ICE!

One of the group outings on our Christmas trip was a visit to the Gaylord Palms ICE! in Kissimmee. There are several Gaylord resorts and they all do this ICE exhibit in Nov-Jan and it is amazing. They have special ice carvers that carve all sorts of people, animals, etc out of ice. There is a huge nativity scene, a carousel, and a Santa. I think they change every year and are different at each hotel but this one had an Eskimo theme. Oh, and it's 9 degrees inside. Yup - 9 degrees. They do give you coats to wear and we wore our own jackets underneath too but somehow I forgot the gloves. Note to self - don't forget gloves when going in 9 degree temperatures!

Here's the group of kids (minus the oldest) while waiting for our turn to go in.

All suited up in the loaner coats and ready for the cold!

The ice sculptures really were cool...get it?...cool.... It was so cool in fact that Alex started crying to get out after about five minutes. With people stopping to take pictures everywhere, it was kinda hard to get out quickly. Chris hurried him through the first part and then I hurried him through the rest. He just wanted to get to the warmth and the free hot cocoa at the end. So, a few of my pictures were rushed because we didn't get to stop and sit in the ice Santa's lap (random kids in that picture) and Alex didn't want to slide down the giant ice slide. (Zachary did this but I didn't get to see it - boo hoo.) Oddly enough on our way back to the rent house Alex said "Let's go back tomorrow". Um, no. It might be something to try another year though, with heavy gloves. Oh, and a tip for anyone planning to go with a group of children (I know it's too late for this year.). From the back everybody looks the same in those big blue coats. We decided that we should have brought colored scarves or something to wrap around the outside of the kids coats so we could easily keep up with them.





The hotel itself was also amazing. It had a huge atrium with a giant Christmas tree in the middle. We saw a crocodile and turtle habitat, there were bridges and plants, and fish ponds all over the place. We had a good time just checking out all the free stuff!