Legoland...

We decided since Marc took the entire week off work, that we would escape the awful summer heat Arizona offers and take the kids to Legoland located in Carlsbad, CA.  Carlsbad is about 6 hours away.  On a limited budget and with last minute planning, getting a hotel wasn't a realistic option for us.  So we made this a 24 hour trip. 
Yes we were nuts... 24 hours, 12 of those hours driving, and 6 children!
We didn't tell the children.  We woke them up at 3AM, loaded them in the car still in pajamas.  We hoped they would stay asleep or go right back asleep if they woke up.  The excitement and curiosity kept them up for a couple hours.  They all finally fell asleep for an hour or so before awaking to use the restrooms while we gassed up!  The last couple hours, there was on and off sleeping.  We hoped with the choppy amount of sleep they got, the excitement would carry them through the long but fun day we had planned.  As we pulled in, Garrison was the first to notice Legos.  The big kids quickly realized where we were once they saw the big sign!  They were chanting L-E-G-O-L-A-N-D!  For a few years the children had been asking to go to Legoland.  We have always steered away from it because of the mixed reviews.  I now understand the mixed reviews.  The kids had a blast but I was a little disappointed because, they didn't allow any of our younger 4 kids on majority of the rides without an ADULT.  This was a big hassle because Maia was not old enough to ride pretty much all the rides, meaning one of us had to stay with her while the rest were on rides.  If you do the math... Liliana rides by herself, Dillon most of the time rode by himself, but Ava, Garrison, and when height permitted Rosalia all wanted to ride but only one of them could ride with Marc at a time. 
Now if we were at Disneyland, we would have stuck Ava with Liliana, Garrison with Dillon, and Rosalia with Marc... leaving me with Maia and all kids accounted for riding a ride at the same time.  Instead we had to do a parent swap which meant...Liliana, Dillon, and kid 1 (Ava, Garrison OR Rosalia) rode with Marc.  When the ride was done, Liliana and Dillon had to stay with myself or Marc while one of us rode the ride 2 more times with the leftover children.  It ate up tons of time and made the older children impatient for the next ride since they were stuck standing for 2 more rounds of riding while the younger kids all got their turns!
They all had a blast, enjoying all the different lego themed rides, eating amongst glass cases of lego statues, exploring life size legos throughout the walkways, and exploring the sealife aquarium which was an added bonus we weren't planning on doing.

The biggest deal we got was free tickets to come back to Legoland anytime during the last two weeks of September and first week of October.  Score!