#HomeHer

If you travel in certain circles, you probably heard that there was a big blogging conference this weekend. I didn't go. I've been before, five times in fact, but I just couldn't get up the energy to buy a ticket to Chicago and find a hotel room and we're doing some not insubstantial renovations to our house and...yeah, I didn't go.

The bummer, of course, was missing some fabulous people that I haven't seen in a year. And I didn't get to stock up on Boiron's unpronounceable Oscillococcinum, which I like dosing my kid with whenever she doesn't want to go to school. "This will make you feel better" I trill, and it always works.

But I like to think that I made the best of it. After all, my (loosely-defined) weekend included a Google seminar - "Google 101 for Content Creators" - which was mostly how to search and how to find educational things on YouTube. For instance, here's how to extract the iron from your breakfast cereal:

The content was a little slim, but Google served up some really excellent donuts, from Brooklyn.

Also, I loved the art in the Google building's lobby - lots of old postcards of New York City, beautifully mounted.

That one in the middle is the MetLife building, which I can see from the north windows in my office building. I restrained myself from prying it off the wall and contented myself with a photo.

Friday afternoon, I took two fifth graders and a second grader on a press junket to Legoland. They loved it. Period, end of story. There was a 4D movie - complete with real wind and actual snow. The 4th dimension that they failed to exploit was smell-o-rama; given that one of the characters in the Chima movie was a skunk, who let loose a couple of times, Odorama would have been a natural addtion. In Miniland, there's a mess of iconic NYC buildings, all Lego-built - an instant tour. Here's the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim, all lined up like they aren't in real life:

And three little girls, engrossed:

Apparently, I'm a 14 year old boy, because the potty humor, at Apple's expense, on one of the "billboards" in the model of Times Square made me laugh:

Naturally, the exit is through the gift shop. The girl has spent the past 48 hours building and rebuilding a motorcycle kit, which I could have gotten cheaper on Amazon, but which wouldn't have gotten me any cool mommy points - things bought at the source are always more interesting than things that arrive in brown cardboard boxes by mail.

My weekend included no dancing, no drunken confessions in bathrooms, no inspirational keynote speeches, and no free food beyond some tasty samples at the farmer's market. I went to two swim meets, one swim practice, dinner at friends, and a shopping spree at a crazy new boutique in town.

#HomeHer. It's where the heart is.

But I might go back to BlogHer next year.