Weekend Rewind - Grapevine Christmas

This Friday I was off (my 9/80 Friday), so I spent my morning packing, and getting ready for our Christmas adventure!

I went to Isabella's school at 11 for her Holiday party!  We ate pizza and cookies, made some Christmas crafts and then headed home!! 

We thought Danny would be at home ready to load up, but we were wrong!  He was still at the Dentist (3 hours later)!!  I finished up our packing and then headed out to get Makaila from school - and it was officially Christmas break time!!

Came home to find out Danny had some major dental work done that we were not expecting.  Ceci came over to drop off Alec - who would be joining us for our trip.  (His parents were coming up the next day - but he didn't want to miss anything!).  Danny headed out to fill some prescriptions and I loaded up the car and cleaned house a little before heading out!

At about 3 we were on the road!  Grapevine bound!! We made the mandatory stop at Buccee's, and $45 later we were back on the road!!  Dinner, drinks and snacks in hand...we made it to our hotel by about 7 pm, unloaded and headed into town to start the sightseeing!!! We took tons of pictures...

We brought the girls here last year at Christmas time (based on an article we read in Texas Monthly magazine) and we loved it - so we decided it would be our family Christmas tradition!!  This town really is the epitome of Christmas time!!!  I love it!!!!!

The small town stuff closes pretty early, so we headed back to our hotel and decided to walk around the mall for a bit (but sadly most everything was closed already - it was 10:30pm).  We decided to go try Steak n Shake for dinner!  It was great!!  We all had a pretty large sized shake!!

We finished up there and headed to the hotel for showers and bed!!  I had a pretty restless night! I had some unwanted gas pains in my belly and was having some pretty horrible dreams!  It seemed every time I tried to fall asleep I was waking up in a panic about a half hour later and just had a really unsteady feeling!!

I was tired the next morning but we all got ready and headed over to Gas Monkey Grill to meet the Ramirez's!!  We had a great meal there (food was fantastic), and then headed over to the Gaylord Texan to see the Nutcracker Ice!!!

I love LOVE LOVE this part!!  If you don't know what it is  - they bring in 30 China men to create  this village of ice sculptures that are phenomenal!!!  Complete with an ice slide and everything.  We took the tour and loved it!!

See for yourself!!:

That hotel is awesome!!  After our Ice tour we did a few rounds of snow tubing (Kungfu Panda style!!)  The lines were a tad too long so we only went up 4 times and then headed out!! We went back to Main street and walked around for awhile doing some shopping!!

We had dinner at Bartley's BBQ (Danny had seen them featured in the Texas's Top BBQ edition of Texas Monthly - so it was a must).  They did not disappoint!! The food was wonderful!!  Some of the best BBQ I have had, and pretty inexpensive too - WIN WIN!

We headed back to the hotel and some of us were too full to relax so we headed across the street to the mall to walk some of our food off.  We walked around for about an hour and then headed back and everyone crashed out!!

Sunday morning we all woke up and showered and headed out!! We decided to add on to our little trip by heading to Roundrock to see the giant donuts and visit the Junk Gypsys!!  (To bad the Junk Gypsy store is closed on Sunday!).  We made a  pit stop at the Collin Street Bakery in Waco, headed to Roundrock, for donuts and made it just in time.  We left there and headed to Driftwood, Texas for some more great BBQ and ate at the Salt Lick!!!!  It was delicious!! Again - we all ate too much so we decided to drive through Austin and visit the capital!!!  We left Austin and went through Bastrop checking out the great hill country and making yet another Bucee's pit stop before heading home!

Needless to say we had a wonderful weekend!!!  I am truly blessed to be able to make these memories with my family and have a husband who despite his flaws (we both have a few - LOL) is willing to travel the state with us giving him a headache and take us to see and do fun things!!!  Thank you very much Dan for a wonderful weekend and great Christmas memories with our girls!!!

LOVE YOU!!!!  And in case I don't get into the blog again before Christmas day - I want to wish you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS from our little family to yours!!

Remember that Jesus is the reason for the season! It's not about what you unwrap on Christmas day, but about knowing and accepting the eternal love he gives to us!!  It's about accepting and acknowledging his forgiveness, his acceptance, his love and his unwavering stability!!!  I LOVE JESUS!!!!!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!  THE LIMONS LOVE YOU MORE THAN WORDS COULD SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!