Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

On day 9, we headed to the North County mall to see Santa.  This is definitely not my favorite place to visit Santa.  Their set up is real modern and strange.  You walk through this hi tech strobe light tree or something and then get to visit with Santa sitting in this large ornament ball.  What happened to Santa sitting in a woodsy cottage or something?

 

The kids certainly didn't mind.  We were actually standing in line for a while when the line stopped moving.  Finally the elves explained that the camera was having issues and it would be a bit of a wait.  We said we didn't want the picture package, just wanted to see Santa.  The elves let me snap my own pics while Tatum told Santa she wanted a face painting kit and Ty said he wanted an ATV, like Daddy. :)  

Day 10 was cookie baking and then day 11 was ginger bread house making!  This year we got a kit with 4 small houses which proved to be more challenging but the kids loved it!

The finished product!

Day 12 was reading The 12 Days of Christmas and listening to the cd of course, and day 13 was making shredded Christmas paper Christmas trees (which I didn't take a picture of but they came out pretty cute!).  And then day 14 was Legoland!  We had two free tickets and then got two more on discount so Garrett took the day off and we all enjoyed our first time at Legoland.  Ty loved it!

 

We were there in time for their Snow show, where a little girl wishes for snow in San Diego and while she's asleep, her toys come to life and make her wish come true.  Here's Tatum with the fairy from the play.

Then it was pizza time!

Legoland has lots of great activities for small kids.  They could even board and ride this train all by themselves!

 

Tatum was eaten by a lion!

Down, down she goes! :)

While the kids enjoyed this play area, we got a call that Harley had escaped our backyard and was gone!  He wasn't wearing his collar since we had just given him a bath a few days before, so we were really worried about him.  The whole neighborhood was so helpful, driving the streets in the rain to find him.  And we felt so powerless since we couldn't leave Legoland until we at least got good use of the tickets we payed for. 

  

Poor Harley was lost out in the cold but we made the best of it. :)

We loved all their Christmas decorations and this concert we watched.

 

And the snow!  They had a whole snow area with sledding, lego blocks to build igloos, and these big snowmen with accessories.

 

Ty spent a long time decorating this guy.

 

And both kids loved this snow ball target area.  Here's Tatum taking a shot.

Go Ty!

Merry Christmas!!

Legoland has all these random structures made out of legos.  The kids loved climbing on them.

And we went through this maze where we were searching for lost keys in a mummy room,...

and an ice room where the polar bear got Daddy!

Since Ty loves pirates and instruments, he loved these singing and moving pirates show.

And both kids loved climbing and exploring in this large Medieval castle area.

 

After a horse ride,...

we rode on the Dragon roller coaster, their favorite ride of the day, and then it started to rain and our fun came to an end.  It was for the best since Harley was still missing and we needed to get home.  We started searching as soon as we got back and as it got darker and colder, it looked like we'd never find him.  A neighbor suggested posting on craigslist so just after I put up a post about Harley, I noticed a post about a found dog in Poway on the same street he had last been seen on.  We waited for hours for the person to get back to my email and after four people called telling me that there was a found dog post that sounded very similar to Harley (so nice to know there are such kind people in the world), the fifth caller was the woman who had Harley!  She said she was downtown at a Buddhist meditation center and would take another hour or more getting back up to us.  But when she finally arrived with Harley at 11 pm, and he was healthy and safe, we were all extremely relieved.  She had taken him to the vet, to Petco and then to the meditation center.  What an experience!  We never found out why she took him but either way, we were very grateful to have our family member returned!