Polar Express

Papa bought tickets to the Polar Express this year and we all had a blast on the magic train to the North Pole! He took the kids to buy the book since they hadn't read the story yet. Then the night before he took them to get some gluten free candy and caramel corn for the trip. I took Ashley to see our neighbors perform in the Nutcracker at West Linn High School the same afternoon. I don't know what address I put in, but I thought it only took 30-40 min to get to Hood River and we had plenty of time to do both. Boy was I wrong! Brian text me in the middle of the ballet to leave early because it took an hour to get there! We rushed home, quickly got into our pj's (because that's what you wear on the Polar Express) and we got there with 10 minutes to spare! Too close, but it all worked out! On our way to the North Pole we listened to the Polar Express story, had hot cocoa and the treats that we brought (everyone else had cookies that they provided) and sang Christmas carols. Of course the train was magic so it got us there quickly. A reindeer even crossed the tracks when we got close so we had to stop (Ashley thought it was telling us we needed to turn around because we were going the wrong way). Then when we got the the North Pole, we picked up Santa and he sat with every little girl and boy on that train. His helper elf even gave each child a Polar Express bell (the first gift of Christmas in the story). The kids loved it and now when we unpack their special bells at Christmas time, we'll remember that night and how much fun we had.

The conductor punched a "P" in each of the tickets and made a huge mess all over the kids.  They thought that was pretty funny!

Waiting patiently for Santa