3rd Annual Gaylord Staycation

We woke up this morning and were ready to hit the road for a day of fun with our sweet cousins! It was the 3rd Annual Gaylord Hotel Staycation ~ a tradition started by our families to have some fun time with just us.  A mini break in the middle of the holidays.  Well I'm not sure break is a good word, we barely sat down all day, but we did have fun!  Here is a shot of the cousins, all together and ready to see Ice!

Shrek the Halls : ICE at the Gaylord

For those of you who don't know what ICE is, it is an annual event at the Gaylord hotel in which they bring in men from northern China and they sculpt millions of pounds of ice into shapes.  Our first year was the Grinch, last year Charlie Brown and Snoopy.  This year we had "Shrek the Halls".

The boys hanging out with Daddy while we waited in line.

Here is my favorite shot of us - right before we went into ICE and froze our little booties.

As they keep the temperatures at freezing or below, they give us big blue parkas.  They keep us warm, but they sure don't do much for your figures ladies hehe. 

(our Elf on the Shelf, Flynn, gave KK and AJ some new winter hats and scarves for our adventure today.. he is so thoughtful)...

After a slight wait, we were in sub zero temperatures and enjoying the amazing work of those craftsmen.  Everything looked just like the movies!  We did have a group shot that the hotel took and I did purchase.  Here is the scanned version, not the greatest quality but our only group shot.  I love it, we are all happy and smiling... and we look like fat smurfs.  Party on!

They weren't small sculptures ~ see our sizing chart using AJ and Daddy he-he.

A group shot of our cousins with Shrek

Family shot!

Lol - Shrek apparently hid in the outhouse in the movie.  So they not only had a real life size example in Ice, they allowed you to sit and try it out.  The girls thought this was hilarious... We didn't take many pictures of the other characters or of the kids, they started freezing pretty fast and we did our best to enjoy the sites and take it all in, while trying to keep the kids as warm as possible.  It was a lot of fun and we can't wait until next year to see what they do next!

Our cousins were brilliant and booked a reservation for lunch following ICE.  We warmed up with some yummy Mexican lunch and good conversations.  Afterwards, we parted ways for a little while so naps could happen for the littlest one (and his daddy, lol cuz).  We took our kiddos to visit a man in a red suit... I think you know him:

Visit to Santa

More on this on my next post... this was KK standing in line waiting patiently for her turn :-)

Gingerbread Cookie Decorating

As we did last year, we returned to let the kids decorate homemade gingerbread cookies with icing and candies.  The kids had a lot of fun picking out just the right candies and doing the icing themselves.  AJ wasn't as picky as KK, his goal was to eat it as soon as possible.  KK went for a more of an artists approach, as is her nature :-)

Search for Santa's Reindeer

GK and KK were adamant that they were going to search for all of Santa's reindeer's that were dressed up and hiding throughout the hotel.  If you have ever been to the Gaylord, you know that there is a lot of ground to cover!

Comet & Cupid

We loved Cupid: the domestic engineer... so adding that to our resumes :-)  We had to snap a shot of that with the best domestic engineer I know!

Hmm... why can't I remember all the reindeer's names?  I blame exhaustion...

Dancer & Prancer of course

  

Donner & Bliztzen

And our favorite: RUDOLPH!

We ended the night in PJ's, snuggling a moment before parting ways.  Us for home, our cousins spending the night at the hotel for more fun.  It was a day of walking and we were all exhausted, but the memories and fun were worth it all.  We love our sweet cousins!  Spending time with them made it the Best.Day.Ever!

Sweet dreams cuz's!