DETROIT TIGERS OPENING DAY LEGO STYLE

I had the opportunity to be at Comerica Park for Opening Day but unfortunately was tied up in court having to handle 50 traffic ticket hearings instead of being able to be at the ballpark watching the Detroit Tigers play. So, I appreciated this video from LEGOLAND Discovery Center Michigan that let me enjoy the spirit of the downtown festivities I missed out on participating in. Was geeked to view their LEGO-ized version of a parade on Woodward Avenue and the Tiger's baseball stadium.

LEGOLAND Discovery Center Michigan in the suburb of Auburn Hills located inside the Great Lakes Crossing mall has an impressive MINILAND that recreates downtown Detroit made out of more than a million LEGO building bricks. The Comerica Park replica itself is made from 25,000 LEGO bricks and weighs a whopping 250 pounds. It is filled with more than 400 LEGO mini-figures representing fans and players. 

Visitors at this LEGOLAND Discovery Center can even interact with the stadium playing a pinball-style baseball game where they can “go to bat” and try to score everything from a single to a home run. The MINILAND often has special exhibits based upon current events such as a Thanksgiving Day parade and Christmas decorations to alter the appearance of its downtown streets and buildings. For Opening Day, the MINILAND had a baseball celebration parade on display and had a celebrity singing the National Anthem on the field of Comerica Park. It is always interesting to see what may be new in the MINILAND during a visit to LEGOLAND Discovery Center Michigan.

In addition to the MINILAND exhibit, LEGOLAND Discovery Center Michigan has two amusement rides (Kingdom Quest + Merlin's Apprentice), a 4D cinema, build-a-car race track and more. For directions and additional information, head over to legolanddiscoverycenter.com/michigan 

Going Car Watching: Our Roadtrip to the Woodward Dream Cruise

This year is the 20th anniversary of the WOODWARD DREAM CRUISE, an annual event in Metro Detroit that is like a combining a parade, block party and carnival together to celebrate classic cars and the area's automotive heritage.  This Saturday event gets to be very congested with more than a million people clustering along Woodward Avenue for the day and we normally feel it is a little to hectic to take our young children to, but this year I decided to take the twins over to see the cars the Friday morning before the official event to check out what was going on before all the crowds arrived.  So we took a road trip just a few blocks down the street from our house to go car watching.

I have to say taking a wander along Woodward Avenue the morning before the event was great...we saw lots of classic cars without all of the crowds.  While many of the exhibitor displays were still being setup and not all of the cars were cruising around yet we still saw a lot of cool stuff and had some great experiences.  For example, Chevrolet had just unloaded a few of the cars that were used to portray the Autobots in the movie Transformers: Age of Extinction from a tractor trailer but hadn't set up the exhibit display for them yet.  The Chevy staffers let my son jump in the original car that had been used as the stunt vehicle in the movie to portray my son's favorite Transformer, BUMBLEBEE, and pretend to take it for a spin.

Chevy did have one of its exhibits all set up where we could look at some of their different race car engines and an Indy car.  While walking around this display my kids snagged some really nice car themed color books and Crayola crayons while I got my hands on a t-shirt compliments of Chevrolet.

We also saw a Monster Truck, a few dragsters on display, and some cars drag racing down the strip.

 

You don't always need to drive far away to have a fun and exciting road trip with your kids...sometimes the adventure can just be a few blocks away.  For more information about the Woodward Dream Cruise visit www.woodwarddreamcruise.com