OK, we didn't actually go anywhere but we have been too busy and too tired to post lately. From Christmas until tonight has been one big blur! We had a blast @ our girls night New Year's Eve Party, though we missed Mady terribly since she was with her dad.
Our cousin Danielle just left on the 3rd. I spent the next day trying to recover from taking her out and then Dom and I were able to spend a little time this evening alone.
I think I will try to post a slide show of the "ICE" exhibit we went to see with Aunt Jessie, Aunt Julie, and Danielle. It is an indoor exhibit of nothing but ice sculptures. Last year Jess and Jules took Mady and Niki so this year we took the boys. Mady was with her Dad and Niki stayed with Brother Bill and Pam. Luke and Ezra were over stimulated from the moment we walked in the door of the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine. The line for the exhibit was loooooong. Fortunately there was a plethora of entertainment for the boys along the way. Once we finally made it into the exhibit Luke and Ezra were ready to go home. The company running the exhibit provides warm coats to wear while you are inside, Luke and Ezra didn't want anything to do with them. Jules had to take Luke out after about 10 minutes inside with the ice sculptures because he was shivering. This was the first year I have seen Ice, as well as Danielle's and we loved it. We talked about how much work is involved in an exhibit of this magnitude. First a good portion of the Hotel is set aside for the Ice exhibit. It has to be kept @ just the right temperature for the ice. The hotel is cooled in sections. As you move in the line closer to the exhibit there are curtains drawn to keep the temperature cool, as you move through each curtain the temperature drops a significant amount. The ice is brought in as blocks and then the artists go to work stacking, chiseling, torching. The ice sculptures have to be touched up every day. I can't begin to imagine how long all this takes to set up. In the slide show there are pix of the boys on the train outside the exhibit. The Alamo and the little train village are not ice. The pinguins in the pictures are ice. I think most of the ice pix are slightly darker since any excessive lighting would melt the ice. Jess and Jules enjoyed it enough last year they were willing to pay the slightly pricey fee to experience it again. On the way home from the exhibit we stopped @ Taco Cabana and ordered 3 dozen tortillas so we could cook breakfast burritos. I think the kids working inside thought we were high! We were all talking in the truck and we couldn't get the drive thru person to take our order.
Apparently Danielle is allergic to...EVERYTHING! Jess has 2 cats and a short haired dachshund in her house and I thought we were going to have to take Danielle to the hospital! She was a good sport and stayed for dinner. Jess and I are so excited we have a cousin. We have many cousins but they are all Yankees living in Yankee land! We are already making plans for Danielle to join us for the summer trip to Galveston.
So did we learn anything? Me? I learned plenty about our family. As far as the kids go, I hope they learned something about what Christmas means to our family. They received so many presents I had to give some of them away. I also stashed some for surprises later in the year. They didn't seem to mind that I gave some of them away since they received so many. I love the holidays and I am sad it is over. Danielle and I can play XBox on-line and we have MySpace too but I wish she were here! Move soon Danielle! Can't wait for summer @ the beach! Aw, memories and good times.
