canyon lake

On Saturday night we checked in, got our stuff settled a little bit and then headed out to find something to eat. We ended up at this house/resturant. We thought, "most hole in the wall resturants are pretty good." This one was a little odd. It was like two starving artists from England decided to open a resturant (at least they weren't starving anymore). The decor was fun (lots of abstract art, some realistic, all original) and the food was okay. I asked the guy what they did for fun in Canyon Lake, his response, (in a thick English accent) "At 10oclock we all gather to watch the stop lights change". Awesome. Good thing we didn't come to Canyon Lake to be entertained.

Saturday night we knew they were having this North Pole Village thing so we went to check it out. It was really neat. There were all these little houses and each one had something different for the kids to do. There was a pet stop, a library (each kid got to pick a book to take home), a school house (they made a bell necklace), ice fishing (they got dove chocolate bars!!), elves house (you could pay $1 for face painting), a toy shop (each kid could get a stuffed animal), photos with Santa (for $7), there were people singing Christmas carols and there was food and a little church with a nativity as well. They also had a wagon taking people to see the live nativity (which was cancelled on the night we went). What a neat community event though! The kids liked it, but it was pretty crowded so we didn't stay too long.

"Enjoy this puppy here, because we're not taking it home" I said.

We got our photo taken with frosty!Then Micah was done. We got up and ready for church on Sunday with lots of time to kill. Drove to church, passed this road...at least the church wasn't on this road!We had a nice lunch at Carino's after church. When we got back from church we let the kids open some of their Christmas presents. Greg captured this before we got to the presents.We went and checked out what the resort had to offer. What a beautiful place it was.On Monday, we just hung out at the condo for most of the day. It was chilly and rainy so it was the perfect day to do that. We did go driving around a bit after nap time. We drove River Road and it was beautiful even though it was pretty foggy/misty. Tuesday we took the kids to the McKenna Children's museum in New Braunfels. This is by far the best Children's museum that I have ever been to. I will have to do a post later just about the museum but here are a few of my favorite shots from our time there.We then went to Greune and had lunch at the gristmill. Thanks for the gift card Jenny, we finally got around to using it! It was a great lunch but the kids were tired so we didn't "sit and enjoy" it for long.I captured these in the awesome natural light of the gristmill.Here's a view of the condo. The van got parked underneath the living room. crazy.A view from the kitchen of our condo.We enjoyed making cards. coloring. playing with new toys. making cookies. watching Charlie Brown's Christmas. climbing up the stairs. climbing down the stairs. playing monsters. and just being together! If you know me well you know I took a TON more photos than these here. Maybe someday I'll post more. But for now, there you have our vacation in a nutshell!