Illumination Light Show

Back toward the end of November 2017, we went to the new Illumination light show.  We pass by it on the freeway all the time; its just around the corner form our house--errr..around the U-turn?--either way, its right off the freeway (I-17).  I wanted to experience it, since there was a lot of publicity and hype (there would be lines and lines of cars waiting to get in, practically blocking the on-ramp).
Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to the hype, not in my opinion anyway. We got a Groupon deal, and even with that, I felt like it wasn't worth the price.  I'm not saying it was bad or that we didn't have a good time---I'm glad we went, but I think once is good enough for that price (almost $30 /car!).
It was a drive-through light show.  Basically like a glorified drive through a well-lighted, festive neighborhood. The lights "danced" with the beat of the music. Which is pretty awesome, but not very awesome when you're expecting Christmas music, and the music you get is some random pop song in spanish (what??) or a parody of the can-can about how useless Christmas is (Umm..? Okay, at least Gabe liked this one).  It didn't take us long to drive through the whole thing (maybe 15 minutes, give or take), because we were smart and/or fortunate to be able to go on a weekday, instead of weekend when the line for the light show was a mile long.
After we drove through there was a little "village" that was set up just outside the light show that we could go to. I was under the impression that there would be a free bouncy house for the kids, but it was $8 per kid to jump! And the churros were $9! That's more than Disney Land! And no thanks to the $5 crafts, although I might consider doing a messy a craft with my own kids if you paid me $5. Other than the initial disappointment of not bouncing for free, we enjoyed the little village for the most part.  The kids enjoyed a game of huge chess and ginormous connect-four game.  Also the kids (particularly Gabe) were fascinated by a couple lighted walk-though structures. Here are the pictures: 

Gabe and Elisa in front of one of the lighted structures.

Connect-four, plus size

Jumbo chess

Making a light show of their own on the wall

Elisa in the lighted structure (I think this one was a giant ornament)

Haha Gabe!

Ian in the big ornament

Erik, me, and my huge cheeks in the ornament

 

Christmas certainly is a time of wonder for little boys.  Just look at how wide open Gabe's mouth is! Haha silly Gabe!

A pretty bad picture of us, at least the kids are a little bit cute.