That's A Wrap

Family picture at the Gaylord Palms show Ice

Here we are at the end of the month and the end of another year.  Wow, where does the time go?  It's been a great month celebrating the Christmas season and a time for getting a lot done around the house and property.

We of course began the month with Christmas decorating, baking and all the preparations that are a part of this time of year.  I covered much of this in my last post.  We went to the annual presentation of Ice at the Gaylord Palms on the 20th.  We experienced this the first year we were in Florida when the theme of their show was Frosty the Snowman.  This year it was the Peanuts Characters and as usual the ice artists from Harbin China did an amazing job of creating wonderful scenes in ice for an enjoyable adventure walking around the frosty environment they're able to create in the convention center when they seal it up and drop the temperatures down to a freezing 9 degrees and their amazing winter wonderland is enjoyed by thousands who put on the blue parkas provided and wind their way around the carved scenes,

Getting ready to go into the Ice experience

Lauren and Hannah wrapped up prior to our receiving our big blue parkas

One of the Ice designs with Linus

The Ice slide with Lauren on the far left

Hannah just after her slide

Cameron came down so fast it's good they had the non slip pad at the bottom!

Then there's the ice slide.  It was here I froze my hand trying to get pictures of the kids as they came down.  My phone wouldn't take the picture with my gloved hands so I had to remove one to get the pictures.  It didn't take long in that cold before I couldn't feel my hand. Brrrrrrr!!!!

Charlie Brown and Linus - amazing details on all the scenes there

We added extra layers this year, we learned this after our first visit 3 years ago, still with our thin Florida blood and 9 degrees we were cold and really ready for a hot coffee or cocoa from the cafe at the end of the event.

After our time at Ice we drove to Disney Springs to walk around and then have lunch at the T Rex Restaurant.  It's a loud experience, but Uncle Bill hadn't been there before so it was worth trying.

This was the first time for the kids and Bill to see this area since Disney changed it from Downtown Disney to Disney Springs.  It was a beautiful day for walking around.

These cute penguin figures were part of the decorations 

I mentioned with Kevin's longer vacation time I would have projects for him and indeed I did.  I'll cover these in other posts, but the main project I'm thrilled he completed was replacing Hannah's horrible sliding glass door with a beautiful new window. He still has a few final touches to do, but the difference already is amazing.

We had a wonderful Christmas with Uncle Bill and Tarzan staying the night to be able to join us for our early morning start to the day.  It was great having them here and then Grandma and Poppie came over for Christmas dinner.

Uncle Bill gave us all Christmas T shirts, so we donned these for our family Christmas photo with Tarzan joining in

Another exciting event of 2016 is the news from my oldest daughter Amber and her husband Eddie. Both live in Oregon and called us to let us know we are going to be growing our family!! Grandbaby number one is on the way - SO EXCITED!!!

Their instagram announcement

Now it's time to take the decorations down and prepare to start the new year.  2016 has been a great and productive year for us and I hope it has for you all too.  From our family to yours, we wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2017!!