Sunday, January 4, 2009

Gaylord Palms ICE

The Saturday after Christmas we headed to Orlando to the Ice sculpture show they have every year at the Gaylord Palms hotel. We have been one other time a few years ago and thought it would be fun to go again. Let's say our trip was eventful as usual. We got a late start, which is nothing new for this crew. So of course everyone was hungry , but all the drive thru restaurants were done with their breakfast. Someone mentioned Sonic serves breakfast all day, so we thought great! There is one at the Fort Pierce exit off the highway so we opted for that route. Of course as luck would have it, we hit a horrible accident just up the highway just past the Stuart exit. This was right beside the rest area where we got stopped. As we sat in traffic for at least 45 minutes, my wonderful husband decides he just wants to try and kill us all and so we decided to try 4 wheeling. He did a u-turn on the interstate and we drove the wrong way on the berm of the road until we got to a turn around where most of the cops sit I think. Well it wasn't long until we had some followers. We crossed over the highway and went back to the next exit and got off and headed out another way. Let's just say we were having an adventure.
Well we finally make it to Sonic, order our food. And as we get our food one of the drinks was a large grape Limeade. Well, the bottom busted out of the cup as it was put into the cupholder, so we had a wonderful mess to clean up. Let's say adventure # 2 was fun! We cleaned up the mess, ate our nasty food(not impressed with the breakfast at all) and we were on our merry way. We did pass about 3 more minor accidents along the way, but finally made it to the hotel.











This is a picture of the outside of the hotel. Beautiful place!



The Ice show is made up of alot of Ice and they keep it a frigid 9 degrees. So coats are required. We took our own , but most of us opted to also wear one of the blue parkas they give you. So with both coats on it wasn't bad. But it did make us look rather large.These coats help you slide better when you go down the Ice slides at the end. We all did it, and it was rather fun! I did see a few people in shorts and flip flops going through in our group. What crazy people!






Afterwards we stopped at Krispy Kreme for some yummy doughnuts. Ours closed in our area, so we don't get them alot because they just aren't as fresh from the gas stations or the grocery store in the pre-packaged boxes. But they'll do in a pinch.
We grabbed 3 dozen so we could have some for Breakfast Sunday morning. Rod was happy when he came out!


Friday, January 2, 2009

Christmas lights

The day after Christmas we loaded 2 vehicles to accomodate our family and friends and headed toward Palm Beach Gardens to check out the lights. One of the neighborhoods usually decorates alot with each street usually having a theme they do. But it didn't seem like there was much participation this year. There is also another street with pretty much 100% participation and they go all out. We tried to take a few shots, but night pictures just aren't our thing. So hopefully you can get some idea what it looks like.