Some stories start with a friend at work mentioning there was something coming close to town and lego related.
Some stories continue with a dad and mom feeling like their sweet six year old has been a bit 'forgotten' in the transitions of life, getting the older kids off to college, and his brother Tommy taking up more lime light
But few stories end in EPIC wonderfulness!
We TOTALLY surprised Liam by traveling to Portland this weekend for "camping" and didn't even mention we would be going to Lego fest!
We bought tickets well enough in advance which was good because the session we wanted sold out weeks ahead of time. The "sessions" are for about 4 hour of non stop lego fun.
Liam was so excited when we got there, "My heart is beating so fast!".
We were impressed by all the life size lego creations
Most of the creations were easily recognizable characters that they love. Some were Star Wars and for the older kids. Lego fest did a great job of catering for the entire family. From toddlers in the duplo area to us parents enjoying the robotics and engineering legos... and absolutely every age in between.
Lego fest was divided into over a dozen different activity areas, this one was the united states and YOU make something for it! There were all kinds of work stations with tons of legos and you attach your creation to a square lego base and wait in the "pick up area" for one of the lego staff to take your art to a certain state or just anywhere. Very fun!
Dad had just as much fun as Liam in the Mega Blaster lego area where you could shoot from your lego creation at targets
Liam really enjoyed the robotic cars with infrared remotes that climbed over obstacles
Our whole family LOVED the team sports. You could put together a team and in two minutes build the span of a four foot bridge that would be suspended between two towers. Weights would be added to the top of the bridge and either sustain that weight or dramatically (to Tommy's great love) break apart and tumble. One bridge, made by a team of young kids sustained 115 pounds!!!!
Our family did a "challenge" activity where we had two minutes to design a surprise topic... ours was "what did you eat for breakfast"... we had chocolate chip pancakes so we quickly designed those. Eeks it was fun!! And we each won a lego set as a prize. Fun topic to have "races" when we are back at home to make a common item.
Liam loved experimenting with robotics and gears
Tommy and I found a place to "relax" and check out for a few minutes
But Tommy wasn't down for long, there were piles of duplos!!
And you could make your own fire truck or ambulance to take home and play in the cities that were designed for us!!
The Speed Orz was really fun for Colin and Liam, a target at the end and bins of Speed ORZ legos to get some fast fun.
The really sweet part of lego fest was that YOUR child's creation can go on display! Tommy is a tire freak so he designed a car and LOVED seeing it on display.
The Lego fest staff were all helpful, knowledgable and FUN! You could request an ASL signor with two weeks advance notice, we didn't, and the entire venue was VERY accessible for our stroller and to find quiet areas for Tommy breaks.
Liam loved Lego fest and was treated to tshirts, lego sets and hours of fun! Tommy and us parents also enjoyed ALOT! This might be a new tradition. We were the first to arrive to the session and almost last to leave so that says a lot about the fun we had! For about $80 in tickets we even left with many free sets and activities. Thank you Lego fest!
