Hilltop Academy - Thanks, Jay!!!

Dec. 27, 2007

Thanks, Jay!!!

Posted in family

I know I said I was on a break, but I forgot about something I needed to post....

Isn't blogging great?! Here I am, needing to send a thank-you note to a dear friend, and instead of letting just him know how wonderful he is to our family, I can do it on my blog for all the world to see. (Oh, okay, it's more like 50 or so people, but what-ev-er!)

Our good friend Jay gave us tickets to go see this a few days before Christmas:

At first I thought it was a skating show, but it actually turned out to be this huge walk-through tour-thingy. Apparently, Nashville is the only place that hosts this every year. The theme is always different though, and this year it was "Grinch." It's part of the Opryland network, and for this event they painted the entire building lime green. Inside, a team of Chinese ice sculptors created Who-ville with 2 million pounds of ice. It was very, very cool....in more ways than one!

This picture is the first I took, just inside the display. They keep it around 9 degrees inside and provide the parkas for you, which is a little gross when you think about how many people have worn them before you. I just kept thinking, "Lysol...they HAD to have used Lysol," over and over to myself. After about 10 minutes in the frigid temperatures though, I wouldn't have cared if Pigpen had worn the parka before me because we had hit 60 degrees that day and hadn't brought our own coats. It was c-c-c-old!

I was not intentional in my placement of my family in front of the "-mas," so that it looks like the Grinch stole Christ....although by this point in the holiday season, it certainly feels like it sometimes!

Here's our whole crew behind a huge frozen wreath...

And then here's the Grinch himself in his frozen glory...

Big D, at this point, was taking Annaleigh's advice and spitting in the air to see if it would freeze before it hit the ground. It didn't, but he thought it was dropping rather slowly, so perhaps it needs to be 7 or 8 degrees...?

Then we headed into the slide room where Big D and the kids waited about 20 minutes to scoot themselves down. You'd think ice would be more slippery...

While I was waiting for them, I found my favorite sculpture: all the little Who's tucked into bed. I don't know why it's my favorite. I guess I just like the idea of children being asleep in bed.

And then it was the "Vahoo, Vorhees...Vahoo Vorhees. Welcome, Christmas!" scene. Of course, I broke out into song, but then quickly realized I didn't know all of the words. C'mon...who does know the words to that song?

Lastly, we have the Who-Feast with the Grinch carving the roast beast.

Wait a minute....what's this? It's not over? Of course not! This is the Bible Belt afterall, and we of all people never overlook the TRUE meaning of Christmas...

Yes, just when you can't feel your toes any longer, you enter the last room to this breath-taking sight. They had the whole nativity carved in ice, and different portions would light up during the piped-in narration. It was a really nice way to end the tour....even if we were too cold to stay and enjoy most of the narration by this point.

Jay, thanks so much for the tickets! We had a great time! And thanks for faithfully reading my blog....it saved me $0.41. You're the best!

Oh, and everyone else, if you find yourself going through wreath withdrawals, click here to visit Arby's blog. He recently posted some pictures of it displayed in his home, although from the looks of it, he's playing "Where's Arby?" instead of "Where's the Wreath?". (In case you're wondering why Arby has the wreath, he once "insulted" it, apologized and then offered to take it off my hands.) Also, you can click here to read about lahbluebonnet's win of my contest and see a cute photo of her sportin' her new earrings.