Christmas Festivities - Part 3 (Seaworld & ICE)

Delainey's last day of school was the Thursday before Christmas, but we all know those days are a waste of time so we decided to skip it and took an overnight trip to Orlando. The main reason we were going was to stay at the Gaylord Palms and do the ICE thing where there is a whole area that is 9 degrees with carved ice to look at and slide on. We still had passes to get in to Seaworld for free for all of 2017 so we figured why not do something else and its free! Seaworld ended up being the highlight of the trip for us all!!

1. Seaworld's Christmas party is included in your regular admission instead of paying for a separate ticket like Disney does which is $95. (Disney has gotten out of control!)

2. All of Seaworld's Music and shows had a Christian undertone to them. They played actual Christmas Carols, Did an amazing performance of birth of Jesus with real nativity animals, they had much better lights, a ice skating show, a Sesame Street christmas show, and we didn't even get a chance to see the Christmas themed Shamu or Sea Lion show. Everything at Disney is so PC that there is no mention or Jesus or songs that refer to him and they of course have every holiday advertised. The rides are all the same and all they really offer is a different parade and free cookies and hot chocolate. 

3. They had an entire separate Christmas area with carolers, places to meet Santa and his friends, play free games, and all the hot toddys, hot chocolate and alcohol beverages you could imagine. 

Seaworld sold us! We of course will still do Disney and love it during regular times, but for a Christmas themed park we will be attending Seaworld from this point on. 

Crazy lady sat in the splash zone at the Shamu show! 

 We made it back to our hotel around 9:00, checked into our room and called it a night. The next morning we dressed in our ski attire and headed to the ICE exhibit. We were able to stick out the 9 degrees for about 30 minutes which was pretty good considering most people are in and out in 10 minutes. It was cool to look at and the girls did the ice slide. Of course they were more concerned with trying to lick and touch the ice than actually looking at how cool it was that it was all dyed and hand carved haha!

 So after some hot chocolate to warm us up, we changed gears and put on our swim suits to enjoy the pool for a while before heading home. Delainey braved the biggest slide I have ever seen all by herself (the blue one) and Blakely and I swam around in the heated pool trying to not get too cold!

We will definitely be staying at Gaylord Palms again when we have time to just enjoy the pool and hotel itself. You could spend an easy 2 days there and never leave in order to see and do everything. It was a great girls trip and it got us all geared up for Christmas 3 days later! I will share another post with all the Christmas Eve, Christmas Day fun we had!

Christmas Festivities - Part 2

One Friday before school was let out, I let the girls skip school and we went to see the Nutcracker, but it was a shortened 1 hour version special for kids. This was actually the first time I had ever seen the Nutcracker and my opinion was: It was good, but 1 hour was plenty. :) The kids really enjoyed it but I could not imagine watching for 2-3 hours. We went out to lunch with friends and made a whole day out of it. This will be added into the list of annual traditions I do with the girls! 

 The next day we headed down to St. Augustine to see the Nights of Lights and eat dinner. It was madness down there and after driving through the singing Christmas lights 2 weeks earlier, they were less than impressed with the plain white lights everywhere. LOL I think it was still pretty! 

The next night we headed to Emily & Will's house where he drove us around on a hayride for Luminaria in the Riverside area where they live. 

Blakely had her Christmas performance the next night and she really rocked those Jingle Bells. 

 The crazy ladies attempted the polar plunge once the sun was finally shining. It lasted for all of 5 minutes LOL. I went to Delainey's little Christmas breakfast party on Tuesday. 

 And then Blakely's Christmas party on Wednesday where she met Santa again for like the 4th time haha. 

School was out on Thursday so the girls and I decided to do an overnight trip to Orlando to hit up Seaworlds Christmas party and stay at the Gaylord Palms to do the ICE walk through the next day. Part 3 will detail our trip to Orlando. 

Christmas Festivities - Part 1

December has been a crazy busy month and we packed in every possible Christmas activity we could think of, so I will be posting in 2 or 3 parts so the web browser will open with so many pictures! The day after Thanksgiving we changed gears to Christmas mode and off we went on all our fun extravaganzas. We started off by going to Jax Illuminations and driving through all the Christmas lights set to music. The girls absolutely loved this! 

Then I took Blakely on a day trip to Disney just the 2 of us to make up for leaving her behind on the cruise. It was so much fun spoiling her and doing whatever she wanted. We even met Santa and saw Elsa freeze the castle! I think Mommy/only 1 daughter trips should be an annual thing. :) 

We started off December with some tickets I won to have High Tea with Santa & Mrs. Claus. The girls really enjoyed having a tea party and especially loved being in the big blowup igloo. 

That evening we headed to Alicia's parents house to watch the Julington Creek boat parade, but I am pretty sure I took zero pictures. I was too busy trying to make sure no kids fell in the water. LOL

Then the next day we picked out our tree and decorated the house in Christmas decorations!  Dad did a fabulous job on our lights outside and I am obsessed with how they turned out.

 I had my girls Christmas PJ themed supper club and white elephant gift exchange. 

I had my 5th grade small group Christmas party

The girls made Christmas cookies with Gammoe

 We attended a live nativity at Crosscreek Church to remember the true meaning of Christmas and went to see the movie The Star which was so cute! 

And Dave & I went to an ugly sweater party while the kids had a sleepover! 

And this was all in just the first 15 days of December. Sheesh I am exhausted just listing it all out. No wonder my kids were misbehaving and acting like crazy maniacs. They thrive on schedule and routines and we clearly had none! Well there is part 1 for you!