Advent 2012 Day 1

Every year LEGO puts out at least one Advent calendar, each one typically folowing a particular theme. This year for the first time (that I know of) we have three Advent calendars: Star Wars (9509), City (4428), and Friends (3316). In case you’re not familiar with Advent calendars, they are a traditional way of celebrating the month of December in Christian families – each day in December up to Christmas Eve, you open up one box from the calendar and get some kind of treat. When I was a kid these were just paper calendars with pictures behind each door. With LEGO it makes the concept a lot more interesting since you get a toy to build and play with.

I’m writing this on December 4th, so I’m a bit behind. I’m going to catch up by posting the first four entries tonight, and then try to stay on top of them each day. Unlike some bloggers I feel it is important for me to actually open up the set and build it on the day, but this weekend I was so busy and overwhelmed, and only got three hours of sleep Friday and Saturday nights thanks to being out too late and being woken up too early by factors beyond my control. Anyway, I’m back to a more normal sleep schedule now, and will endeavor to stay on top of this with a daily post. Wish me luck!

When I opened up Day 1 in each of the calendars I found a little plastic bag of LEGO parts and a little paper page. Each calendar has a paper page with the legal warnings about choking on small parts and pictures of other sets in that theme. When you open the door for each day, there’s a small picture of the set you are to build on the back side of the door, and you pull out the little plastic bag and build it. There’s no step by step instructions though, so it can be a little more difficult to build the more intricate models than a typical LEGO set that spoon feeds the build to you in individual steps. They’re never all that hard though.

The big surprise I got however came when I opened the Friends calendar for Day #1, and found the wrong parts! I opened a couple of other doors at random and found the same thing. Eventually I figured out that my set was built wrong. I don’t know if they’re all this way or if I just got one that was defective, but the tray that contains all the stuff to build was put in backward. I opened up the box, pulled out the plastic tray with 24 bins in it, turned it around, and put it back in, and then not only Day #1 but the other doors I had opened were now correct.

Anyhow, I built the three models, and here they are – a micro scale space ship for the Star Wars calendar, a minidoll in the Friends calendar, and a firefighter minifig (with an extra helmet and bullhorn) in the City calendar.

Advent 2012 Day 1

The spaceship is the only thing that is at all challenging to build, of course, and the parts assortment is pretty ordinary, so there’s not much to write about.

Friends Second Wave #8: Summer Riding Camp

The final set in the Friends Second Wave is LEGO Friends Summer Riding Camp 3185. This is the biggest Friends set to date, with 1112 pieces (Olivia’s House had only 695).
Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp

First let’s look at the building containing what I call the “canteen” on the ground floor, and bunk beds on the upper floor. The canteen has some nice parts usages to build a counter and what I guess is a vending machine for drinks, and upstairs we have room for two campers to sleep in bunk beds. Out front we have a hedgehog with his food dish, and some nice flowers. Like Olivia’s House, it comes apart into separate modules for each level so you could mix and match them.

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Canteen Building Front) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Canteen and Bunk Beds) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Canteen)

The next building is similar, with a classroom on the ground floor (using the printed 4×6 piece from Olivia’s Invention Workshop) and two regular beds instead of bunk beds. Lots of wonderful light purple 1×6 tiles here!

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Classroom Building Front) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Classroom) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Classroom/Beds)

Next there’s a little tack station with a place to hang the reins and store the saddles, and supplies for scrubbing down the horses.

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Tack)

Now we consider one of the most interesting parts of this set – the bathroom facilities. There’s a shower and a room with a toilet and sink. The privacy afforded to our campers here is minimal at best – they’d better hope no boys come sneaking around to peer over or under those shutter doors!

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Bathroom Front) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Shower) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Toilet)

We round out the camp’s furnishings by looking at the front gate, campfire, and corral. These offer some great play possibilities but few great parts. I like all the white axles in the corral though!

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Gate) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Campfire) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Corral)

My favorite part of this set is the next part, a van and trailer. Clearly inspired by the Volkswagen van of the 1960s-70s, the van really captures the look of that iconic vehicle, except for the fact that those wimpy air-cooled motors were rubbish for towing anything. Hopefully there’s not much in that trunk in the trailer.

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Van, Side/Front) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Van, Front) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Van, Side/Rear) Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Van, Top)

Finally here are all the extra parts and (ugh) stickers.

Friends #3185: Summer Riding Camp (Extra Parts & Stickers)

This set sure is massive, and certainly hits the mark in terms of playability factor for girls. But as for parts for an adult builder goes, I’m not sure it’s worth the cost. Like the other buildings in the Friends line, the bricks are mainly tan, which is not that special. There are a lot of parts in the new Friends colors, but it’s probably more economical to source them via BrickLink.

That concludes my review of the Friends sets. Hope you’ve enjoyed them. If you buy these for any kids in your life, or for yourself, post a comment and let me know what you thought. And as always thank you for supporting the site by using my Amazon links!