Gaylord ICE

We had a great day celebrating Christmas with the Sook family last week - we headed to The Gaylord Texan where they have an incredible Christmas display made all of ice. This year the theme was The Grinch and it far exceeded my expectations and was a huge hit with both girls!

The whole hotel is so beautifully decorated - just a photo op waiting to happen!

Before we headed to the main attraction, we checked out a Gingerbread House store where we all got together to make a masterpiece! Meredith and I had already made one at home, but she was super excited to get to make another "Benjerman House" again especially with Laura, Victoria, and PJ to help! I loved it because it was all the fun without the mess to clean up at my house!

Meredith was very excited to get to sit in Vic's lap for the decorating - she loved having us put icing on Vic's finger to use for glue and on hers for tasting. Notice PJ's finger in the front of the pic - he tried desparately to give our house a satellite dish, unfortunately it didn't cooperate too well.
The decorating team with our creation
And the final product - if you look on the far right, you can kind of see what Meredith and Vic worked on most of the time - a sled with a green elf. There is also a porcupine in front of that thanks to Miss Meredith - because what Benjerman House is complete without a porcupine?
Aunt Sandy and Jillian cuddling to keep warm in the 9 degree temps inside the ICE exhibit. Jillian was quite content to be snuggled right next to Aunt Sandy and just peek out to see all the fun.
Meredith LOVED the slide made out of ice - she would have gone down it all day if we would have let her. She did make me promise we could go back and do it again next year.
Meredith looks slightly terrified in this picture, but was actually loving it the whole time. How cool is it that the whole Grinch is made of ice?


No one could resist the train set up at the end of ICE. If you know the Sook family, you wouldn't be surprised to know there was a breakout of singing. PJ just starred in his HS production of White Christmas so everyone re-enacted the train scene from the show. Very fun!