ICE! at the Gaylord Palms resort

Andrea reserved a room for us at the Gaylord Palms for the weekend in Orlando and also purchased some passes to see the ICE! exhibit. Saturday morning, we got up and did some shopping at the outlet mall, then ate lunch and returned to the resort. We saw a bunch of cars pulling in to the resort for the ICE event, so we decided we'd better go do it before it got too busy. By the time we arrived, it was already super crowded. There was a long winding line to get in, but thankfully the tickets Andrea purchased allowed us to skip the lines and go straight to the spot where they were handing out the enormous blue overcoats. We put on our coats, took a picture in front of a greenscreen (which they later photoshopped together) and then we were eventually let in to the 9 degree ICE hall. Everything inside was setup to tell the story of the night before Christmas and there were huge colored ice sculptures everywhere. It was uncomfortably crowded at first and hard to get any pictures near anything, especially since I only had my 50mm lens and no wide angle. 

After going through and looking at things for about 5 minutes, Paige was done. She was shivering, sniveling, and shaking. Connor didn't seem to mind it at all. I kept having to tell him to put his hood on to keep his warmth in. We got to a big open area with 4 ice slides and decided we'd wait since the lines didn't look too long. Unfortunately looks can be deceiving.

Paige was too short for the big slide, so when we got about halfway up she went down the kiddie slide. Then, Connor and I had to wait about 15-20 more minutes until we had our turn at the top with the big slide. For some reason people were taking forever with the whole thing. The ice slide wasn't particularly slippery and I actually had to use my feet to scoot my way down. Poor Paige and Mommy were down at the bottom freezing their booties off and we didn't think the slides were really worth the wait.

After the slide area, we saw the most uncrowded and pretty sculptures in the area. This area was almost deserted because by the time most people were done waiting on the slides they were too frozen to stick around and look at anything else.

We snapped just a few pictures of some of the colored pieces, but the nativity scene and angels, made out of crystal clear ice, got skipped because we were just too frozen to wait around any longer.

Finally, we left the ICE hall and were able to warm up. We waited in another line to do a gingerbread house and I snapped a pic of the kids on the big ICE! sign.

The gingerbread house decorating was very fun and easier than we'd expected. The house itself came pre-assembled and we just got a kit filled with icing and candies and we stuck everything to the house together. Connor and Paige both ate some of the good candy and we stuck a bunch of pieces all over the house. We did have to decorate and assemble the chimney, which was pretty complicated. I think Andrea and I enjoyed it the most and we did the majority of the work.

We took our masterpiece back to our room, then went on an "Elf on the Shelf" scavenger hunt around the property. They had hidden Elves all over with very ambiguous and confusing clues to help you find them. The clues were often vague and referred to parts of the sprawling property with words like "lagoon", which weren't marked anywhere on any maps and could refer to many of the water features. We cheated and asked some other people, but many of the other people were even more confused than we were. Andrea and I ended up doing most of it ourselves, although we did make Connor do some of the reading and problem solving too.

It really was a nice excuse to wander the property and see everything. The resort is much bigger than we'd expected and it was definitely well kept and beautiful.

After we got done with our scavenger hunt, we ate at the sports bar that was on property and then watched "Home Alone" like we do every year. Paige and Andrea drifted off to sleep, but Connor and I watched it all. Mommy did wake up for the ending, but I don't think my Paigie watched even half of it this year. It was a fun day and made us excited for Christmas!

Mickey's Christmas Party 2015

As we have for the last few years, we went to Mickey's Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom shortly before Christmas. This year we were a little worried it'd be a mess since the forecast had called for a 90% chance of rain on Friday, December 18th, when we were planning to go. Thankfully, as we drove down, the rain moved off to the East and by the time we were in Orlando it was barely sprinkling. We stopped at Uno's for a late lunch or early dinner. A nice lady came around and made some cute balloons for the kids. Connor wanted a doggie and Paige got a very cute Princess Belle.

We arrived in the park a little before dark and didn't take many pics at all right away. We tried to avoid some of the crowds and played at Dumbo for a while and got some snacks. We brought the gigantic double BOB stroller and it was nice to hold both kids comfortably.

 

It got a little chilly while riding the People Mover, so the kids put on their gloves and snuggled up. We rode it twice, back to back, and the kids enjoyed screaming and acting crazy since nobody else was on our train with us.

Connor drove with me and Paige drove with Mommy on the car ride.

 
It was a super special trip to Disney this time because Paige was finally tall enough and Connor was finally brave enough to ride the Snow White rollercoaster. It is pretty much impossible to get a picture on the ride since you are in a hurry to board when it's your turn, so no pics unfortunately. The line is sometimes 90-120 minutes long and we were happy to only wait 30 minutes the first time through. When we got done the line looked noticeably shorter, although the sign now said there was a 40 minute wait. We decided to try anyways and it was only an 18 minute wait, which was the best we've seen since the ride opened. The kids both loved the rollercoaster. The cars lean in to the curves and it's so smooth and new it doesn't bounce you around too much even when it's going its fastest.

 
We didn't end up staying too late. Surprisingly our night-owl Connor was feeling sleepy and by the time we were on the Monorail he fell asleep.

It was another fun Christmas Party at Disney, and we're glad the weather cooperated and everyone had so much fun. On the way out of the park, they were shooting "snow" in to the air and it made for a pretty picture by the tree.

Shawn's Ultimate Tennis 3.0 level championship game

On Sunday, I played for the Men's singles Ultimate Tennis 3.0 level championship.

This was my second season doing Ultimate Tennis and it's always a pain in the butt to get matches scheduled with other men that are busy with work and family. I was only able to get 3 games scheduled during the "regular season" out of 7, and my record wasn't a very good 1-2. I improved quite a bit by the end of the season and since most of the guys in the league weren't available to play in the playoffs, I got the #4 seed spot although I was ranked about #8 or #9 overall. Right after Thanksgiving, I played against the #1 player who was 6-1 and won so I was scheduled to play against the #2 player on Sunday.

Andrea came back from her girls' weekend a bit early, so she came to the match to watch. The weather was pretty stinking hot out and I was a little nervous getting started because Andrea was watching and because my opponent brought five family members to watch him play. I had actually played him earlier on in the year and he'd beaten me 4-6, 6-4, 4-6. I didn't expect to win, but started off pretty well and won the first set 6-3. The second set started a little rough and I lost it 3-6. We took a break after the second set and I took a little time to talk to Andrea. She gave me some important pointers and gave a few suggestions on different strategy. Importantly, she noticed I was too far up in the court much of the time and was taking a number of balls to my feet. I adjusted my game and won the third set 6-0.

I was pretty thrilled with the win and it was a nice validation that my tennis game is improving.

Melbourne Girl's weekend trip

Andrea went away for the weekend with some of her tennis friends last week.

Dawn, one of her friends, is moving to Australia and a group of them went to their friend Tara's beach house to celebrate together and play some tennis. They did a tennis clinic on Saturday morning and enjoyed their time with Dawn.

Daddy time while Andrea is out of town

This past weekend I got to spend a lot of time with the kids. Andrea was out of town with some girlfriends and I decided to let the kids make a lot of choices. I told them that they each got to pick one place to eat for the weekend. On Friday night, Connor picked Burger King. Danny and Logan were over playing with us when it was time to leave, so I took them with us. They loved eating there and playing in the kids play area.

Paige had fun playing outside with friends too. Olivia, Megan, and Julia were out quite a while and we spent a lot of time outdoors with everyone.

On Friday night, Connor got to have a sleepover with Logan. Logan is always a good kid and he enjoyed spending Saturday with us. We went shopping for Christmas presents at Toys R Us and ate lunch at Town Center. The kids picked out some gifts to buy each other, and we picked up some gifts for Mommy and family.

That evening, I let Paige pick dinner and she decided on Papa John's Pizza at the park nearby. We took her "Gingy" project with us and took some pictures. "Gingy" is a girl gingerbread person and we had to do some activities with Gingy for Paige's Christmas project.

It was a fun weekend with the kids, and the enjoyed getting to pick their activities. It was nice to have Andrea home again on Sunday! It would be tough to be a single parent!