ICE and SNOW

J and I took the boys to ICE and SNOW at the Gaylord Palms Resort on Saturday.  If you’ll recall, J won two adult tickets to the event when he won the pumpkin carving contest back in October.  We were happy that J did not have to be in DC on our ticket date although the friend who gave them to us would have happily traded tickets with us if we found ourselves in a bind.

I took the boys to ICE last year with B and Steph.  While the event was awesome in 2009, I have to report that it has much improved for 2010.  Santa Claus was there, we were treated to steaming cups of hot chocolate, the boys were able to e-mail Santa their Christmas wish at kiosks set up in the hall…  It was all very neat and definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!

Many things were the same like the nifty blue parkas, the ice slides and amazing colored ice displays.  Nine degrees once again proved to be too cold for my camera.  It locked up after an hour or so of below freezing temps.  At least it worked long enough for me to capture some good pictures.

Perhaps the best improvement to the event was the addition of SNOW!  Wildman was thrilled as you can see!  Cutie Pie was feeling a bit under the weather and refused to participate in anything snow related.

That didn’t prevent Wildman from enjoying the powdery stuff with gusto…

It was perhaps the only chance that Wildman will ever get to go tubing on snow in Central Florida!  He had so much fun!

The cherry on top of our wonderful day came when Wildman won the hourly raffle at SNOW!  He played several carnival games for raffle tickets and ended up winning his pick of prizes when they called his number.  The prized husky now has a place of honor on Wildman’s bed.

I think going to ICE and SNOW needs to be a family tradition!

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Veteran’s Day Program

Last Wednesday, Wildman’s school put on a sweet Veteran’s Day program on the blacktop. It began with the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.  I absolutely love hearing a crowd come together to recite our Pledge and sing our National Anthem.  It makes me so proud to be an American.

The chorus sang songs from each branch of our military and asked the veterans and active duty guests in the audience to rise when their song was sung.  It was very touching to see how many wonderful service men and women we had in our midst.

It was about 1000 degrees out there and I felt sorry for the poor kids that had to sit on the hot pavement.  We parents and guests were lucky enough to sit in chairs.  Thankfully, the students didn’t seem to mind the scorching heat.

After school, we brought home two of Wildman’s friends for a play date.  Frosties, the park and the Wii- Oh, my!

Afternoon Bike Ride

Because I am vehemently opposed to letting my sons sit in front of the television playing Super Mario Bros. on the Wii all afternoon, I enforce exercise time after school.  Monday’s choice was a bike ride up to the library park then over to the elementary school playground.

Did you notice that the new driveway is finally done?!  J finished it off by brushing fine sand into the cracks and parked the boat on Sunday!  We’re so happy to have that project complete!

Monday was one of those days that Central Florida is famous for- sunny and mild with a cool breeze.  It was wonderful!  I decided to bring my camera along for fun.

How else could I show you a caution sign that you’d probably never see in… say…  Iowa?

We rode the huge loop around the soccer fields and stopped to do a few push-ups…

… and sit-ups.

Wildman wanted his picture taken with me which prompted me to consider changing my Facebook profile photo.

But before I could take a good self-portrait the boys had decided that they wanted to ride over to Wildman’s school playground.

We made it to our destination with little to no arguing over who was going to be in the lead.  That was a huge bonus for me because those two can argue like angry old men over it for what seems like forever until one is left in tears.

It’s great.

Real great.

Anyway, no arguing and no tears for that leg of our trip!  When we arrived Wildman immediately showed me his new skills on the swinging-handle style monkey bars.  He’s gotten so good!

Of course Cutie Pie wanted to give it a go.  Wildman insisted on taking a photo of me helping Cutie Pie across.

We hung out a little longer (pun intended).

While the kids tried to hunt up the biggest stick they could find, I attempted a new Facebook profile picture (such an interesting life I lead).  Not sure which one I like though.

We rode home with just enough daylight left to play catch with our neighbor across the street.  A good non-Wii afternoon, indeed!