Sunday, December 21, 2014

Stone Mountain Christmas

Last Friday night, we went to Stone Mountain and stayed overnight. Stone Mountain does a lot of fun Christmas things, but most are in the late afternoon or evenings and it's just too far of a drive to go at night and come back home, so we decided to stay at a hotel on Stone Mountain and then do Snow Mountain the next morning. I told Greg back in November that this is what I wanted for my birthday, but they didn't have all the things that we wanted to do offered on my birthday weekend, so we went the weekend after.

While the boys were in school on Friday, I packed and loaded up the van. Greg came home early while I went to pick them up and so we came by the house, picked up Greg and went to Stone Mountain. We checked into our hotel as soon as we got there, which is right across the street (walking distance) from the entrance to Stone Mountain. The boys were probably more excited about staying in the hotel than any other part of the trip. They LOVE staying in hotels. We checked in, unloaded the car, and went over to Stone Mountain. We got there about 5:00 and the Christmas parade didn't start until 6, so the boys played in the Great Barn until it was time to head over to the Christmas parade. The boys could seriously stay in this barn all day, they love it. There's three floors, with slides, things to climb, a million foam balls and tons of things to do.

The outside of the Great Barn, all decorated in lights.

The entire place was decorated in so many lights and it was so pretty.

We made our way down to where the parade was and found a place to sit. I brought a few snacks with me, so the boys ate some poptarts while waiting on the parade to start.

Carter is such a trooper about taking pictures. He's fine with me taking as many pictures as I want and will say "cheese" (even if he's not looking at me or smiling) as long as I show him the picture on my phone afterwards.

Greg and Evan before the parade.

Blurry, but I wanted to post some with me in it and I love how Carter smiled and posed with me for this.

The parade was pretty short, but the boys loved it. There was lots of music and dancing, which they really enjoyed. After the parade, we went over to watch Ice Age Christmas in 4D. There was a fire pit nearby, so while Greg held our place in line, the boys and I went over to warm up.

Evan wouldn't let me get a picture of him, but here's Carter in his 3D glasses. They remember the last time we came and saw a 4D movie, so they were very excited. Last time we saw something that was geared towards older kids, but this Ice Age Christmas was perfect. We actually own this movie and have seen it a lot. The boys got so tickled when we got splashed or sprayed with air. It even started "snowing" at one point, but the boys know that it's soap (they found out the hard way when they tried to catch "snowflakes" on their tongue at the zoo) and so Evan made sure everybody knew that it was soap. haha.

After the movie, we went to ride the train. They played Christmas songs and everybody sang along. There were some lights that were set up just for the train ride and there was a part where the train stopped to watch a show where a man told the story of Jesus's birth. The boys had so much fun.

Right before the train took off, I got some pictures.

Greg is a trooper about pictures too. :)


The boys started out sitting in the row in front of us together.

This is what Evan looks like most of the time. However, he has decided that he doesn't want his picture taken. he thinks it's so funny to make a grumpy face when he knows I'm taking a picture.

So, this is what he's been doing for pictures. He is such a little stinker!!! This was taken 2 seconds after the last picture. He realized I was taking a picture and made this face.


It started getting really cold towards the end, so Evan cuddled up with Greg and I cuddled up with Carter. It was so cute to see them singing the songs, I was surprised at how many they knew.

After the parade, you could go sit with Santa. Visiting with Santa at Stone Mountain was actually named one of the top 10 places to see Santa in the US by USA Today! We had decided that if the line was long, we'd skip it, it wasn't that big of a deal. And the line was SO long after the parade. But, after the train ride, when we were walking back through the park, we passed Santa's workshop and there were only 2 people in line, we went over there and let the boys talk to Santa. You're allowed to take pictures with your cell phone, so I got some pictures and they got to tell Santa what they wanted. They were not shy at all, they didn't hesitate to go sit on his lap and both boys told me that this was definitely the real Santa! haha.

It's funny how Evan smiles sweetly for Mommy when he's sitting on Santa's lap. He must be making sure Santa sees that he should be on the "nice" list.

They were just so cute with him. It was so cold and late and we were all so exhausted, but I'm really glad we ran over there. We got so lucky to be able to do this without standing in a super long line.

Evan telling Santa about his list. I think both boys are going to be very excited on Christmas morning when they find out that Santa listened to them.


The little "town" on our way back to the hotel. I loved how all the trees were completely covered in lights.

We went back to the hotel and all three boys went to bed. We were all exhausted. There were Christmas fireworks at 8:45 that we could see from our hotel, but all three boys were asleep at 8:25. :)
 

1 comment :

  1. Oh my goodness! That looks like SO MUCH fun!! I wish we had something like that near us!

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