Peppermint Park

On Monday before Christmas Eve, we surprised the girls & went downtown for the afternoon. We ate lunch somewhere new & then we made a pit stop at:

That's not actually where we were surprising them, but it was across the street so stopped in for a moment. Why? Because almost 16 years ago that's where we had our wedding reception! The girls thought it was so neat to see the hotel & the ballroom where we celebrated:

Isn't it fun when your children become the photographers?!

Finally we headed to our main destination across the street:

Every year we try to do something new around town & this year we went to Peppermint Park:

We got there early because we were afraid it would be crowded but thank goodness it really ended up being a nice evening - perfect weather & not too crowded at all. As soon as we walked in, look who we saw:

They were just a little bit excited! Then we headed around to check everything out. First up, the snow globe:

Then they painted an ornament:

played putt putt golf:

In case you are wondering, yes, Sadie did score a hole in one that's why she is holding up a 1!

Once the sun started to set, it was so nice outside & we let the girls make s'mores while we waited for the tree lighting:

That's us again with our hotel in the background:

Sadie was so excited to do her first escape room with a couple of other kids, but Sophie wasn't old enough. Apparently they had 15 minutes to escape from the room or they would be stuck on Santa's naughty list:

Thank goodness they made it out in 13 minutes!

While she was doing that, Sophie waited in line to get her face painted & Santa came to visit with her again:

Finally the girls decorated sugar cookies at Mrs. Clause's village:

It was the perfect way to spend the night before Christmas Eve as a family together! The girls had a lot of fun but Bryan & I realized that they might be getting a little old for this kind of stuff. Thank goodness we have done most of these around town. 

On our way home, we had one last surprise:

We drove through Vitruvian Park to see the Christmas lights. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the trees reflect off the water & it is beautiful! I love all of the colors!