This weekend we took a BIG family trip up to Opryland Hotel to the ICE and SNOW exhibits. All 12 f us piled into my Granny's traveling van and make the trip up there together singing Christmas carols, laughing at Landry, and yelling at the driver(Laray) to slow down and take the curves a little easier b/c 5 of us were sitting in the floor of the van. Don't worry though-Landry had an entire seat to himself and was strapped in his car seat. We all laughed that he was the smallest one in the car and had the most room-but he is precious cargo so we had to take care of him!
The exhibit this year was The original TV classics "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" by Fred Astaire. This was perfect for me b/c that's one of my all time favorite movies to watch at Christmas and have watched it every single year since I was a little girl. Once we got to the Ice exhibit they gave us these huge heavy parka jackets to wear on top of your other clothes and jacket b/c the keep the rooms 9 degrees! Not only was it 9 degrees but they have the air conditioners running so there was cold air blowing in your face constantly. To say it was freezing is an understatement! I didn't know how Landry would do with it being so cold but we bundled him up as if he would going out to play in the snow plus the parka jacket they gave him which drug the ground. It was precious watching him walk around with his jacket dragging behind him. Bless his little heart one time he lost his balance-fell backwards and laid on his back like a bug unable to turn over. We got a good laugh out of it and he was a good sport and once he was pulled back up he was ready to go again. He enjoyed himself and even liked going down the ice slide. He was ready to go by the end of the exhibit and we ended up rushing through the last part b/c he was getting very cold.
After we left ice we shed about 3 layers and went into the hotel to eat dinner and walk around and look at the lights and let Landry ride on the escalators up and down abut 10 times. I would say this was probably one of his top 3 favorites of the night! He would get half way up smile and wave at me and say "Bye bye Momma!" If I would have know this would have been a favorite we would have saved our money and just went to the mall and let him ride all the escalators for free! :) It's funny how kids gets the most please out of the most simple and cheapest things!
This was my first time back to Opryland since the flooding earlier this year. They had done a great job of getting everything back to normal and unless you knew what the lights looked like on the inside all the previous years you would have never known that anything was missing. After dinner the party wasn't over yet so we headed back outside to go to the SNOW exhibit. They had an area filled with snow where you could build a snowman, roast s'mores over a campfire, see and pet Santa's reindeer Comet, play in igloos, and a snow ball fight area(which we stayed away from!) Comet was definitely Landry's favorite and didn't want to leave him but once we told him it was time for Comet to go "night night" he was ready to go and a much better sport about it.
We had a blast and I am SUCH a LUCKY girl to have such an amazing family that loves to get together and take big fun trips like this! Oh and on a different note Cirque de Soleil is coming to Nashville in June and we got tickets to go with Nana and Pops! So excited about this-can you tell I love going and doing things like this?? It's my favorite! I'm such a sucker for concerts, shows, plays, anything like this but especially when family gets to go and share in making memories with us!
