WE just got home from a whirlwind weekend. Whew! We crammed just about as much holiday activities as possible in one weekend. Friday night was a very important night for any Disney princess fans. The kids had known for weeks that Friday night was the opening night for the new Disney princess movie. We just had to go. Let me say right now how much I LOVE reserved seats at movie theaters. Whoever thought of that was a genius! I got online Friday morning (was glad I did when I saw the theater has less than 4 rows remaining) and ordered our tickets. The movie was GREAT! The entire family loved it. I will say that the shadows (spirits) were a little frightening for Molly. I thought parts of it were a little scary for a G rated movie, but overall we loved it. Great story, great characters. I was very touched by the number of little black princesses that were there to see it. They were so cute in the t-shirts and tiaras. It was so sweet. You know, being Caucasian and our daughters having so many princesses to choose from to be their favorites, it made me so happy to see all these little girls so excited about a princess just like them. Elizabeth was very excited about the first African American princess, and so was I. A GREAT MOVIE.
After the movie we took the kids to Red Robin to eat. Red Robin is pretty new to our area and the girls had never been. It was fun. It just amazes me though how an entire fun-filled night can be forgotten over one lost scarf. Ugh. Molly left Elizabeth’s scarf she had borrowed in the theater. We had two crying girls the entire drive home. Joy joy!
Saturday we had big plans. This year instead of our traditional company Christmas party at our house we decided to treat our employees to the Christmas dinner show at the Opryland hotel. The drive up was going well until we heard a familiar sound. Chris and I looked at each other at the same time.
Flat. Tire. On. The. Interstate.
We limped off at the next exit and Chris quickly changed it. Unbelievable. The only other time since Chris and I have been married and have gone to the Opryland Hotel at Christmas we also had a flat time. What are the chances?! That put us probably 30 minutes behind schedule. Ugh. 30 minutes is important in Opryland Hotel Christmas traffic. WE along with the rest of our group were stuck in traffic. It took at least an hour to travel the last mile to the hotel. We arrived late for the dinner but did all manage to be served before the show started at 6:00.
If you have never been to the Opryland Hotel there is now way for me to describe it to you. It is huge. It is beautiful. At Christmas it is AMAZING!
Since we were staying the night we had plenty of time to walk around and take in the sights. The kids would not stop until we rode the delta boats. Here is the view of the giant tree from our boat.
And this was the view from the balcony of our room last night.
And then this morning.
Elizabeth took one of Chris and me.
Waterfalls and rivers in a hotel. Just amazing.
Before we checked out this morning we managed to find a little more fun.
I don’t know what it was about these horses, but every time we walked by them Molly asked me to take her picture with them. I finally did this morning. :-)
If you’ve never been to the Opryland Hotel I also cannot tell you how expensive it is. If you’ve been to Disney World that might prepare you, but I think it is still more. They have you captive so I guess they can charge outrageous prices for drinks and ice cream. I knew it was expensive from our past trips, but I don’t think we had a family of five back then. Whew! We did have a good time so I guess that makes it worth $35 for ice cream. :-)
Since we’ve been home we’ve already baked reindeer cookies for Stewart’s party at pre-school tomorrow and I’ve printed tags for his gifts. I will be sharing pics of those on my next post. LOTS going on this week with the kids and school. I will try to post frequently on all the Christmas craftiness we have happening!