Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Post-a-Card : From Lego Land, Billund

Above: Baby Blu making Lego towers.

The Blue family is slowly swinging back to action after little Blu brought back home a really bad bug.. and happily passed it on to us grown-ups too. Two weeks of aacchhoo!(s) & ouch!(s) , red noses, ER visits, soups & toasts and a TV running 24-hours ...we are now raring to go!

On the plus side, Blu who had so far refused to play with anything else other than "Cars"..has finally found another thing to do.. making Lego-castles for mommy after he saw Ellie ( his favorite elephant from Pocoyo ) making one! So it was a real surprise when we got a post-card from Legoland, Billund (Denmark) in last week's mail... just in time for the Lego sky-scraper-phase that we are going through now :) Blu's "Uncle Ribo" ( that's not his real name, but Blu's version of it ) was visiting Denmark and had posted a card for him from there.

Below:
That's a picture of the postcard sitting on our table


As "jobless" as I can be, I decided to do some trivia-hunt on Lego and here they are! But before that, let me show you one kit put together by my beloved husband and partner-in-crime, Joe.. I call it his "Wheels (only!) in Dreams"- a Lego replica of the $1Million Enzo Ferrari (kit available online). It took him a few after-work-sleepless-nights though, to put it together.
Below: Two car fanatics checking out the works :)
Now to the trivia :
  • The Lego brand of toys was first made in 1932, by Ole Kirk Kristiansen ,a Danish carpenter. The toys were made of wood and called Lego , a contraption of 2 Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well".
  • The Lego-brick which our kids get to play with now was designed in 1957 and was introduced to the consumers in 1958, and has remained the same in design eversince. So a brick made in 1958 would still be compatible with the bricks that are available now. read more
  • Lego is the fifth largest toy company in the world and can be found in about 75% of American and 80% of European households with children
  • LEGO has 4 theme parks all over the world, oldest and the largest one being in Billund,Denmark. The park opened there in 1968. The other 3 are in Windsor(England), Gunzburg (Germany) and Carlsbad (USA).
  • The worlds tallest LEGO tower is at the Windsor Legoland made of 500,000 Lego bricks and and stands almost a 100 ft tall. (below)

Lego sculptures:

While scouring the internet for Lego sculptures, this name kept popping up - Nathan Sawaya . Mr.Sawaya is a freelance artist who designs and builds custom Lego sculptures. Check out some of his really cool and mind-blowing creations, below.

Circle Triangle Square (below)
Think (below) Reflection (below) Red (below)The Grasp (below)
Mt.Rushmore Replica (below)....and a Life Size Replica .

And if you cant have enough of these tiny bricks..visit Sawaya's website at brickartist.

Happy Weekend to all of you!!

Dedication: This post is dedicated to our dear friends' son Tim and his feverish passion for Lego's., and our baby Blu's "Uncle Ribo" who sent us the Legoland postcard from Denmark, inspite of his packed schedule, and inspired this post to begin with. Tim is the best Lego artist I have known personally; it takes him less than a couple of hours to put together a 3000pc sculpture , and that too without referring any directions :)

6 comments:

  1. Oh... I've always loved lego!! Its been my dream to go to legoland.. I've told my husband a few times... but I think he has stopped listening..

    But somehow.. I just cannot get my kids to play with Lego.. I got them a few sets.. and I played with it more than them! Finally I gave up!!

    Now I'm waiting for Legoland to open in Dubai.. and will take my kids and hope they start building towers as well...

    Happy towers to you...

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  2. Hey Patricia, Nice to hear from you !

    In fact my son was also pretty resistant to playing with the blocks..now Ellie seems to have influenced him well !
    We have a Legoland in CA..hope to visit once Blu starts enjoying the trips :)

    Stay well

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  3. Awesome! One super creative family!!

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  4. Hello,
    Your son looks adorable! Thanks for sharing all the info on Lego. I am a huge fan, as are my 2 boys.

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  5. *Dear Anon, Thanks ! Our junior's level of energy is sometimes infectious :)

    * Hey Aditi, Thanks again ! Hope we inspired you to build some castles :)

    -Aswathy

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  6. Thanks for these encouraging comments.... Tim is really grateful for your good words! Please visit this link below to check out some of Tim's custom built lego transformers http://www.youtube.com/user/timlego95133

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