How Far Would You Drive for Legos?

Last Saturday we drove nearly 100 miles east to a town called King of Prussia for a grand opening of a Lego store. And the irony: we didn't buy anything.

I saw a Lego newsletter when we were visiting a store at Downtown Disney. It showed that in Oct. three new stores were scheduled to open, and one was in PA. We decided it would be fun to check it out. At first we were so excited that we planned to leave the night before, stay over in a hotel, and then go to the mall first thing in the morning. As the date got closer, the plans changed a little. First it was let's just get on the road by 7 a.m. but by the night before we changed our minds again. Noah has been in a tennis class all of Sept. but the week before rain canceled the class and the instructor said it would be made up the following week. So...Plan C: we'll go to tennis class and then get on the road.

It was such a nice drive; we never have traffic concerns out here. We arrived at KoP shortly after lunch. As my brother-in-law told me, it's a big mall similar to South Coast Plaza. It was big! (I don't think we saw all of it.)

Once we got in the mall all thoughts of the Lego store's grand opening were replaced by seeing Cartoon Network's near-Comic-Con style Star Wars Clone Wars interactive exhibit! Six Wii stations to try out a new game that will be released in Nov.; free goodie bags; an area to watch episode 1 of the new series (which we of course already saw ep. 1 and 2 the night before); and dress up in Jedi gear, complete with light sabre, to have a free picture taken. Truly, this makes up for not being able to attend Comic-Con, which knowing the attendance growth year after year, we might never be able to go again; it's just too much for us. And the best part of this exhibit: no crowd. There must have been 50 to 75 people in the area, and it was mostly kids and parents. We had to pry the boys away and remind them of the new Lego store, but promised to return.

Over at the Lego area there was a section where Master Builders were working on a Yoda statue. Kids were invited to build bricks to add to the structure. Every child received a certificate of participation and a coupon to use in the store. (To us the certificate was better than the coupon.)

My fast builder: (4 bricks)

My careful builder; quality control:

The Yoda statue:

After the boys built their bricks we went toward the Lego store. There was a long line. We couldn't see the end, which was about 5 1/2 stores away from the door, nearly wrapping around this group of stores. (yikes!) I checked my watch 2:16 p.m. We waited...and waited...and inched up. We had a chance to strike up a very nice conversation with a mom and son standing behind us (the dad was smart...he was up at the food court getting them something to eat). The mom kept saying how the dad was going to come back and say they were crazy to stand in such a long line...I was just really amazed that our boys, and all the kids there, were really good about waiting in line. It was a good lesson on patience for all of us.

An hour later we got in the store. It was a small store; about the size of a Sanrio/Hello Kitty store. Most interesting in this store, there was only room for a Batman bust. Instead there are port hole-looking windows built between the shelves, running the length of the store on both sides. Each "window" has a diarama of Legos. We saw people buying hundreds of dollars of Legos. I really wanted to spend the minimum of $35 and get a "Limited Edition" Liberty Bell Lego...but of course there was another line to the cash registers...and I didn't want to just randomly buy Legos. So I gave up on that, besides I saw the supply of Liberty Bells was getting low and by the time I get through the pay line I knew I wouldn't get it. Saw it on eBay already...people are willing to bid $25 for it. Ugh! James thinks Noah could probably figure out how to build one on his own. That's the beauty of Legos. Imagination!

The whole day was worth the drive!