Gaylord Texan

Mama and Papa decided a couple months back that they wanted to take the grandkids on a trip to the Gaylord Texan right after Thanksgiving. The Gaylord goes above and beyond decorating for Christmas and in one of their conference centers they have Madagascar Ice set up. Each year is a different theme but with both of our kids liking the Madagascar characters it was perfect! Friday morning Mama and Papa picked up the big girls and they started their trip to Dallas about 8:00. My mom had made reservations at the American girl store to get their dolls hair done and have lunch. They had a great time and Hadley and Peyton's dolls got matching hair styles. 

Matt and I waited until our late sleeper woke up and ate some breakfast and then the three of us headed down to Grapevine. We also figured it would be easier than taking Hudson to the American Girl store to terrorize everything in there! Hudson has NEVER been good in the car and if it takes more than 30 minutes to get somewhere he typically ends up screaming until we are forced to pull over. Thanks to his fairly new love of movies he did pretty well. We had to stop in Gainesville at the Cracker Barrel so he could run off some energy, eat, and buy a couple toys (cars) to make the rest of the trip easier. We made it in to Grapevine at the same time as the girls were finishing up and we all met back at the hotel.

The Gaylord was so incredibly decorated. There were Christmas trees and lights everywhere, props for lots of picture opportunities, and Hudson's favorite part....lots of trains. He spent the majority of the trip saying "choo-choo"and begging to go watch the trains drive around and around. Here is a picture of him when we first walked in to the hotel and he spotted a train. He was so excited to point it out to everybody.

After changing clothes and resting for a minute we made it back down to the hotel lobby to look at the trains some more before our "Meet and Greet" with all the dreamworks characters.

Hadley is always up for a picture (which I am so thankful for) but little man did more than refuse anytime I asked for a picture. This is the only good family one we got and as the following pictures will show, we got very few good ones of Hudson the rest of the trip!

Hadley and Peyton posing in front of the enormous Christmas tree.

After walking around the hotel for a bit we were off to meet the characters. This felt like a mini Disney World. The kids had an autograph book and after taking a picture and talking to each of the characters they received a special autograph in their book. Hadley loved taking all her pictures and was so excited about her first autograph book!

Puss in boots. Hudson was hilarious with all the characters (the entire trip). He was obsessed and wanted to see them at all times but didn't want them getting close. He absolutely did not want them touching him but cried to go back the second we walked off. He spent lots of time being protected in daddy's arms!

Alex, from Madagascar:

Here is just an example of Hudson screaming to look at Kung Fu Panda. Matt tried to walk off and Hudson kept crying for Matt to stand RIGHT here so that he could keep his eye on him.

Showing Mama his autographs:

Meet and Greet is over and it's time to head up to the room after a long day. The girls wanted to go swimming so I decided to stay in the room with Hudson and let him watch a movie and get in bed at a decent hour. Soon after getting Hudson to sleep the girls were back from swimming and quickly looked like this:

A fun first day!