Holiday outings and Santa

We love all of the things that living in the metroplex has to offer. When it comes to finding something fun to do around the holidays, the possibilities are endless. This year we decided to go to ICE at the Gaylord and also included in that was a snow tube hill! Collin and Eric did the snow tube hill and loved it! We normally would have gotten our tickets online, however, we decided to just get them when we got there. When we arrived we walked around looking at all of the beautiful decorations at the hotel. As we made our way to the ticket counter for ICE, Eric and Collin went to the restroom and I was just walking around with Riley. A group of people were coming toward me and asked if we were going to see ICE and if we had our tickets. I told them that we were going to ICE, but needed to get tickets. SO, one of the ladies handed an adult ticket to me and said, well, Merry Christmas! I didn't know what to say, other than Thank you so much!! Then, I assume it was the mother of the group handed me a parking pass. Whoa, what a blessing! We purchased the ticket for Eric and CC, Riley didn't need one, and went to do the snow tubing first. We had the whole place to ourselves!! Collin had a blast and had 10 runs. When it came to his last run one of the guys told him to go ahead and go 1 more time. Sweet! Another blessing!! We were humbled that day by the generosity of the people around us, people we didn't know. That is what Christmas is all about!

The theme at ICE this year was Shrek the Halls. The snow tube hill theme was Kung Fu Panda. Collin and Riley both enjoyed it. Riley did get really cold, despite the 2 coats, hat and jacket she had on. Towards the end she was just ready to go and kept saying, "I told (cold)". Collin loved the ice slide and Riley even went down it once. It was a fun day.


On another day we went down to Main street in Grapevine. Wow, they go all out on the Christmas decorations. It is so cool to walk around and shop when almost every single store has a huge tree out front, decorated beautifully. It reallly feels like Christmas when you are out there. They had all sorts of fun things set up for the kids. They had a super tall Santa on stilts, snowman and elf and they were playing games and giving out little prizes to the kids. It was cute!

I took the kids to see Santa at the mall. We always try to go early in the day on a weekday in order to get in quick. This year we only had a couple of people in front of us. Collin was so excited and couldn't wait to see Santa, Riley seemed excited too! She loves going to the mall and waving at him, from a distance. When it was our turn Collin walked straight up to Santa and Riley slowly followed. She stopped just before getting to him and kind of froze. Santa and I were both saying, "it's okay, Riley". I sat her up there and since her brother was there she was fine. She would glance over at Santa every now and then and check him out. Their picture turned out pretty cute. I was able to take a few of my own too. Santa took some extra time with them since no one was behind us. Collin told him he wanted the truck that shoots the balls (Smokey the firetruck).