LEGO Harry Potter Castle

 ~This happened in June 2021. A special anniversary gift from Michele.~

I never shared about one of the best anniversary gifts I have ever received. Before our anniversary in June I mentioned that maybe we could get a bigger gift for each other this year because I really wanted the Harry Potter Castle LEGO set. Part of me was serious, and part of me knew that we probably shouldn't spend too much. 

Well a week after our anniversary Michele surprised me by stopping at a LEGO store while we were out and about as a family shopping. He told me to get the set. The kids were there and they were all surprised too. It was so fun to take that huge box out of the store! We've never purchased a set this big. I had fun building it over the next several weeks. I can't remember how long it took exactly, but it took a while!

They offered me a new one in the brown box from the back rather than the one on the shelf so it would be a box that was in perfect shape. We also got 3 free cars (for a deal/offer they had at that time). 

After taking it out of the brown box it has a regular LEGO box with a picture of the castle. It was getting pretty exciting to open up. 

The number of bags inside was pretty crazy. I needed to organize them so I could find them in an orderly fashion as I built.

 

So, first order of business was to put them in numerical order. That way I could put them in the box carefully in a way that I could just pull out the next bag.

There were 4 manuals! That's a lot of instructions!

Finally it was time to start building! I enjoyed every moment of building. 

Slowly, section by section it started coming together.

Seeing the details emerge as I was building was neat. This picture below is of the great hall.

It was finally finished! I didn't keep track of exactly when I finished, so I can't remember how long it took, but these pictures were taken in mid-August. So, I must have finished probably end of July sometime. Probably about a month of building time (in between a lot of life and fun summer activities).

Here's a tour of the inside:

What special gift this was. I am so thankful for a great husband!