8th Birthday, New Year's Eve, Legoland

Two days ago, Gracie turned 8 years old. It's crazy to me how fast the last eight years have flown by. Eight years ago, we were partying up New Year's Eve at St. Mary's Hospital, giving birth to our first child together!  :)

Every December 31st since, we celebrate her birthday quietly at home, enjoying her special day. We haven't really celebrated "New Year's Eve" in the way we used to since 2004.

Until this year.

We stayed at the Ramada Inn in Carlsbad with a super cheap online rate because the campgrounds we wanted to stay at were both full. The hotel wasn't the nicest, but it was a family suite that slept 6 (two beds and a hide-a-bed), so there was a lot of space. Gracie got to open her birthday gifts yesterday morning, and the hotel breakfast was really good.

Then we took the Littles to Legoland and purchased season passes for 2014 as their big Christmas gift this year. We enjoyed it so much for the first time in October that we thought we should enjoy more experiences there. Luckily, it's nowhere near as expensive as passes for Disneyland, and they'll only enjoy Legoland for a few more years (it's geared more for younger children), so we jumped at the opportunity while we could. The passes will pay for themselves on the third visit and include parking and a 20% discount, so it's a complete win-win. We also can use the passes at any Legoland park in the United States (they have one in Texas, Grandma Mary!) And they don't expire until January 1, 2015, so we can enjoy one more New Year's Eve there if we want.

Chloe and I got stuck on this ride for about 15-20 minutes. This was me pretending to fall off the helicopter. It was hot after a while!

Annie wanted her picture by this Lego creature. He and his surfboard were made completely from Legos!

There was a musician we stopped to watch for a while. The kids had fun dancing to his music.

Then we found the Lego Santa... and his reindeer. Notice all the Legos! And the tree behind them is the big Lego tree that gets lit at night. SOOOO cool!

An old Lego mold. The factory was a fun place to visit to see how they make Legos.

It was so cute to watch Gracie and Chloe driving their own boat. Hard to believe they're old enough to do that!

Then the older girls got to drive their own Lego cars! They obeyed all the traffic laws; stopping at stop signs and stop lights, looking in both directions, etc. It was so fun to watch them do this!

The lighting of the 2013 Christmas tree.

We had a lot of fun. It was the last day of Snow Days. We got to experience real snow and snow tubing, the lighting of the huge Lego Christmas tree, pictures with a Lego Santa and Toy Soldier, and the "brick" drop and fireworks. It was so cool. The best part for me and Barry is that Legoland has their own time zone, so the brick drop happened at 6pm PST! :) After a full day of walking around and energetic fun, this was such a huge blessing. We were in our car and off to dinner by 6:30, and in bed before 9pm. I honestly think this was the most exciting way to celebrate New Year's Eve with four small children! They were so exhausted by 6pm and still got to experience the countdown for the new year.

Happy New Year!