We arrived to an exciting time in Riverside, as Uncle Tom had been taken to the hospital. He had to stay Wednesday night at the hospital, so we didn't see him until Thursday. I have often told Stacy about the large house that Grandpa lived in, and how all the family used to gather at his house for Christmas. At more than 2500, it is a large house but Stacy was unimpressed. Mainly because it was designed to have many small rooms instead of fewer large rooms. But it was perfect for housing all the family at Christmas.
So on Thursday we had several activities, after breakfast the kids and I went rock climbing on the hill by the house. Next Aunt Jan, Stacy, and I played Carcassonne, and after we picked Uncle Tom up from the hospital we had Christmas with everybody in Riverside. The kids had a blast climbing on the hills by the house. It was a perfect day for it, and after each rock that we climbed they saw another one that looked even greater.
On Friday, we had to be at Uncle Ken and Aunt Ana's for dinner but that gave us plenty of time for sightseeing until then, and we decided to go to downtown Riverside and see the Riverside Metropolitan Museum and the Mission Inn. The Museum is a smaller museum, but it was fairly cheap and had many neat exhibits. Matthew especially liked the Rin-Tin-Tin exhibit. Afterwards we saw the Mission Inn, which is a famous hotel in Riverside that has an extraordinary Christmas display.
On Saturday, Uncle Ken, Aunt Ana, and our family went on a trip to Legoland. Legoland as you might imagine is an amusement park where just about everything is made out of Legos. There are Lego dinosaurs, Lego pirates, Lego Knights, Lego Star Wars characters. Everywhere is more and more Legos. There were rides, playgrounds, 4D movies, and much more there. The rides were geared towards younger kids, perhaps 5 - 10 years old. So Matthew and Elisabeth could go on every ride and Rebekah could go on about half of them. Not that we could get on every ride. Since it was the Saturday before Christmas, there were a lot of people there, and while it wasn't as bad as Disneyland would have been, it still meant that we would have to stand in several long lines waiting to get on the different rides. In all we went on six rides:
But rides aren't the only thing to do at LegoLand. They had a lego themed playground that the kids had a blast at, they had a large building filled with Duplos, and we got to watch an exciting 4D movie: Clutch Powers. The section of LegoLand that really sets it apart from all other amusement parks was the MiniLand USA. This is a huge section of the park has lego miniatures of Washington D.C., New York City, San Fransisco as well as many famous world landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Mount Rushmore. Uncle Ken's favorite was the large Star Wars battles recreated in Legos. It was loads of fun walking around and seeing all the things that people have put together with Legos.
Last since we just a couple miles from the Pacific Ocean we went to get a photograph to prove that we did make it as far west as we could go. While at getting the pictures, Uncle Ken kept telling us to move up, because the tide was coming in. Every time he said that, we took a step forward. However, with each step, the tide came in two steps until eventually the cold ocean water attacked us from the back.
Back at their house, Jacqueline came to visit us for the evening and we had a great time. We couldn't stay long, and the next day we had to pack everything up and head back to Tucson. It was only December 23rd, but we had already gone as far as we had planned. From here on it was traveling homeward.
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