Friday, June 24, 2011

2011 Father's Day

It was the weekend of Father's Day again and because I was keeping Isaac an extra day this weekend (Friday into Saturday so I could make sure he went to karate practice) I thought we'd do the Father's Day thing on Saturday since I already had him. My mom cut me out a page from the PT paper about an event going on down Pittsburgh this weekend called LegoFest and I saw a couple people facebooking about it so I decided 'Hey, Isaac loves Legos!' this is going to be our activity this year!!

We got up that morning, had some cereal and went to karate practice. After we were done we went home and had some lunch as our tickets were for the 3-8pm session that day (I printed them on my new wireless printer that ma babby bought for me). Around 2-2:30pm I decided it was time to go so I grabbed all my fully charged electronic devices (I brought my 3DS for 3D pictures, my iPhone for tweeting and facebooking pictures and my Sony camera to take high quality pictures and videos) and we hopped in the car. We had no problems with any traffic or finding the place. We parked and walked towards the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and went in. There were lots of people but we really didn't have to wait that much.

The place was ENORMOUS!! (PIC) The first thing we saw were these little boxes with scenes set up in them and that was pretty neat. Then we saw a huge map of the USA made of Legos all laid out on the floor and although its outline was complete and the east coast was built up the majority of it was blank. I wondered what this was so we investigated. Here you could take a base piece and build whatever you wanted on it, a house, a tower or a weird art thing. Pretty much anything you could imagine that fit on the piece and then when you completed it you took it over to the map and someone would take your genius over and put it in the masterpiece. Isaac built a crazy little house and I think it got placed somewhere in the Kansas/Missouri area.

Some of the other thing we saw:
  • An area with life size Lego characters such as the Harry Potter gang, characters and droids from Star Wars, and a lot of different kinds of dinosaurs.
  • There were several areas where there was only 1 color brick to build with. I guess Target was a sponsor because in the red brick area they were putting those white dog mascots with the target around their eye on everyone's finished piece. There was a pink section were a lot of the girls were, a dark blue section and a green section. Green is where Isaac spent a good amount of time constructing his awesome tower.
  • There were a couple of huge spots where they just dumped a bout a billion Legos out on the floor and you could just wade out there and sit in the middle and build whatever you wanted.
  • There was a part where grown-up nerds that probably take Legos way too seriously made some cool scenes, some guy had a car show out of cars he made from Legos, there were a bunch of cool trains and futuristic monorails that Isaac definitely took an interest in, and neat dirt bike track.
  • There was an area that had lots of wheels and other parts to make a vehicle of some sort and then you took it over to these ramps where you raced your creation against other peoples.
  • Another section had high-tech futuristic Legos that had sensors and hooked to computers that you could program to do stuff. They also offered Lego camps there but it's too far away from where we live for us to go.
  • The other big thing we did which I didn't think Isaac would want to do was climb one of those big rock climbing walls. I was surprised at his enthusiasm and lack of fear for wanting to do it but I was a bit disappointed he gave up about a 3rd of the way up at the first place he kind of got stuck at. Maybe next time he'll make it to the top.
  • We also signed up to get a free subscription to some Lego magazine so that will be cool when those start coming for him.
All in all it was another fun daddy/son day. We were there for a long time and he got a little cranky at the end so I decided it was time to go. It seemed like the place was already clearing out and there were a bunch of workers taking some of the things down. We walked out through this cool fountain waterfall thing they have and then I drove him back to his mom's. I was sad to see him go but happy we spent quality time together doing something memorable.

You can see the rest of the pics on my fb

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