12.11.2010

Making Christmas #5: ICE!

OH SWEET REDEMPTION! ICE! is a spectacular event at the Gaylord Texan north of Dallas and since it's so stinkin' expensive and AMAZING, I knew the Kodak wasn't cutting it, so I trouble shot the Nikon and hoped for the best. It took great pix all day long and then when I got home BOOM! They were GONE. Needless to say I was devastated...and more than ready to chunk the $1200 camera out the window...but Allan did some more trouble shooting and managed to save my images. Note...a good camera does not a photographer make, but these are much higher quality than usual. :)

Follow the snowflakes to ICE! This year is Peanuts. Check out http://wefrozecharliebrown.com
They always have it decorated so nicely. This is a resort hotel. I LOVE the lone stars on the wall.
Inside the hotel before you get to the exhibit, the whole place is decorated to the nines. Of course we took photo-ops. I might be biased, but I'm pretty sure I have the cutest kids around...several people stopped to smile and give compliments as we were taking pictures. Way to make a mommy feel good!
AWWWWW! The big scratch on his head is why we missed family pictures.
There are several rooms set up and it gets colder as you go. The first room had a little movie about the making of ICE! and had SNOW! YAY!

The next room is where you get your parkas because once you get into the exhibit it's 9 degrees.

Entirely too fitting, don't you think??

There is an ice slide in the middle and the kids had a blast. We got so stinkin' lucky...since Allan is home this year, we went during a weekday before work let out. We got right through the line with no fast pass needed and got to slide on the slide as soon as we got into the room. That rocks because last year we sure did wait an hour to even get into the thing, let alone the hour it took to move through.

Violet got stuck right there and was so embarrassed she covered her face while the guy came to unstick her. When she got off she had a great big smile on her face, though, so I guess she had fun!

They crawled through here about 5x each and then we had to drag them away. What is so interesting about that, I'll never know, but I'm glad they liked it!
I searched for this carving the whole time I was there...Violet with Violet!!
at the end of the Peanuts carvings they have angels and the nativity. It is SO pretty with the lights shining through. The pictures don't do it justice. The people who carve this stuff are ingenious.
At the end we had some adorable snacks...I want to figure out how to do that, it can't be hard, they're just rice krispie treats on a stick and frosted. So cute! That look on Corbin's face is "WHERE IS MINE!?" He was so hungry.
on the way back to the car we had some laughs. Allan is the most amazing daddy. Violet was covering his eyes and yelling "CAN'T SEE, DADDY!" and he would run into a bush or swerve wildly and the shrieks were ear piercing but amazing.
GraceAnne was feeling left out because she's too big for Allan's shoulders, but she got some fun in before we loaded up, too.
Down here in Texas, Santa yells HOWDY and longhorns drive his covered wagon. Look! It's Clarabelle and Tracey :)
And here is just another small sample of why I love my husband so much...at ICE! when we bought the tickets, they gave us coupons for free Dunkin' Donuts and coffee. We drove around the whole town of Grapevine looking for a DD and the whole time we drove toward Dallas we looked, but couldn't find one. I was pouting for a donut, so Allan drove all the way to the other side of Dallas to the Krispy Kreme we knew was there and the traffic was THICK so it took us about 45 minutes to get over there. I figured he wanted a donut too, so as we were ordering I asked him what he wanted and he said "nothing." He drove all that way so I could have a snowman donut! AWWWWW!
















2 comments:

Mary said...

So much fun!! Sooooo glad Allan was able to recover the photos!! And you guys are good to and for each other...your children are blessed.

Gayle said...

I had to laugh...sometimes men just know when it's better to go along than to be reasonable. Us women can be a handful at times! :) Glad you had so much fun.