The third day of our vacation was spent at the Chicago Legoland Discovery Center in Schaumburg, Illinois.

If you take in all the activities, you can easily spend a whole day there. I think we only missed one major activity and we were there about six hours. The boys had a great time and very much want to go back some day. Hit the jump for 46 photos showing all the ways to have fun at the Legoland Discovery Center!

First up was the Miniland Chicago made with nearly 1.5 million Lego bricks. The back row in this picture from left to right are the CNA Center (red), the Sears Tower/Willis Tower (black), the Chase Tower (white), 10 LaSalle (blue), the Richard J. Daley Center (rust), the Aon Tower/Amoco Building (white), Two Prudential Plaza (blue stripe), and the Smurfit-Stone Building (diamond).

In this photo are the Lake Point Tower (black curved), the Wrigley Building (white front), the Onterie Center (white), City Place (red), Water Tower Place (white), the John Hancock Center (tall black), Holy Name Cathedral (farthest right), the Chicago Water Tower and the Contemporary Art Museum (small black).

Another shot of the CNA Center (red), the Sears Tower/Willis Tower (black), the Chase Tower (white), 10 LaSalle (blue), the Richard J. Daley Center (rust) and the Chicago Cultural Center (right foreground). The Lego Sears Tower required the most bricks to build: 125,860!

The Lego John Hancock Center.

In back is the double-decker bascule Wells Street Bridge built in 1922 with the lower deck carrying three lanes of vehicular traffic south over the Chicago River with sidewalks on both sides and the upper deck carrying the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Brown and Purple lines of Chicago's famed elevated "L" trains.

In front is the Michigan Avenue Bridge (officially DuSable Bridge) completed in 1920 which is a fixed trunnion bascule bridge or Chicago style bascule bridge which carries vehicular and pedestrian traffic on two levels.

The Lego Wrigley Building.

The Lego Chicago Water Tower.

Lego technically just calls this a "church" but it most closely resembles the Chicago Holy name Cathedral, although the tall turret would have to be switched to the right side. Notice that the picture is darker than the others and you can see the windows lit up. This is because the whole Chicago Miniland skyline slowly rotates between daytime and night time.

Chicago's number one tourist attraction Lego Navy Pier is a mile long pier built in 1916 which is a popular launching point for many sightseeing boat tours and has a 150 foot Ferris wheel, an IMAX theater, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Amazing Chicago's Funhouse Maze, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows and other attractions.

A Lego tiger in the Jungle Adventure.

Will, Landon and Drew with the Lego tiger.

A Lego monkey just hanging around.

Lego monkeys.

A Lego tiger cub on his back.

Lego Indiana Jones.

A giant Lego spider.

The boys with Lego Batman.

The crime fighting duo of Daddy and Batman.

Lego President Obama. Drew shows exactly what we think of this man.

I couldn't resist, it was an instinctual reaction...and very cathartic.

The first of several opportunities to do some Lego building.

The always creative Will whipped up a Lego robot.

At this point we all hopped on the Lego Dragon Quest ride which took us past many animated Lego characters including this royal court.

Uh oh! It looks like the Lego dragon is breaking out.

The giant Lego dragon which actually breathed fire!

Drew with his head in a Lego lion.

Will with his head in a Lego lion.

Landon with his head in a Lego lion.

The Lego Factory is the only thing we didn't get to experience.

We were able to see two different short movies from Lego Studios.

The two movies we saw were in "4D." That's 3D along with wind, rain, lightning and even snow bursting into the auditorium!

The boys with Lego Harry Potter.

The boys with Lego Rubeus Hagrid from Harry Potter.

Mama and Landon wave from the Legoland Technicycle ride with Will and Drew in the background.

Will and Drew on the Technicycle ride. As Drew's expression shows, the ride was more oriented towards the littler folk.

The boys and Lego Bob the Builder.

The boys took a class where they built a model Sears Tower from individual Lego bricks. Landon got a little help from Mama.

Finally, it was off to some serious Lego car building limited only by our imaginations.

The Lego cars start to take shape.

There were multiple ramps of differing lengths and angles to race your Lego cars down, all which curved up at the end to shoot the cars back into the parts bin.

Will (and Drew) had the greatest time sending their creations down the ramps and launching them into the air only to ultimately crash (unless you caught them at the end).

The boys befriended a really sweet young girl who helped them explore the creations they made together.

There was even a race track with an electronic countdown timer and release mechanism for serious Lego car racing.

Saving the best for last, a Lego Darth Vader and Lego R2D2 surprised us on the way out.

Lego Einstein in the lobby.

Time for a rest with the dozing Lego man on our way out of the store. As you can see, we had an amazing time!