After eating, Josh and Eli decided to let their food rest a minute while they rocked in the rocking chairs and looked for "hairpwanes" (airplanes) and since we were so close to the airport there was always a "hairpwane" in the sky.
Before we'd left E's house, I'd looked on the internet to see if there were any special events happening in his area that would be interesting for Eli. One thing caught my attention. The Gaylord Texan was having a Summerfest event called the Wonderland Adventure. A group of artists had created scenes from Alice in Wonderland using various media-sand, metal, balloons, etc. We'd been to the Gaylord Texan this past winter when we went there for ICE, so I knew that it would probably be great. Plus, it was completely FREE :)
They had a gigantic chess set there that you could play with, but no one in our group knew how to play. We're checkers people.
Eli loved watching the 'twain" but didn't understand why he couldn't go touch it. He kept saying "Get in" and putting his legs over the side of the gate to climb in. In his defense, he saw an older adult posing for a picture right next to the train, so Eli wanted to go in as well. That's why you should always follow the directions because you never know when little eyes are watching what you're doing!
The only way to get Eli away from the train was to show him this huge fountain of "wa-wa". We stopped for a family picture. I love the second one. Look at Eli's face, he was in the middle of saying "Cheese!" real loud when E took the picture.
There was lots of water in the Gaylord Texan, so Eli and Daddy enjoyed looking at all the streams and waterfalls. Once again, Eli kept wanting to get in so we had to keep a watchful eye on him because he would be the child to jump in.
Towards the middle of the exhibit, Eli was so over looking at statues of things he didn't know anything about, so we had to make it worth his while to stay with us. We found some fish to look at in a little pond and that worked for about five minutes.
Then we found some steps at another place and going up and down the steps entertained him for about three minutes. We attempted to get a card picture of both of us at the same time, but Eli wasn't having it, so it's just me :)
The longhorn intrigued him for about two minutes. He and Daddy named all the parts of the cow and practiced mooing like the cow. Eli wanted to get in and pet the cow. I guess we need a petting zoo so my child can finally touch something.
We found this incredibly cool looking tree and sat under it for a few minutes to rest and then discovered that it wasn't real at all. It was a replica that cost $250,000. WOW!
Our final stop and probably Eli's favorite of all was getting to see the big water fountain. We stayed there for the longest time watching the water go up and down. Eli loved it. It was very relaxing for us as well. Josh said that if he'd had a recliner he could have gone right to sleep. We finished looking at the rest of the Wonderland exhibit and then made our way back to E's house. We'd had a great time in Wonderland! On a serious note, if you are in the area of the Gaylord Texan, they always have wonderful activities and exhibits there, a lot of them free, so check it out. I always love going to this hotel when we're in town visiting. I'm hoping we get to go to ICE again this year!
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