Hotel CaliFarnsworth

Okay, so everyone KNOWS I am down for FREE fun! Ha ha! The other day we went to Bass Pro Shops with some friends. I admit that when I heard we were going there to see it decorated for Christmas I was LESS than thrilled. I mean, it isn't even Thanksgiving yet so it's a little early for me to do the whole Christmas thing. And then it's Bass Pro Shop. . .that's a BOY store. Actually I like Bass Pro Shop. I like looking at the fish and sampling their roasted almonds. But that doesn't take too long to do and then I'm pretty much done with the place and I overheard a friend say that we were going with that we'd hopefully be done before 6pm. What in the world??--that's what ran through my head.

We head out to Bass Pro Shop at 3pm. When we walked through the door I admit I was all smiles. The entrance is decorated so nicely! Then we walked into their "Winter Wonderland" and I knew we were going to be there for a loooong while.

The first thing that caught my son's eyes (Chloe went to a friends house to play instead of coming with us) was this Car set (pictured above). They had it all set up and were letting the kids play with it. It is a Nascar racing track. It is FAST. They had it at only half speed and it was quicker than anything I have ever seen. I couldn't get Doug to stop staring at it or my boys to quit playing with it!

Next, the archery center caught their eyes. Now you must understand that they have all these fun stations set up in the downstairs of their shop. Hands on toys that kids are encouraged to play with. The workers are all dressed up and passing out tattoos and stickers. The archery center was awesome! They had little taxidermy animals with targets on them. The bows and arrows were nerf type ones. There is a sign posted that says, "Shoot 3 and win a sticker!" Too cute.

Everyone knows that upstairs they have a shooting gallery for kids. You know the type. . .pay two quarters and shoot at targets like a bottle and then the bottle lifts up or whatever. . .well they had a mini set up downstairs that was free! You KNOW my boys were all over that!
Derek was in love with it all. There is a table set up with what I thought were coloring pages. We went to check it out. Yep, it had coloring pages alright but also Letters to Santa pages. An elf came right over and told us that if we filled out the letter (and mommy filled out the back) and if we mailed it at Santa's mailbox (right there) then Santa would email us back! Cool! Derek wrote a letter (I helped him spell some words) and then he wanted to color. He colored an entire picture and then wanted to show Daddy his letter before he mailed it. Doug took him back to the mail box to mail his letter!
Too fun! We also found out while we were there that Santa stops by every day at 5pm! Fun! Derek was soo excited! Since we were there still at 5pm we got to see Santa. Now we went on Monday night and this Winter Wonderland (paradise) only started on Sunday, and it was NOT crowded at all. We didn't have to wait long for Santa (we were third in line)! Oh, and they take pictures of you and Santa (as many different ways as you'd like--families, individuals, etc) and they print you out a copy (and put it in a paper frame) for FREE!!!

Of course we had to get one of the BFFs too!
While we were there we even ended up in their regular shooting arcade gallery to waste a few quarters!
The elves let us know that this goes on daily and on the weekends they do free Hot Chocolate and Smores too. I am so excited! We are for SURE going back and getting a family picture with Santa. We will have to get all fancy! LOL! Chloe is dying that she missed out! We will be back for more fun! If you have a Bass Pro Shop near you GO!! Hurry before it gets out of control busy! And find out all the fun stuff they had there that I didn't take pictures of! Yep, there was more. . .
Thank You Bass Pro Shops!!