera even has a setting for florescent lighting which helps some, but not as much as I want it to.

Putting on each piece.

Is it time for the wheels yet, Daddy?  Almost!  You'll see the end result in other pictures and posts because I'm sure he won't stop playing with it for days.

(And now back in time to iPhone pics for the day).  I had to use my iPhone to control the exposure without having the blur.  This Chicago skyline scene looked great at night!

Lego hippo eating Justin in the Jungle.

R2-D2 and me.  I've seen several Lego R2-D2's at different attractions and events before.

Our first ride was based on a Lego dragon.  I think they just call them Knights, or Nexo Knights now.

The goal was to shoot lasers at as many targets as you could.  The kids loved it.  We had to split up with Daddy and Abishai, and Daddy said Abishai didn't shoot much and was a little scared.  Benaiah had to take a little detour to the bathroom at this point.

I think my castle Lego set had a wizard similar to this one that had a beard that glowed in the dark.  I also had a glow in the dark ghost Lego minifigure.

Not sure why it was so dark and focused on shooting spiders, but it was.

Lego King and Queen that needed saving from....

....the fire breathing dragoon.  No, actually, I don't think there was smoke but it did move and roar a bit.

Keturah got to go on the hanglider ride on the 2nd floor of the discovery center multiple times because the line was short. She loved it!

The glider wings looked a lot like the Batman symbol to me.

Daddy took Abishai on the ride and he LOVED it.  This kid LOVES LOVES LOVES rides to the max!

Abishai trying to get the 3 part Lego boat down the river.  Unfortunately, one a couple of bricks held the pieces together and it immediately broke.  The channels weren't big enough for it anyway.  He did climb up on the edge of the water table to get at what he wanted.  He's such a hustler and scrambler.

Benaiah chased Abishai up into the pirate ship. Benaiah spent a lot of his time listening to his music, building on his own, and sipping on the vanilla shake flooffy drink he got from the Starbucks located in the discovery center.    But he did have a couple of good moments with the others.

At one point, the boys found a cleaner set of the rubberized oversized basic bricks and started building a wall.

I think Jared could have been an engineer or something because who would have though of building a base that came out of the main wall?  He's also a champ for carrying around my heavy purse and some diaper bag contents in my backpack all day.  It's easier for me to just put the whole purse in the back pack because then it stays organized and I know exactly where to find something I wanted.

4D Lego movie!  Keturah, Justin and I had already seen Nexo Knights but this one was an older and/or more universal video.  There was no real dialogue, but a bunch of grunts and through the animation, you could tell what was going on.  It makes sense that Lego company would make something that can be shown worldwide without needing actual translation.  It was a basic medival times story of conquring the bad guys.  4D is a really neat experience because you actually feel the wind on your face or "snow" aka bubbles and get a spit of water at you, plus lots of extra lights all depending n what's in the scene.  Plus you have the 3D effect from the special glasses where everything is jumping off the screen at you.  Abishai didn't wear the glasses but sat still the entire time staring.  At one pint, we all jumped because a rhino charged a cage.  It was a ton of fun!

All in all, it was a great afternoon and I'm grateful we got to spend it together.  It was worth the price, but I wish that they would read more reviews and clean up some of the areas and sanitize them.  Locals can get a year long membership if they would like.  It probably is worth it for some.

Dinner was at a local pizza chain that offered deep dish, think crust, and a special garlic crust.  I was also able to get my own personal size gluten free one.  Yeah! But I couldn't help but notice these jerseys on the wall.  I asked the kids what sport these were from and they didn't have a clue.  I have a few friends who like the Chicago Cubs.  I love baseball, and I'd probably root for the Boston Red Sox.  I like baseball, because overall, there's a lot less running.  I miss throwing the ball up in the air and trying to hit it.  Benaiah did participate in a short season through a Christian program when he was 7 or so.  And the boys will play catch with Grandma sometimes.

And the other team, Chicago White Sox.

Post eating a lemon face.  Before he spilled a whole cup of Sprite on himself.  He was very upset and wanted to go home but our food hadn't arrived yet.  He ended up taking off his shorts and sitting in the booth just in his pull up in order to eat.  He was a little traumatized by it all

Gluten free pizza crust with zucchini and yellow zucchini with ground beef.  Yum!

Enjoying our fancy Chicago pizza!

That's how we like it, messy!  It was comparable to the pizza restaurant called "Chicago's Pizza" in Indy.

I bit of history of the Home Run Inn.  But I'm not sure how it's related to "The Pizza King" which I assume to be the franchise "Pizza King."  Maybe they were in it together for a while first.

Artemis was the name of the villain this past season or the season before it in the Arrow TV show.  Cracked me up as I was walking back from Home Run Inn pizza to our room.

The Lego sets Abishai bought.  He can say "transporter" and of course "helicopter."  And he loves to act out putting the garbage can fire out.

Another day, another hotel, another pool.  This time, the hot tub was working.  I was tempted to get in, but I didn't want to mess with the wet bathing suit for another couple of days.

I don't know if the chemicals were off balance or what, but the water was pretty murky.

The family that was in here before us probably saw us coming and ran because they didn't stick around for long.

Grandpa decided to use the weight room instead. 

Whoops, a couple more pictures of Abishai diligently attaching pieces in the right place on his new Lego fire fighter set.

Almost done!

I think they secretly enjoy sharing a bed together and keeping each other company.  They slept pretty well together.  Except the next night, Abishai sleep crawled around a few times before settling down for the night.  I didn't see it, but Jared did and he thought it was great.  I'm just glad they settled quickly.  I was afraid the very ill prepared curtains that wouldn't close would prevent them from sleeping.  Thankfully, I had a potato chip bag clip with me that did the trick.  Who sleeps with the curtains wide open and a street light blaring in on your face?  We did have some traffic noise so Jared used his laptop to play some night sounds on YouTube, and had it on repeat.  Lastly, our hotel was fine, but the bed we slept in had a very worn mattress that sunk in in the middle.  Breakfast was decent, including an incredible perfect pancake machine that would produce two perfect pancakes in under 1 minute without making a mes.  I wish we culd buy one for Justin and I wish I had taken a picture or video f it! But that's all for now.  Onto our long, big day in the big city tomorrow!   Good night!

I made a playlist for all the videos, so enjoy!
Chicago Day 1