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Sunday, December 29, 2013

Christmas Vacation: A visit to the National Harbor

When we went to bed last night there was discussion of going to Arabian Nights today, but we decided that it was a bit too far and the National Harbor is closer and had several things that we could all do.  We decided to go there and see ICE.  This year's theme was "Twas the Night Before Christmas."  We were going to meet up with Amber's mom and sister.  While everyone else was getting ready it seemed like a great time to take some cousin pictures.
 The beautiful McElroy ladies


 kids and their tech toys

The elusive Finley smile
After a short drive (1 hour is short to us these days) we arrived at the Gaylord National Hotel.
We had time time to spare until we were able to go into the show so we explored the hotel and took it all in. It is a massive hotel and it was all decorated for Christmas, it was beautiful!  They had a kiddie train in the atrium that you ladies could ride, now it was not the polar express, but it did waste some time.

 all aboard
throwing pennies in the fountain
After wondering around the hotel we decided to go out to the National Harbor itself.  There are a bunch of stores, restaurants and things to look at.
They have this really awesome sculpture in the sand at the Harbor called The Awakening.  It would have been fun to go an walk around it, but the sand was so wet from all the rain earlier, we just looked from a distance.



They also had an "ice skating" rink set up at the Harbor.  I am using the term "ice skating" very loosely.  It was a plastic rink that you can skate on.  We thought it would be fun so you ladies and I decided to try it. The pictures might look like we were having fun, but I can assure you that it was not fun.  The plastic was really wet from all the rain and we kept slipping and sliding.  We will take you ladies real ice skating one day.




After our attempt at plastic skating it was time for us to go back and get in line to go see ICE.  It had been a long day at this point and everyone was getting a little tired and hungry so I got GIANT cookies and rice krispie treats for everyone while we waited in line.  We had gone to ICE last year with Nana and Papa so we knew a little about what to expect.  This was just as amazing as last years display.










They had the ice slide again and daddy took a video of the three of us going down.  Man it was cold.  Once we were though the display we were all starving, so we decided to stay at the hotel and eat at the restaurant in the atrium.  They had a very large buffet and we could watch the snow and light show that they did every 30 minutes.  It was a super fun day!  We have to rest up because we are headed to Washington DC tomorrow for a day and a half.  I wonder what adventures we will do while in the nation's capital.

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