We arrived in Orange County, California in early-March.  We found a lovely park in Anaheim called Canyon RV park.  It was carved out of a wilderness area, deep in a canyon, bordered by highways and city all around.  From the highway you couldn't even tell it was there.  There was lots of open space, and large trees, and while inside the park, you hardly even realized that you were in the middle of a VERY LARGE CITY!! 

We could see why people love California.  The mild temperatures in early March, and the sunshine were almost magical.  Though it was a bit of a culture shock for us.  As midwesterners, we have been amazed at the differences in culture as we travel this great country, and have come to the conclusion that we are truly midwesterners at heart.

While we were in California, I was kept very busy.  In addition to the four days of work each week, the hospital had additional requirements, for training and inservices, which I had to attend on my days off.  As we approached the end of our three month contract, we realized that we hadn't done the things we wanted to do while we were in California.  So, we got busy. 

We scheduled several days off together, and took the kids to Legoland. 

Our family LOVED Legoland.  It was a little early in the season, so the park wasn't terribly crowded, and though there were some rides, they weren't the main focus of the park.  In fact, thrillseekers would be very disappointed.  But, as Lego fans, we didn't go for the rides.  We went for the Legos, and we were NOT disappointed!  Legoland is something of a cross between a sculpture garden and a theme park.  They had lifesize sculptures of animals:

cityscapes:

We had to take a picture of the RV park inside the model of the racetrack at the Daytona 500:

Of course, we couldn't resist a picture of Jon with the bust of his hero:

And everything built from Legos!  It was truly amazing.  They even had classes for the kids, where the older kids could learn to program robotic Legos.  While we were at Legoland, we met a couple from Europe, who had some multi-park passes, that they weren't going to be able to finish using, as they were leaving the area, so they gave them to us.  Since they were only good for a couple of days, we decided to overload the kids, and take them to a second theme park that same weekend. 

We headed for SeaWorld.  The kids loved the rides, all except Daniel, who was too small for most of them.  One of the neatest things they had was a model of a tidepool, where the kids could actually handle the sea-animals.  The kids thought the starfish were very cool!

They also enjoyed seeing the HUGE fish in the aquarium:

Of course no trip to Sea World is complete without a visit to see the Whale & Dolphin shows.  A word of warning.  Don't take your camera if you insist on sitting in the "splash zone."  We got some great pictures, but we soaked our good digital camera.  So our picture taking was done for the day.

Thankfully the camera survived, and after it dried out, it worked just fine.