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I am not really sure how it happened, but one night in early December, my son and I began looking through the products at Lego.com.

It had been awhile since we had been to the site, so we went from page to page, intrigued by many of the sets geared toward the older Lego fan.

A few of the houses offered for sale were interesting to me. I remember playing with my brother’s Legos a long time ago. One of my favorite things to do was build houses with his bricks.

My son noticed a “Green Grocer” for sale, marketed for people 16 years and older. Because he is a bagger at a local grocery store, he was interested in this set.

We decided to order some sets. We thought it would be fun to put them together, possibly sparking a new interest in Legos.

A few days later, a large package arrived on our doorstep. That evening, we opened the sets and looked at the bags holding the pieces needed to create the designs on the boxes. We dug in and started the process of building one brick at a time.

The house sets were pretty straightforward. While I worked on the foundation and lower level of the first house, my daughter built the second floor and roof. My son’s bags of Legos were labeled with a 1, 2 or 3, which corresponded with the pieces needed for each level of the building.

That first night, we sat on the floor and worked, watching our buildings take shape as we followed the directions. On subsequent evenings, my son worked on his additional levels, and I worked on the second house set.

We were fascinated by the intricate details that went into each set to give the buildings character and charm. We were in the beginning stages of rediscovering what made Legos such a fun, versatile toy for all ages.

Impressed by these sets, my husband and I decided to get each of the kids a Lego set for Christmas. We bought my daughter another house and my son a 3-in-1 car-truck-bulldozer set.

My husband also bought me a Lego VW Beetle for my gift.

We decided to visit the Lego store in Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh. You can imagine how chaotic it was five days before Christmas!

Still, it was fun to get a firsthand look at sets we had seen online. The store had many of the models built so that you could see how the sets would turn out. We found a few seasonal items in stock that had been sold out in the online store.

We also picked up a cup from the back of the store so that we could fill it from the pick-a-brick bins that lined the back wall.

Choosing various bricks and elements by hand was fun. It could be said we were like kids in a candy store.

Christmas was spent building the gifts that had been under the tree. My husband helped me with my car, which took a week to complete.

After Christmas, my son, daughter and I took yet another trip to a Lego store. This time we visited the one at Concord Mills. It had some things on sale, and both kids filled a cup with Legos from the pick-a-brick wall.

Feeling a bit obsessive about Legos by now, we found ourselves looking for the special 50th Anniversary Town Plan set. It is no longer being sold online, but we found it on eBay for a reasonable price.

On Saturday we built this special set and then began to combine everything on a long table in the living room, creating a Lego city complete with roads bought years ago from a Lego store in Atlanta.

We stood back in admiration. We estimated we had approximately 10,000 Lego pieces on that table . It really brought home an adage promoted by the creators of Lego — that you truly can make anything out of bricks — Lego bricks.

Linda Vestal is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend living in Gibsonville. Contact her with comments or story ideas at lindavestal@triad.rr.com.