Nashville with the kids (Day 1 - Opryland)

Magan and I have had two wonderful trips to Nashville, but both without the children. And although they were both very fun, we spoke on both of those trips about how much the kids would love seeing the Opryland Hotel.  Well, we usually go to the Space and Rocket Center each year the week after Christmas, but this year, we decided to go a little further and take the kids up to the hotel.  And we had a special surprise for the kids that we would be staying in the hotel.  At least that is what I thought when I made the reservations...then apparently forgot to click on the "Submit" button that finalizes the reservation.  Doh!  Oh well, the place was packed, and no rooms were available when I realized this the night before we were traveling up.  Luckily, I found a room at a nearby hotel, and it had an indoor pool, so we were set and that is fine for the kids.

And when the kids saw the hotel, they were shocked.  It was a surprise to them until we showed up at the hotel. Then they were in awe at the huge atriums.  It was fun to see their faces walking around in the atriums.  They loved all of the cool waterfalls.  Magan heard Davis say "Wow, one day I am going to bring my kids here".

And our next adventure at the Opryland Hotel was to try out their annual ICE exhibit where they bring in about 50 Chinese ice sculptors to create a Winter Wonderland made of only ICE.  And yes, I know Ice is cold, and it must stay cold to keep the ice frozen.  But in this area, they keep it at 8 degrees.  8 degrees!  Ok, I thought 8 degrees would not be so bad, we are inside, no wind, they gave us Parkas, they gave Ruby a blanket (Yes, we took Ruby in also).

So 8 degrees is not bad for about 5 minutes...but the line for the ice slide was about 20 minutes.  So Ruby was never going to make that so Magan took her out quickly.  I waited and tried to get some pictures of the kids as they came down the slide, but didn't do too well.  When they got to the bottom, they were ready to leave.  I mean ready to go NOW!   Haha...We did start heading out, but I forced them to stop and take a few pictures of the cool ice sculptures as we left.  Really neat, but that is not something I think anyone in our crew needs to ever do again.

After the ICE, we got to get into the warm area and meet Gingy the gingerbread man.  We also rode the boat ride that is approximately 1/4 mile all within the Opryland Hotel...How cool is that?  We left the hotel and went shopping at the mall for a bit, then for Davis, ate at the AQUARIUM restuarant.  It was really good food, and fun to let the kids run around looking at the fish while we waited for our food.  Magan had the Veggie Burger, and I was really surprised at how good it was.  Desert was the best tho, Cheesecake with raspberry sorbet...Oh so good.  We then made it back to the hotel, then down to the pool for some late night swimming...Oh yeah, this was New years Eve...Probably my first time spending New years eve in a Courtyard swimming pool.  And finally some sleep for we had one more day of fun in Nashville planned.