Maybe "Freeze" is a better name

It was cold and rainy this weekend, but apparently not enough for my friend Michelle and I. We opted for even colder, taking our boys to an exhibit with the underwhelming name "Chill."

Five-year-old Corban was super curious about what we were doing, and kept tugging on Mark's sleeve.

"Where are we going, Mark?" he asked. "What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know," Mark answered truthfully. I hadn't fully explained it to him, because honestly, I wasn't sure what it was myself. All I knew was there were ice sculptures, and maybe a slide.
 
Corban didn't really care--he was just excited to be out and about. He bounced past a makeshift Candy Cane lane village where we stopped to take photos of the boys. This picture cracked me up, with the giant snow man and palm trees in the background. It's truly a California Christmas pic.

 We passed a giant snack bar and holiday shop, and an outdoor skating rink that looked like it was melting a bit in the momentary sun. Finally inside the dome, we crossed under a giant, colorful Ice Kingdom sign and waited patiently in line.

At the end of the line was a booth, where a lady gave us thick blue parkas that swallowed us up. I'd read the exhibition was a frosty 7 degrees, so I was grateful for the parka, even if I did look like a dorky giant Smurf in it.

Then it was time for the moment of truth. The kids pulled the door open, revealing a humongous arctic freezer and a burst of air so cold, I momentarily stopped breathing. 

A frozen, colorful world stood before us--there was a green and red welcome ice sculpture in front of us and a giant (like 6 feet tall!) white snowflake to our right. We gasped and immediately started taking pictures, which, it turns out, is impossible to do with gloves on.

We moved into the next room.

"Whoa!" I yelled. Trees with clear and pink lighted leaves adorned the walls, and I ran to touch them, completely oblivious to the "Do not touch" signs. I looked around--there were massive ice sculptures everywhere. There was an ice princess to my left, and a giant, life-sized unicorn to my right (OK, a giant horse-sized sculpture--not sure how big unicorns really are). The unicorn was pulling a prince (also life-size) in a giant swan carriage. They were all made of crystal clear and colored ice blocks, and they were just gorgeous.

I couldn't get over the castle--it must be two or three stories high!

Michelle and I ran around it, squealing, touching every block in every wall of it. Corban joined in, but Mark stood to the side, more impressed by the frozen breath cloud he kept exhaling.

After we'd touched and photographed every tree and sculpture, we moved to the second room, where we screamed some more. This room featured a giant ice block replica of the Queen Mary ship. There was also a blue whale, which spit out a kid while we standing there. Turns out we'd found the little kid's whale ice slide, which Corban couldn't wait to go down.   

I expected the boys sliding down together, but Corban popped out all on his own, laughing his head off. Mark followed right after, his demeanor more tweenage boredom than unmitigated glee.

Michelle and I ran up the Queen Mary to the adult ice slide. We plopped down on the ice, and raced down the two-lane slide. It was AWESOME! We slid down about 100 feet on our parkas, crashing onto a red carpet, where I was laughing so hard I could barely get up. That was the coolest thing ever.

Mark, the boy with no body fat, was miserable.

"I'm soooooo cold," he whined. "Let's leave!"

We moved on to the third room, Santa's Toyland. This room was much different; the ice was all colored, not clear, and the sculptures looked like they were molded from plastic, not ice. 

I just marveled at them all. Mark barely noticed--he shot out of the room after two minutes, tired of freezing his tiny rear off. 

Suddenly, I heard Michelle yell, "Corban, NO! No, no, no, no, NO!"

I turned and saw her moving him away from a block of ice level with his face. She looked mortified. I could tell from their body language what almost transpired.

"Did he lick the ice?" I asked, and she answered, "Almost!" We both imagined the tongue-frozen-to-the-pole scene in "A Christmas Story" and cracked up. I commended Michelle on her quick reflexes.

The last room was a massive Nativity scene, set on four or five different islands. The ice people and animals were clear, which lent a very classic, simple touch to the scenes. I wandered around slowly, even though my feet were seriously cold now, until I noticed Michelle and the boys were gone. They couldn't take the cold one second longer.

I left, too, and was hit by a blast of warm air at the exit. It felt like a big, warm hug--seriously the best feeling ever! Michelle and the boys were dancing around, trying to warm up.

"I can't feel my feet!" Mark yelled, and Corban shouted back, "Me neither!"

My glasses didn't adjust quite as quickly to the temperature change.

It took a steaming cup of cocoa to finally warm me up inside, but I eventually did come back to room temperature.

Mark, however, did not. Corban ran off to go tubing down an ice hill, but Mark stayed back. He'd had quite enough of the cold, thankyouverymuch.

I loved our "Chill" day out. It was cold, to be sure, but hey, how often do you get to walk through a frozen castle or race down an ice slide (in Southern California)? That was about as cold a winter as we get here, and I enjoyed all 30 minutes of it.