Ninjago Dragons Rising - part 1

Hi Brick Friends,

It’s the last days of Summer vacation and Run’s gotten a new LEGO^Ⓡ set! This year, I started an experiment. Our boy had his eye on a big LEGO^Ⓡ set: Ninjago Dragons Rising, Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech.

It’s been on his wish list on our fridge for a while:

RUNs wishlist with different pictures of Ninjago LEGOⓇ sets. On the bottom right is the Ninjago Dragons Rising, Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech LEGOⓇset with an orange circle around it and an arrow pointing to it.

He’s been doing special gigs around the house but as soon as he had some money saved up and we’d go to a store - any store - he’d buy some random toy.

Oftentimes, he wasn’t happy with what he got and a lot of the cheap toys broke really quickly. One day he said he’d buy just LEGO^Ⓡ from now on because it was more fun to play with and, because he wanted a big set next time, we made a deal: he can only spend his savings around his birthday in May, in the summer vacation, and at Christmas time (I figured; if he took more time to save, he could afford a bigger set).

The challenge was on!

For 3 months, every coin he earned went into his savings jar (except maybe an extra ice cream or two 😉) In the last weeks of summer - so close to having enough saved up - he’s been asking for special gigs to do.

And then, he hit his goal!!

Last Friday, the Ninjago Dragons Rising set was waiting for him when he got home (you can get the same set here).

He immediately got to work.

RUN excitedly unpacks the Ninjago Dragons Rising, Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech LEGOⓇ set. He’s sitting on the ground wearing a light-colored t-shirt, shorts and socks and holding the instruction manual. The top half of his body and the instruction manual are blurred because of the movement when the picture was taken The bags with LEGOⓇ bricks are scattered in front and behind him and the empty box sits on the right of the picture with the packaging of the instruction manual balancing on the edge closest to you.

RUN is focused on building the Ninjago Dragons Rising, Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech LEGOⓇ set. He’s sitting on the floor and is bending forward while clicking 2 LEGOⓇ bricks together. You can see the top of his head covered with straight, black hair and he’s wearing a grey shirt and light brown shorts. In front of him are scattered LEGOⓇ bricks and in front of is the open instruction manual. The box and packaging is visible on the right of the image.

RUN is focused on building the Ninjago Dragons Rising, Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech LEGOⓇ set. He’s crouching on the floor wearing a light grey t-shirt with a colorful image in the front and light brown shorts. This time, the angle is looking down at him from the right side. To his left are closed packets of LEGO<sup>Ⓡ</sup> bricks, to his right are scattered LEGOⓇ bricks. In front of him you can just see the left corner of the instruction manual.

He built the Ninja Flyer and the empress Mech in a few hours before dinner. We found this cute baby dragon (Baby Riyu)

And then it was time for bed.

The next morning it was straight back to it.

There were some tears and some frustration about ten minutes in when he made a mistake and had to start over. He was really worried that he wouldn’t finish it before school starts again in a few days… After drying off the tears and reassuring him that he had plenty of time, he kept building.

Now it’s all about Jiro: The Elemental Dragon or The Blue Dragon as RUN calls it.

This is the piece that caused all the frustration 😆 The dragon’s belly. I think it took him about 3 hours to get the tummy and legs.

That’s all for now. We’re off to see the steam trains!

Tune in next time for part 2. Will RUN finish the Elemental Dragon?

In the meantime, happy building!

Family F.