ICE

This past weekend we got to go to the Gaylord in Grapevine and go through the ICE exhibit! They do it every year but this is our first year to go. We walked through an exhibit with two thousand pounds of ice sculpted in to a life size town of Whoville from Dr Suess' book "How the Grinch stole Christmas"! It was bright and colorful and fun...and COLD!! It is 9 degrees in there!! They give you a big blue parka to wear and we brought hats and scarves and gloves. It is bearable for about 30 minutes and then Trinity started to get too cold so we got out. Fun times! We walked around the mall and then came home and played games...such a great weekend.

The Gaylord is gorgeous during Christmas!

We took a few pics around the hotel before we went into the ICE

There is a two story ice slide about half way through...

You know I had to get a picture of this cool ice cake!

There are a few classic Christmas ice sculptures..

Long December

Well,the end of the year flew by and I totally and completely forgot about the blog. Seems like I just cant keep up with it all. I do pretty well on facebook and Twitter because it is fast and I can send a quick picture or text of what the Bray fam is up to. Most of you are seeing it twice anyway when I post it on here! I am not totally giving up and will hopefully have more time to devote in the next few months to writing on the blog a little more. This year will have many changes, a few in which I am dreading (as we start to collect furniture for Christian's college dorm room in the fall...sob sob) and some that I am looking forward to. But whatever does happen this year I am enormously thankful for friends and family and being surrounded by support and love. I am open to whatever God has planned for us this year and pray his blessings on all of you!

So, here are some of our favorite pics from the past few months while we were busy..I do have to admit that most of them are from my phone. It is always with me and takes decent pictures so I realized that I took a lot of candid ones on it towards the end of the year.

Michael sent me this picture message, I love it!

Mustache Club

Stretching and bonding :)

One of these is a wiener dog and one is just pretending...

Mudding in the Go Cart!

Michael and I on the floor at the Muse/U2 show

Halloween Party 2009

My little sister still lets me put makeup and on her and do her hair and take pictures...just for fun...

Yellow Cake

Landry's Volleyball Banquet

Like Papa, like grandson? (my Dad is a good sport!)

Christmas

Georgia Bulldogs Bowl game

Bad News, Good news

The bad news is that we have neglected our blog. The good news is that we have not neglected each other!

These past few weeks have a been a blur...an awesome, amazing blur. Christmas was busy and wonderful and it hasn't slowed down yet!  When you are having this much fun, who cares?!

Here are some pictures of some of the things that kept us busy before Christmas..

Christmas Concerts (this one was awesome, thanks Lance and Monika for going with us!):

School Christmas Programs

Christmas gingerbread tree (we did a tree this year to mix things up a bit)

Here is how it came out...the kids did it all by themselves!

Christmas Cookies (I baked, they painted)

Not to mention Christmas parties, Ortho appointments, Cowboys games and my Dad coming in town for a visit. It was a little crazy.

We left on Tuesday to go to Louisiana to spend Christmas with my sister and her family. We ate, relaxed, played games, cooked, watched movies. It was so much fun!

The boys

The girls

The bigger boys

The Bigger Girls

Feeding the neighborhood ducks with Grandma

CHRISTMAS MORNING!

Naomi passing out the presents

Cajun Dinner with our good friend, Lance Carr and my sisters/brother in laws. (Christian is considered a grown up now so he gets to come with us!) (And he is giving a thumbs up....not what it appears, look closely!)

The Pranks (when my children are around, they are inevitable) (But funny)

Poor Nathan! He fell asleep first....