LegoLand

Tuesday of our vacation, Ella and I, and several other family members, headed to LegoLand on Tuesday. Once again, Ella was Miss. Dare Devil and wanted to ride all the rides. We went and saw a little Christmas show (which Ella sang along to…shocking) and then got some pizza (which I had planned on sharing but instead Ella ate the whole thing by herself). Then we headed to the rides. We first went on a little boat ride and the wait wasn’t too bad, maybe 30 minutes. Next we went to this safari ride and the wait was an hour. While the wait was terrible, the worst part is that I had to hold Ella the entire time. With so many kids running around and bopping in and out of line, I just didn’t feel comfortable putting her down. There was too much risk of someone knocking her over. By the time we got to the ride my back was killing me.

While we were standing in line a nice woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but they have special passes for kids like her.” I had emailed ahead of time to ask what services they had for kids with special needs and they told me that I needed a note from Ella’s doctor stating that she couldn’t wait in line. That was going to take too much effort, especially 2 days before we left, so I just didn’t do it. I assumed that the lines wouldn’t be too bad in the off season. Boy was I wrong! After we got off the safari ride I decided to ask the worker about the passes. She was so nice and gave me one to accommodate 6 people so that others in the family could ride with us. The pass was great! We were able to go directly to the front of the line and I would give the workers our pass, then they would write a time on the pass and we would just come back at the time noted. Shortly after I got the pass I met up with Joe’s sister, Mo, who has a 3 year old (just 6 weeks older than Ella) and a 5 year old. Since the girls are close in age we were able to take them on the rides together and they all had a great time. Ella even rode her first roller coaster! She yelled “I’m all done!!!” the entire ride, but I was so proud of her for getting on the ride and doing it. I LOVE roller coasters, so I really hope Ella learns to love them too.

It was a fun day, although we missed having daddy with us. Half way through the day Joe called to tell me that he was feeling much better, so that was great news!

Wednesday was a rainy and dreary day, so we spent most of our time inside. It sounds sad, but after 2 days packed full of activities, I was glad to have a day to relax. In the afternoon we had our family pictures taken (minus Katie and her family since they couldn’t make it this year...we have a new nephew coming soon) and afterward the men headed out to an all you can eat restaurant.

Thursday was the day we were supposed to pack up and head home. In true Murray fashion, we missed our flight. There was a mix-up and we thought our flight was at 4:15 when in reality it was at 1:45. It actually worked out for the better because we got to spend another night with the fam, our new flight we had a direct flight from San Diego to DC (otherwise we would have had a layover in LA), and our old flight left at 1:44 pm and had us getting into DC around midnight (putting us getting home around 2 am) but our new flight left at 8 am and had us getting into DC at 4 pm. So, it all worked out great. The only bad part was that Joe, Ella and I all shared a bed, which meant that neither Joe nor I got any sleep.

Ella was a complete champ on the flight! 5 ½ hours is a long time to sit on a plane, but Ella was great. I had lots of activities and snacks for her, so whenever she would get bored I would hand her something new. It was a great trip and we had so much fun spending a week with Joe’s family.