Ice! Ice! Baby!

"MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE...GIFT!" That is something you hear very frequently in the Dennis household around Christmas. We are here in Dallas, Texas and are having a wonderful Christmas Holiday visiting with Forest and Cheryll. Last night we had the opportunity to visit the Gaylord Texan. It is a massive hotel (Opryland style) in Grapevine, Texas where they were holding the first annual ICE. The picture above is an Angel completely carved out of ice. This is a picture of the exterior of the Texan. It is located somewhat out of the city and so it has a very country feel to it. As we drove up there was Christmas everywhere. Trees, Santa, Reindeer, Presents, Reindeer water skiing...you know, the traditional stuff.

Inside is pretty breath-taking. ICE is a walk-through exhibit of these amazing sculptures. They have to display it in a room that is 9 degrees so each visitor gets to sport these lovely golden jackets. Obviously Frosty doesn't have to wear one because he is made out of snow. We never knew it could be that cold in Texas but turn on the fans, shut the doors, build a crazy amount of ice sculptures and throw them in a beautiful hotel and you're walking in a winter wonderland!

HISTORY OF ICE CARVING IN CHINA

Ice Lantern Festivals can be traced back as far as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties of Imperial China. Five hundred years ago the far northern province of Heilongjiang had an indigenous population whose life was similar to the American Eskimo with one large difference. Where the Eskimos are sea hunters, the people of Hailongjiang were forest hunters.

If you ever get the chance to go to ICE you should do it. Forest and Blake even got to slide down ice slides (plus they gave us free hot chocolate). The rest of our holiday schedule involves relaxing, enjoying family, opening gifts, seeing Narnia and visiting Bekah's hometown church tomorrow. We miss all of our friends and family and we hope you all have a chance to remember the amazing gift of Jesus, as God came to earth to pay the ultimate price for our sins.

Tis The Season To Be Blogging!

We're finally here...on the web that is. Ken and Beth did it, Matt and Kara did it, Shaycam invented it and now we're jumping into it. So, we bring you Season's Greetings from our new home here in the North Bay.

It's been a month and so far we're still adjusting to the Sonoma County flavor of living. Things are definitely more...earthy up here but we love it. Last weekend we got to visit SF and see the lighting of the city's Christmas Tree in Union Square. We LOVE visiting the city.

Church @ Petaluma is doing great. We've had new visitors almost every week and the church is really starting to feel like a family. We just got a new trailor to store all of the church gear. The people love helping and getting involved. We can't wait to see what God's going to do next.

Blake finished school...finally. Now he has time for other things like....................updating websites and........other things. Bekah is working hard on finishing school and is learning how to rhetorically criticize everything.

We want to wish you, our first time readers, a very special holiday season. Thanks for visiting and come back soon!

(see if you can find the Blake in the Ball)