ICE! at Gaylord Rockies

One of my all time favorite holiday events is back and I'm so excited to share it with you!

ICE! is back at Gaylord Rockies after a two year hiatus and this year it features Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the whole Peanuts gang in scenes from the beloved "A Charlie Brown Christmas" movie.

As the name suggests, ICE! is a holiday exhibition made almost entirely of, you guessed it, ice! The exhibition features ten scenes from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" made of colored and clear ice brought to life with twinkling LED lights and music from the original score. The sculptures are so intricate and the colors so vibrant that Mathilde was convinced they were all really made of plastic! Nope - it's ice, ice baby!

Ok, I just made myself cringe with that one. Let's take a look at some pictures while I compose myself!

Ava's Peanuts Birthday Party

This past weekend we celebrated Ava's ninth birthday with a Peanuts themed party on our roof top.

The past two years we've had incredibly rainy weather for Ava's party and haven't been able to use our roof top. This year, however, we had a beautiful, sunny day. Perfect for a roof top party.

The Peanuts gang make such a fun party theme - and gave me the chance to get a little creative! We had a Snoopy doghouse piñata, Charlie Brown cookies, a comic strip photo booth, Lucy's psychiatrist booth for photos (and bad advice!), Snoopy doghouse party bags, and Ava decorated her birthday cake herself with a drawing of Snoopy and Woodstock. How cute is that cake? I covered it with fondant and Ava decorated it with edible markers. Seriously, those edible markers are one of the best things ever!

Drop Everything And Read Day

Yesterday Ava's school celebrated Drop Everything And Read Day (D.E.A.R Day).

To celebrate, students were invited to come to school dressed as a favorite book character. You know we can't miss an opportunity to play dress up so the girls and I were pretty excited about this.

When I was a kid in Australia we always celebrated Book Week at school with a dress up day and a parade. Every year I see my friends' kids dressed up for Book Week on Facebook and I feel like my girls are missing out. Of course, we get Halloween which is much bigger, but still I feel a little jealous that we're missing out on the fun. So when the opportunity to dress up for D.E.A.R Day came up I jumped on it.

Charles M. Schulz Museum

Ever since our recent visit to Santa Rosa and our hunt for Peanuts statues (which you can see here) Ava and Lola have been obsessed with Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

Kim and I have been wanting to visit the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa for quite some time, so with the girls new interest in his work I started organizing a visit. As luck would have it, our visit to the museum was just in time for the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Celebration.

Santa Rosa Peanuts Sculptures

Recently we visited Santa Rosa, the Sonoma Valley city that was once home to Charles M. Schulz, creator of the beloved Peanuts comics.

In honor of Santa Rosa's most famous resident sculptures of Peanuts characters have been erected around town. There are two permanent bronze sculptures while the rest are movable and can be found dotted around the city. 

Ava and Lola are quite fond of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and their pals so we set out to find as many of the sculptures as possible. We were there quite late in the day (after our visit to Petaluma Pumpkin Patch) and the sun was starting to set so we didn't manage to find all of the sculptures but we did find quite a few.