Last Minute Trip

Ian called me from work Thursday and said, "How would you like to go on a little trip this weekend? We would have to leave this afternoon." Did I mention it was 12:30 when he called? And by "little trip," he was referring to a two night stay at the Gaylord Hotel in Washington DC. Before Christmas he heard about this thing the hotel promotes called ICE! The hotel, in conjunction with Dreamworks, puts on a huge ice exhibit where they bring in skilled sculptors to create these massive Shrek inspired ice sculptures. We basically walked through this Shrek Christmas scene. It was pretty amazing. I'm not going to lie. However. It was also cold. Amazingly cold. My poor two older children are not a fan of 12 degree temps. (Not exaggerating...) It's a good thing the ice sculptures were amazing, because the trip leading up to that moment was not very fun. Not very fun at all...

Let me start from the beginning...

Ian called at 12:30 to ask me if I wanted to go. Um, yes?! DC?? I've always wanted to go to DC! We were packed in the van around 2:30. (Thankfully I had been washing clothes that day...) We arrived at the hotel around 8 and were in our room around 8:30. Being the "fun" parents that we are, we decided to take our children around the hotel to check things out. Mistake #1: Letting your young children two year old stay up WAY past her bedtime. Charis kept Cayman (and Ian and me) up until after midnight. It. Was. Miserable. We first tried letting them fall asleep in the same bed while we sat out on the balcony. Nope. We then put them in separate beds and stepped back out on the balcony. Nope. We came in and laid in our bed, thinking we could control her while we were in the same room. Nope. We finally had to put Charis in the bed with me, and Ian in the bed with Cayman. It worked. Eventually. Callie woke up about 2 hours later. I took her to the bathroom to feed her and change her because there was NO WAY I was going to wake Charis up after she had just fallen asleep. I was back in bed around 4:30 or so I believe. We quickly fell back asleep. 6:15am. FIRE ALARM GOES OFF. Oh my dear goodness. You have got to be kidding me. If you've never been in a hotel room when a fire alarm goes off, let me explain what it is. First the alarm goes off. Then this loud voice comes through the alarm system explaining to get out of your room and head down the stairs to the nearest exit. Then the alarm/message repeats about 10 more times. It finally stopped making noise by 7:00, and THEN they did the alarm AGAIN with a new message saying the alarm is dismissed. And then my sweet baby girl woke up to eat her early breakfast...back to the bathroom so we don't wake anyone back up after the fire alarm. AND THEN my other sweet baby girl's internal alarm clock went off at 8:00am sharp! Needless to say we were all a little exhausted that day. Mistake #2: Not researching ahead of time what type of convention is taking place at the "convention center" of your hotel. We arrived slap dab in the middle of a gaming convention. I don't mind people who like to play video games. Really, I don't. What I do mind when I'm on vacation with my young children is cussing. What else I mind...loud, obnoxious grunts that echo through the entire hotel atrium...ALL DAY LONG.... I also mind crazy, revealing, inappropriate outfits. Yikes.

Thankfully, after that first miserable night in the hotel room, the next day turned out to be fun. We drove into the DC ghetto for breakfast at IHOP. Then Ian took the kids swimming at the pool (which was probably their favorite part). Then we took a family nap (I think slept for a total of 45 mins...but everyone else slept for almost two hours.) At 4pm, we got to meet some of the Dreamworks characters. Then we walked to an Italian restaurant for supper. Then we walked back to the ICE! tent for our 6pm tickets to go see the ice exhibit. The next morning, we got to eat a Shrek Feast with Princess Fiona, Puss in Boots, and of course Shrek! We even got to taste yummy "swamp juice!"

When we checked out of our hotel room, we drove into the city to walk through the Smithsonian. But instead, we spent about the first 30 minutes driving block after block looking for a parking spot. Finally we spotted someone pulling out of a spot. Ian parallel parked like a champ (good thing I wasn't driving!!) We happened to park only 1/2 a mile from the Smithsonian, and if I looked out my window, I  could see the Washington Monument, and if I looked out Ian's window, I could see the Capitol building. How cool! We really enjoyed the Smithsonian...well, I really enjoyed it. Ian did a good job acting like he enjoyed it, but since that kind of stuff doesn't interest him in the least bit, he probably would have rather been sitting in the dentist chair. :) At least then he would have been sitting instead of walking around pushing a double stroller through a massive crowd of people! :) Our favorite part was seeing all the dinosaurs!

Once we got through that first long night, we really did enjoy our mini vacation! I'm so glad we went, and it was amazing to see what some skilled craftsmen can do with a huge block of ice! :) I'm sorry for all the pictures...But instead of wasting an hour trying to figure out a good website to use to create a picture collage, I'm going to finish folding laundry!