A New Christmas Tradition...I Hope!

After we spent time with my grandmother, I had a special surprise in mind for my girls.  They have been a tremendous help to me these last 4 months as I launched my photography business. They have helped answer phone calls, gone with me on photo shoots, helped me package my photos, given me their input on new designs for cards and albums, and never once complained when I would need to devote some long hours to photography after teaching school.  They are the most precious gifts next to Jesus and I wanted to do something fun to show them how thankful I am for all of their help. 

Grapevine, Texas seemed the perfect halfway point between Tulsa and home...and I couldn't wait! I made reservations at the incredible Gaylord Texan.  From the moment we drove up, we were like giggling little girls.  Delight!  We were wow-ed from the very first glimpse of the hotel and all the way through our visit.

This was a girl's celebration for sure!  Here is Hannah calling Daddy to tell him that we might not be home for Christmas because we LOVE the Gaylord Texan!  The only thing that could have been better is if he was able to come with us....maybe next time.  If he is reading this, he is probably saying, "Next time?"  Yes, sweetheart, I was kind of hoping this could be a new Christmas tradition.  What do you think?

This is the magnificent atrium complete with a ginormous Texas star.  Oooh, the decorations were incredible!

I just needed all of these people to get out of my shots, ha!  It was super busy the night that we were there.  A lot of people were coming in just to see the beautiful decorations and to see Ice (I'll post pictures of that tomorrow because it is a post in itself).

Hannah is in love with Texas cowboys (we were just in Oklahoma, where she is convinced that only REAL cowboys live in Texas.  We saw quite a few Oklahoma cowboys wearing cowboy hats with tennis shoes and she would just wrinkle her nose. Ha!) so how cool that Santa is a cowboy here:

You know that I went to Baylor, so I am NOT a longhorn fan (did I tell you that we beat them this year?) but we liked this lady longhorn complete with shopping bags and her own cowbell (Saturday night live anyone?  Need more cowbell!)

We waited our turn to take photos in this beautiful antique sleigh.  My girls are precious.  You can't see him, but there was a little boy determined to get in the sleigh with them...he thought they were so pretty:

And just look at where Santa sits when he visits the Gaylord Texan:

I love this fountain full of poinsettias:

After our drive from Tulsa, we were hungry so we tried to eat at one of the many restaurants inside the hotel.  With the enormous crowd, the wait was over an hour at every place but we were told that we could be seated within 30 minutes at the Texas Sports Grill (okay bar and grill).  We were there for the grill part not the bar.  When I put our name on the waiting list, the girl checking us in told me that we could just find a place inside the bar since we were all over 21.

Excuse me?  I chuckled and said, "No, thank you!  She is only 13."  The cute girl, bless he heart, looked at Rachel (our 17 year old) and said, "Wow!  You look 21."  Hannah (our 13 year old) LOVED every second of it.  Rachel wasn't nearly as amused.  We found a place inside perfect for a mom and her 17 and 13 year old daughter.  And we enjoyed delicious food while watching a TV that is probably larger than half of our house.  Mr. Incredible would have loved it. 

After dinner, we enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful sights at the hotel.  We found a giant Gingerbread house, that smelled delicious, when we went inside we discovered that we could decorate gingerbread men of our own...so we did!

And we stopped to take a few mother-daughter pics beside the beautiful water fountain.  Rachel and I:

Hannah and I:

Then it was time to let the decorating games begin. 

No baking required, it was already done.  We just got to decorate, which is the fun part anyway:

And fun it was!

I don't quite remember what was so funny but we laughed a lot.  The other children with their parents were having fun but not nearly as much fun as we were having.  I was laughing so hard, I shook the camera, but I like this picture anyway:

Here are their final creations:

Rachel adores Ryan Reynolds, so she named hers, "Ryan."

Look out!

We walked around some more to see more beautiful decorations before heading off to bed.  We passed a dad who was being pushed in a wheelchair by his young son.  As we passed by, he threw his head around to look at us and then hollered to his son that they had just passed Taylor Swift!  Another dad and his daughters rushed up to us as we were buying some ice cream and nearly ran into us.  They too thought Hannah was Taylor Swift...and she loved every second of that!

Worn out from our fun adventures, we decided it was time for bed.  This is the archway that led us to our elevator and up to our room.  We loved our stay at the Gaylord Texan and hope to be blessed to return again someday. 

Before leaving for home the next morning, we got to see Ice which was awesome!  I'll post pictures of that tomorrow.  Ya'll have a blessed day!