Baby it's cold outside

As a tradition, every year D and I take time out of our crazy holiday schedule and drive around and look at the Christmas lights.  I immediately break out the Christmas music and start singing along as soon as we get in the car.  This year we made it even more fun and brought the pups.  Although the majority of the time, Bella was sleeping in the back, she did wake up for the better lights.

It really hasn't gotten that cold here, but on Sunday night the low was in the 30s.  For me this is cold!  We drove around our neighborhood and then headed out to find some new lights we hadn't seen.  We explored the 'richer' areas of Austin and found some pretty amazing displays of lights.  I will share a few that we saw, but of course, the pictures don't do them justice.  We ended the night with a drive on 37th street, which if you live in Austin and haven't seen this street, GO! It's quite funny the things people use for their displays on that street.  We also hit up the Zilker park tree of lights, but I was super bummed this year that the Trail of Lights no longer would happen.

 This was one of the first really crazy houses we came upon.  SOO many lights.  Like I said, the picture does not do it justice.  

 This tree was amazing.  I had to share 2 pictures of it. 

 There were so many lights that it was just illuminating like crazy. Love it. 

 Bella loving having her head out the window - even if it was 35 degrees out. 

 The Tree of Lights.  So pretty.  What you are supposed to do is stand under the middle of it and spin.  It makes you nice and dizzy! 

 They had these silly cut-outs that we had to stand behind.  D is not smiling and Bella is looking at me, but I had to put it in here.  

Scott and Apollo's is way better.  Silly boys.

Typically the evening consists of some yummy coffee, but this year I decided to go for hot coco.  I had made Snickerdoodle cookies earlier in the day and bought some vanilla ice cream.  When we got home from the lights, we made ice cream cookie sandwiches and hot coco with a scoop of ice cream.

 I didn't make the ice cream, but definitely will try it with homemade next time. Yum. 

 We had 2 different types of hot coco, so we boiled up some milk on the stove and then added a small scoop of ice cream to top it off.  The only way coco should be served.  :o)

DELICIOUS.  I highly recommend this as a holiday tradition as well.
Love B