Everything was AWESOME!

We got back from our trip to San Diego and hit the ground running and I hadn't had a chance to update the blog!

The trip was an absolute blast.  Not relaxing in the least, but the boys had quite the experience. 

We spent three nights right at the Legoland hotel and two full days in the park itself.  I found it overwhelming and this was the slow season!  It was actually slow enough that the line ups were pretty much non-existent.  If we had to wait 10 minutes for a ride, that was a long one.  There were lego building sites at every ride so kids could build while the parents waited in line.  Genius!  Our boys were the perfect age for the park; only a few of the rides were too old for them.  The park and hotel staff were incredibly friendly.

From the set of the Lego Movie!  I could have looked at the set for hours.  It was huge and so detailed.

Of course the Lego Star Wars exhibit was their favorite.

A Lego pirate in the lobby!

Bunk beds!

Giant Lego Chewy!

Everything is awesome!

This is part of the hotel lobby!

The boys had quite the stash of cash to spend at the Legoland store, and they spent it right to the last dollar.  Three suitcases later....

So much building.....  We are still going at in.

The next five nights we stayed just in a regular hotel.  Nothing special, but it did have bunkbeds again for the boys.  We spent a day at an amusement park on the beach, a day at the Midway Naval Museum, a day at SeaWorld, and a day at the zoo.  One hot day we tried to have a beach/park day, but it was just too hot for the boys at +27C, so we just hung out pool side at our hotel.  There were no huge crowds at any of our other destinations.  We saw so much without feeling too overwhelmed.  I would have loved another day back at the zoo or SeaWorld, but there just wasn't enough time on this trip.

You can climb right into so many aircrafts aboard the Midway.

The Boss and Mini Boss looking out over the flight deck.

He answered an entire book of questions to earn those wings.

MONKEYS!

Gondola ride over the zoo.

Giant spider in there!

The baby gorilla was my favorite!

The pet show!  This was the best show at SeaWorld!  Even cats and pigs were doing tricks!

Beluga!

There were some huge sharks in here.

And fun was had by all!

Dumpster Diving to San Diego

A little break from the cold can be much appreciated when you live in the north.  Last winter I was planning well in advance by looking up warm destinations and checking my aeroplan points to see where we could go.  We opted to book a trip down to San Diego with the main goal of taking the boys to Legoland since they are obsessed with LEGO. 

But I wanted my kids to work for this trip.  To earn it.  So we told the boys that we paid for the plane tickets to get us to Legoland, but that they had to save up enough money to pay for our hotels for the eight nights.  Our boys had collected cans/bottles the summer before and earned some cash, so we told them they had to scavenge from spring to fall to earn enough. 

And did they ever scavenge.

Garbage day in Faro is on Thursdays and our dump is a scavenger's delight.  Every Thursday or Friday, Matt would take the boys to the dump to look for cans.  We had to buy them these grabbers though so that they wouldn't be digging through the trash with their hands since they seem to have no grossness limit. 

There are garbage cans around the golf course in Faro and they went to them once a week to look for cans.

Every dumpster at every campground we camped at this summer was looked in a few times a day for cans.  They even got brave enough and started asking other people camping in the campground for their cans and bottles and people happily gave them over to the boys.

We did family walks in the ditches along the highways fillings bags with cans.

Some neighbours saw the boys in action and were extremely generous and would call the boys over to give them their recycling.

The cans and bottles really added up.  Every time we had enough for a full truck load, the boys would load them up and off we would go to our recycling center in Faro.  The boys stashed their money away in a peanut butter container.

It has added up to enough to cover our hotels for the entire eight nights.  That total is over $1500.  It has taught our boys an awful lot about saving, working hard, and goals.  We leave for San Diego in three days and we are really proud of their accomplishment.

Hunter would now like to start saving can money to buy an X-Wing Star Fighter that he can fly around in.  Yeah.  He might be saving for the next 50 years.  Cavan says he would now like to save up to buy a chocolate bar.  HA!   I am thinking another hot vacation partially paid for in cash sounds just right.