Celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving. Ugh, I know.

Saturday we had more big plans.  Travis had to work that morning.  Aiden and I took it easy at home.  We played outside for a while and I folded some laundry.  I got him to take a nap on his own.  It took almost 45 minutes, but that's better than an hour!

When Aiden woke up, we played for a bit, then got ready to go out.  We went to Galveston for the Moody Garden Festival of Lights opening day.  I've been in the past and was really disappointed.  I thought they would decorate Moody Gardens with lights.  Instead, they have various shapes wrapped in lights, including Christmas items, safari animals, underwater animals and more.  I'm assuming those non-Christmas decorations are supposed to represent the two pyramids at Moody Gardens: the Rainforest and the Aquarium.

Since it was opening day, there were various additional attractions.  There were two small reindeer for the kids to gawk at...  

Then Santa sailed in on a parachute with two of his elves...

Interesting life...

We went with lots of friends:  The Ramby's (minus Chris, plus Alexa's mom), the Yeager's and the Yeager's friends that we've hung out with a few times.  I really like them.  They're fun-loving people who like to joke around.  My kind of entertainment!

After Santa landed, we couldn't see him very well over all the people.  There were SO MANY PEOPLE.

Aiden says, "Where's Santa?"

After an hour of waiting, Santa flipped the power switch and all the lights in the park lit up.  We were already in line by this point because there were SO MANY PEOPLE.

As disappointed as I may have been by the lights last time I enjoyed it so much more with Aiden.  He is so amazed at everything.  I love watching the wonder through his eyes.  At the end of the lit path, there was a fenced in area with snow!!  Next to the palm trees!  Without a coat, hat and mittens!

You had to pay $6 cash to enter the snow area.  We only had $5 left, so we told Aiden we couldn't do the snow.  He looks up at us with those big blue eyes and says, "But snow, Mommy.  Snow!"  I was immediately digging in my purse for a dollar's worth of change.  

Aiden slipped and fell while walking into the enclosure.  He was a little shocked at the cold temperature, so he started crying.  I told him it was okay, and when he stopped crying he looked at his hands and said, "Ice?"  Smart kid.  After I coaxed him back into the enclosure, with a little help this time, he really enjoyed himself.  Since adults weren't allowed in, Aiden waddled over to where we were standing near the fence and Travis tossed him a few snow balls.  Then Aiden threw them back.  He was so excited.  It was adorable.  We had to keep yelling at him not to eat the snow.  

"There won't be any snow left if you eat it all!"