Lego field trippin'

The School Box went on a special field trip this weekend to a Lego Store grand opening, and of course spent way too much money (on only 2 items, which makes it even scarier!). Jman can't wait to start building his new Passenger Train. We're thinking that perhaps we'll start really building a Lego City as a train layout project with him. He already has some other Lego trains (the Holiday Train, the Blue train set, and the Santa Fe Super Chief engine, all of which are the older style electric trains--way cool). What we don't have many/any of are any of the cool Lego City buildings or destinations (everything from farms to pizza parlors and hotels to fire stations). All in due time, I suppose. Afterall, Legos and model trains are both lifelong hobbies!

Sly is working on paying for a Lego Mindstorms set. For those who don't know, Lego Mindstorms is a programmable Lego robotics set. You program it with your computer, and it's bluetooth capable. With Sly wanting to get into computer programming and already being a Lego freak, we figured it might be time to go ahead and jump off that ledge. We went ahead and purchased it, but he has to pay us back for a minimum of 50% of the cost PLUS live up to the standards we're setting in a school/chores/etc contract with him, meeting those standards for a minimum of one month before he can actually buy (and open) the set. So, maybe a month from now he'll be building and programming Lego robots, or maybe a couple or three months from now, or maybe next year . . . time will tell. :)

Here are some pictures from the day. The boys helped a Master Lego Builder who was building an 8' tall R2D2 out of legos. For their trouble they got $5 coupons and some certificates with their names on them. They also had fun posing with the lifesize Lego Indiana Jones in the store. We still have two more $5 off coupons and a $10 gift card, so I expect we'll be back up there sometime in the next couple months either adding to Mindstorms or (more likely) adding to the Lego City. Legos are so cool! (As if we needed any more legos! haha!)