Legoland California

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Legoland. All opinions are my own.

Travelling with young kids isn't always easy. Sometimes it can be downright hard, especially when long distances in a car are involved. Hell, I get bored sitting in a car for hours and hours on end too. But, in my experience at least, the positives always outweigh any negatives. The experiences that our children will remember for a lifetime always trump the non-stop "Are we there yet?" questions that we try to block out from the back of the car.

Most of the advantages of travelling with kids benefit the kids themselves. Broader horizons, experiencing new places and cultures, having fun etc etc... But there's one big advantage for us adults too that I'm going admit right now... Travelling with kids gives us the perfect excuse to visit super fun places we wouldn't normally go to as an adult. Places that you wanted to visit as a child but never got the chance to. Places that are super fun but feel kind of weird to go to on your own as a grown up. 

One such place that we visited over the Winter break fell right into this category - Legoland!

I've been wanting to visit Legoland for as long as I can remember. As I kid I loved Lego. It was always one of my favorite toys to play with. My favorites were always the Fabuland characters, the ones with the animal heads - anyone else remember those? I'm pleased to say that my girls are all just as fond of Lego as I was. In fact, Mathilde is building with Duplo next to my desk as I type this. Note to self, check the ground for stray Duplo pieces before getting up for that next coffee break! Lego is fun, but damn, does it hurt to step on!

The Queen Mary

During our visit to Los Angeles over the Christmas Break we spent a day in Long Beach where we visited the Queen Mary. Our main reason for visiting was the Winter wonderland Queen Mary Chill event (which I shared here) but as both Kim and I have always wanted to tour the Queen Mary we were pretty pleased to discover that our tickets to the event gave us access to the ship as well.

Queen Mary Chill

During our time in Los Angeles over the Winter break we headed to Long Beach to visit the Queen Mary. I'll have a post about the actual ship coming soon, but today I want to share with you a winter wonderland we found in sunny old LA.

Queen Mary Chill is an annual Christmas attraction held right next to, you guessed it, the Queen Mary. The name comes from the main attraction - The Ice Kingdom, a 13,000sf walk through exhibit made from over two million pounds of ice. That's a lot of ice. And an awful lot of chilly air! Before entering The Ice Kingdom we donned long blue parkas which, as you can see in the photo below, were just a little big for us! How hilarious does Mathilde look?!

Christmas 2015

Can you believe that it has almost been two weeks since Christmas? Time is flying by (as usual) and here I am a little behind (as usual!) and I haven't shared anything from Christmas yet.

So let's fix that by having a look at our Christmas Day...

52 Weeks: Week 52

Week 52: SoCal Road Trip

I'm a few days behind here, what with it being 2016 already, but as they say, better late than never.

For the last post in my 52 Week Project I'm sharing a few highlights from our Southern California road trip over the girls' Winter break. I have lots of in depth posts about the places we visited coming very soon.

We started off the last week of 2015 in Los Angeles before heading to San Diego where we spent much of our time.

Before leaving Los Angeles we hit up the Sprinkles Cupcake ATM in Beverly Hills. The girls love Sprinkles cupcakes and they're even more delicious when they come out of an ATM. Ok, so they taste exactly the same, but they're definitely more fun!

Elf on the Shelf 2015: Week 4

Christmas is well and truly behind us, but now that we're home from almost two weeks away I'm playing catch up on the blog. Today I'm sharing the last installment of Eflie Pokie Nokie's time in our home. Or more accurately, Elfie Pokie Nokie's time on the road with us in Los Angeles and San Diego.

Day 22
That sneaky Elfie Pokie Nokie decided to help himself to a few drinks and snacks from the mini bar in our hotel room. Thanks Elfie - that just cost us $33 in rum, gin, Jack Daniels and vodka! Oh, and the Skittles too, however much they cost. Time to keep the mini bar locked.

52 Weeks: Week 51

Week 51: Los Angeles

We're almost to the end of the year. Can you believe that there are only a few days left of 2015?

We've been away on vacation in Southern California since the girl's Winter break started last week and I've gotten a little behind with blogging. Time to catch up starting with last week's installment of my 52 week project.

We started our vacation with a few days in Los Angeles. I'll have a few dedicated posts coming soon about places we visited, but for week 51 I'm sharing our stay at the Ace Hotel in Downtown LA.