Annual Trip to the Gaylord Texan

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, we stayed a night at the Gaylord Texan.  Shawn's cousin, William, had told us they were coming in town and staying 3 nights and asked all the family if any one wanted to join them.  We had always talked about staying over since we go visit Santa at the Gaylord every year, so we figured this was the reason we needed to actually stay.  While they stayed 3, we only stayed 1.  Shawn's aunt and uncle and other cousin, Blake, also stayed. 

We walked around and took our annual pictures of all the Christmas decor and also with Santa.  Our room overlooked Santa and as soon as we checked in and realized no one was in line for him, we jumped at the chance for the kids to meet him and not have to wait.  Evan was very excited about showing Santa the list that he wrote. 

We ate dinner with his family at the sports bar and our kids had a blast chasing their little cousins, Abby and Addy.

After dinner, his Aunt and Uncle graciously offered to watch all the kids for a couple hours so we could have a few drinks with his cousins.  It was fun to catch up.

The next morning we ate the breakfast buffet at the Mexican restaurant and then while his family went to do Ice, we opted to take the kids tubing.  This was their first time doing it and they loved it.  The best part was that it was unlimited runs.  They got to go down 3 slides and had to exit afterwards, but then they could get back in line to ride again.  Since we got there early, the lines weren't bad and I think they ended up riding around 4-5 times.  This was by far the biggest bang for our buck while we were there.  We also did the scavenger hunt, which the kids enjoyed and was something we had never done before.

Overall, I'm glad we stayed since we had always talked about it, but I'm not sure we'd do it again.  Everything is just sooo expensive and I don't feel like the service is that great.  I think in the future, we'll go back to just making it a day trip.