Why I Oughta...

 On Monday, I posted an update on our Lego build - the Walt Disney World Cinderella Castle - that has been going on for more than a year and a half.  I mentioned that we were on step #626, but I thought it would be good to post a reference photo - and I failed to do that in Monday's post.  So, here's where we are as of today.  Two steps forward (#628) and the build is focused on the tan portion on the left of the photo below.  The grey portion on the right is the lower section and is complete.  After we continue to build this part on the left (tan part), we snap-it into the part on the right.  Doing two posts in one week on this build certainly ups the ante on getting this done before Christmas, doesn't it?

Step #626.  That's where we are RIGHT NOW on the Lego Disney Cinderella Walt Disney World Castle that we started in July of 2018.  Yes, you read that right:  17 months ago, we started this build .  And it was 11 months ago that I posted here on the blog how I worked with Lego customer service to source some of the parts that have gone missing.  That was January of this year.   You would think that the pandemic would have gotten us going a little bit faster on this thing, right?  But, it wasn't to be.  However, now with the colder weather + us sitting around inside AND staring down Christmas where the kids will likely get EVEN MORE Lego sets, we have a deadline we're facing.  I want to get this thing done in the next week or two.  But, we're at a stage where we're - once again - missing parts.  Between opened bags and just flat out MISSING bags in our set, we have to go back-and-forth between where we're building this (in the screen...

Last Summer, I posted about how we were kicking off a new LEGO build of the Walt Disney World Cinderella's Castle with the kids.  In that post - dated July 9, 2018 - I mentioned that we had started the project seven days prior (July 2, 2018) and talked through how we had encountered some trouble with the early steps in the build due to lost parts.  One of the kids received this as a birthday present a year or so ago and I made the mistake of putting the big LEGO box in the room with the rest of the LEGOs at our house.  With young, curious kids around, they couldn't help themselves and opened the box to look at the parts.  That lead to opened bags and, ummm, missing parts.  From that July 2018 post : Also, Step 3 is where we already ran into trouble. Why? Because why wouldn't a seven year old who has this Castle set in her bedroom for seven months open up bag one and tinker around. The only problem? When we sat down to do it together, we had to scaven...

In my mind, Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland Paris is a hybrid of the two US park castles.  It has the 'feel' of the OG Sleeping Beauty Castle but it is built at the scale and style of Cinderella's Castle in Walt Disney World in Orlando. But there's something different about the castle that is, kinda awesome. There's something called "La Tanière du Dragon". According to the Disneyland Paris Parks page : Tip-toe through the dark dungeon "La Tanière du Dragon" underneath Sleeping Beauty Castle, where a monstrous prisoner lurks. Once the ruler of the skies, this defeated dragon lies chained against jagged rocks. It may be dozing, but tread carefully, as one false move will lead to a hot, rumbling surprise. Here's that 'prisoner': This was a really neat experience that we just kind of wandered in to as we wandered on some of the park paths near the castle.  I remember being inside here, seeing the dragon and looking a...

Just posting this here to mark the beginning of our Lego Disney Cinderella Castle build for the Summer.  Or what is officially called "Disney Castle Playset - By Lego" .  This is page three and, while we actually got to this spot about a week ago, I'm just getting around to posting now.  So, once we complete it, let's add seven days to the tracking.  Also, Step 3 is where we already ran into trouble.  Why?  Because why wouldn't a seven year old who has this Castle set in her bedroom for seven months open up bag one and tinker around.  The only problem?  When we sat down to do it together, we had to scavenge together parts from bag one that were littered across the various bins.  In some cases, we swapped in wrong color bricks.  Or two smaller bricks to make up the composite of a larger, spec'd one.  We're getting it done and I figure since most of this is the substructure/undercarriage, the colors don't matter so much because t...