Christmas Eve - December 24, 2009
Gaylord National Resort is a hotel located on the Potomac River in Maryland. There was lots to see -- including the lighting of a glass Christmas tree inside the hotel, a model train exhibit, and a water fountain show put to music.
The harbor was aligned with boats, and the community Christmas tree was center stage -- it was over 100 feet tall. Santa showed up on a jet ski, but so did the Grinch -- Santa dumped the Grinch.
"ICE" was a life-size ice exhibit at the resort. It included 2,000,000 pounds of ice covering 15,000 square feet of space. A team of 40 sculptors from China spent 40 days sculpting and coloring everything from Santa's workshop to a penguin village to a castle complete with ice slides (which the kids LOVED). Inside it was 9 degrees, which required all visitors to wear the special blue jackets seen in the photo above.
Andrew and Gracie and one of the many ice sculptures.
Daddy and Andrew ice skating in the rink outside the ice exhibit. Both Gracie and Andrew loved their first experience on ice -- they got better and better as the day went on -- just as Daddy's back got worse and worse from holding them up. We had fun.