LEGO® Friends Heartlake City

I get so many wonderful invitations to do so many fun things, that I really have to pick and choose where I can best apportion my time.

So when I received an invitation from my friends at LEGOLAND^® California to visit their newest addition, LEGO^® Friends Heartlake City, I was super excited, because...LEGO!

But the opening was happening on May 21st, which just happened to be my 60th birthday (but that's not important right now). I couldn't go because my family had made other (fabulous) plans for me.

Enter my friend, Marie Day, who lives in Carlsbad and with whom I've had the "We love LEGO^®" conversation many times.

"Do you think you and the kids could cover this event for me?" I'm happy to report that the Day Family stepped up. Here's their story...

The Days at Heartlake City

The opening of LEGOLAND^® California's newest addition, LEGO^® Friends Heartlake City has been highly anticipated in my home. You see we first began visiting the theme park when my daughter was only 2 years old. Our first visits were on Thursdays with the Model Mom Club and that is when our love for all things LEGO^® began.

I remember in our early days visiting the park, we were amazed to find a rainbow of colored bricks for sale in the LEGO^® Club House Shop. So when our niece's birthday rolled around, we scooped up a bag of pink and purple bricks and shipped them off to Texas for the birthday girl. Fast forward to 2015 and our daughter, who is almost 10 still can’t get enough of all things LEGO^®.

Heartlake City is based on the popular LEGO^® toy line: LEGO^® Friends, which focuses on the adventures and lives of five super awesome (of course!) girls: Andrea, Emma, Mia, Olivia and Stephanie. Although Heartlake City is aimed toward young female visitors, there are also plenty of things for boys to enjoy.

Our adventure in Heartlake City began with a meet and great with Master Builder Robbie who told us that the pink and purple bricks actually debuted about 10 years ago. 10 years! It’s now been 2-3 years since Lego Friends came out with the more exclusive colors we see today.

Robbie told us that there had been a few past LEGO^® collections that also used similar colors but were not nearly as extensive as the LEGO^® Friends line is with the tv show, set line, and of course, now Heartlake City.

Armed with these fun facts we headed straight for some building fun inside Heartlake Stables.

My son really loved the "shaking table." How it works is that you build your LEGO^® horse, set it down, push a button and it appears that the Lego horse you built is now walking around. Genius.

Next we got to explore Mia’s Riding Camp.

We rode the beautiful 60-horse carousel 4 times, much to the delight of my children.

Yes. 4 times.

At the Friends Forever Stage, we sang and danced and got our photo-op with the LEGO^® Friends.

And finally, we satisfied our sweet tooth at the new City Park Creperie with our favorite Nutella treat!

It was so delicious and we were so happy that we can now have freshly made crepes in the park. I predict this is going to be a regular stop for us on our visits to LEGOLAND^®.

The day of our visit was a little cool and cloudy but that didn’t stop a few brave guests from splashing about in the Heartlake Fountain. We know that’s going to be a big hit this summer and it’s a great upgrade from the smaller splash pad that previously occupied that spot in the park.

We ended our day by looking for an employee to trade a mini figure with.

In case you don’t already know this insider tip: You can ask anyone who works in the park who has a mini figure on their name badge to trade with you. Plus some of the restaurants have a box of mini figures at the cash register that you can trade. One of the many reasons we love LEGOLAND^®.

And, of course, we shopped.