Birthday Night at the Gaylord Texan

For the actual evening of Addie's birthday, we headed around the corner from our home to a huge resort called the Gaylord Texan.

Here's the birthday girl with her new "Annie" doll (from Little Einsteins) all ready to go!

Once parked, we walked inside, through the lobby, and into the atrium, where our jaws dropped. Since words cannot adequately describe this place, you'll have to just bear with me.

Please notice how small the people in the forefront of the photo are, to get an idea of the scale of everything. They're not kidding that everything's bigger in Texas!

That tree, that you see in the middle of the picture, was something like 54 feet tall. From the enormous ceiling hung sheets of sparkly lights. Wow.

Here are Addie and I, taking it in.

Beautiful lights and decorations everywhere, on top of the regular spectacles of a flowing river and two levels of restaurants and shops and more.

Greg and the kids in one of the bridges, finding our way toward the ICE exhibit.

What is the ICE exhibit you ask? Well, the Gaylord brings in expert ice sculptors from Japan every year, and they make the most amazing ice sculptures (colored ones, at that), around a theme, and put on a big display. This year's theme was Charlie Brown Christmas. It was amazing. But I have to say, my favorite part was the GIANT ice sculpture nativity scene at the end. It was marvelous! I am sorry to say that the camera battery died just as we were about to enter ICE, and we didn't get any pictures. So sad!