Gaylord Vacation

With Grant's crazy summer work schedule we thought as a family we could use a break and some time together. So we decided to go away (really it was just 30 minutes from our house, but we were away from it) for the fourth of July weekend. A nearby resort was a promotional deal going on to get people to come to their hotel and try out their new water park. The money was the right price and the water park looked like a fun idea so off we went. We have never been to this hotel so we didn't know what to expect. Because of the handicap pass we were able to get valet parking for the same price as self parking. Right there we felt like we were rich and famous. Well we proceed to take out our luggage and a very nice employee comes and helps us load our luggage onto the cart. We then get our care squared away with the valet person and proceed to take the cart, but then that nice employee said he has to stay with the carts and that someone would be up to our hotel room to deliever our luggage. Grant and I said Ohh, see we are not use to that. We are use to having to hunt those carts down or to take our luggage to our room in several trips. Grant immediately finds an ATM machine because you know you have to tip those people. A side note we didn't tip the valet person every time they retrieved our car, instead we tipped the lucky person that retrieved our car when it was time to go home. The hotel room was nice and fancy, the beds nice and soft, and most importantly they had HGTV I was in heaven. Other things that we enjoyed was walking around the hotel. Inside it is decorated to look like a mini San Antonio with a replica of the Alamo and a mini Riverwalk running through. They have lots of benches for people to sit and relax. Of course they have lots of restraunts and bars for you to enjoy a lovely dinner, if you don't mind spending what it would cost in two weeks worth of groceries. Because it was fourth of July they had a balloon man, Uncle Sam on stilts, and a golden cowboy that was made to look like a statue. He was so good at what he was doing that you didn't know he was real until you sat by him and he would say "hi" or put his arm around you. He scared so many people! Of course our kids were not interested in going anywhere near him. The only down side was that I got food poisioning that kept me up all night in really bad heart burn pain and caused Grant to drive around looking for a pharmacy that is opened at 3am. Because of said food poisoning I was able to stay in bed watching all the HGTV I wanted. We were able to go to the water park at any time we wanted and go swimming in their two pools that they had. The kids were in heaven with all the swimming fun they could handle. They were also excited because they were able to watch disney cartoons in the morning. The magic of a hotel. Hotels have disney cartoons, Mommy and Daddy don't; that is why hotels are a special treat to our kids. There were times that we enjoyed playing board games, working on projects, or reading books in our hotel room. It was a nice quiet weekend where we were able to spend it together as a family with no work or other responsibilities getting in the way.