I Give You.....BRICKFAIR!

 Note:  I don't know why some of the spacing is screwy on the pictures---can't get it fixed...sorry...

The drive to Birmingham was fine, albeit long.  It took us about 10 hours but that was with a fair number of stops.  This is the the landscape I stared at while poor Owen vomited up half his body from carsickness (despite the Dramamine). 

And this is what it looked like as we finally headed into Birmingham.  A long drive but pleasant....we waved to Nashville as we passed through....

We got to the hotel and we quickly dumped our children and went for a drink in the lobby bar.  Sustained by that we took the boys to the pool (where they met an 8 year old named Harper who was there from Manhattan) and then got some really pretty bad food from the bar/grill restaurant in the lobby.  The hotel was fine physically, and it was nice to be at the same place as Brickfair but service was pretty lousy (despite two nice bartenders) throughout.  Then we all collapsed and when we woke up in the morning the boys were already vibrating with excitement.  We got in line about 20 minutes early and were glad we did....the line went through the convention center, across the walkeway to the hotel and into the hotel atrium.  Whew.

Waiting in line:

and then....the doors opened, we paid our $7 per person and got our hands stamped:

Waiting in a much shorter line the next day:

Reviewing purchases:

And our final BrickFair picture....look closely.....Leo is almost SMILING!  My beautiful boys.