A Visit to the North Pole.

December 21, 2012

Alamosa, CO.  Groupon had a deal at the end of November for a train ride to see Santa Claus.  I just couldn't pass it up.  We took a three hour journey down to Alamosa.  The weather was chilly but blue sky's. We kept this a surprise for the kids.  We broke the surprise into three groups; swimming, staying at a hotel, and the train ride.

 I promise Willie did have his eyes open, I just caught him during a blink.  I was going for the beautiful drive we had, see the mountain out his window?  I love mountains.

 We haven't been swimming since we were in our first week in Colorado.  The boys went at the hotel my family was staying at.  I hadn't been since before Caroline was born.  I couldn't believe how much I missed swimming.

Caroline did well for her first time.  She didn't get too sad, she was comfortable being pretty close to mom.

After a quick pizza dinner we got in our pj's for our North Pole trip.

Here we are with our tickets, waiting for the train.  We were happy when the whistle sounded and we had the 'all aboard' call.

Henry looks a little sleepy in this picture I will explain that later.

The train ride was awesome.  The boys had a lot of fun.  We were given hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles.  The elf helpers were fun too; their names were snowflake, candy cane, etc.  We also were given a cookie.  The kids all stood up and sang Christmas songs, our kids watched the other kids mostly.

Henry snuggled up to me for most of the ride.  We thought he was super tired.

We picked up Santa Claus when we arrived to the North Pole.  On the way back to the train station we got to meet Santa!  He gave each of us a tiny bell and asked what we wanted for Christmas.  Henry finally perked up for the visit by Santa and told him he wanted to have cars.

Our family photo.  Caroline IS in her carseat.

Once we got back to the hotel everyone snuggled in to watch some videos of Goofy and Donald and Mickey.  They love some of the old time cartoons.  I love how comfy they all were in this picture.

Here is the story of Henry being 'tired.'  Turns out that in the middle of the night Henry woke up crying.  I got up with him and put him in our bed because I was tired.  He just wouldn't go to sleep though.  I had him in the middle of me and Willie because I was going to have to take care of Caroline in the night as well.  Turns out that Henry was sick and he soiled the whole middle of the bed.  We tried to clean up as best we could.  I slept on the floor with Henry and Willie slept at the foot of the bed.  Henry felt much better and was happy to go swimming the next morning!
Sad thing though was that this little sickness was the beginning of horrible sickness for our family for the next month.  I was sick the next day as we traveled home and I was sick for two days.  Then Parker got it during Christmas and then Lincoln got it for a day.  Anyway, it was a bunch of sickness.
Here are a few pictures of what the train station looked like during the day on our way out.  The temps outside were about 13 and then as we got closer to home the temps went up to about 22.  It's cold in Alamosa!

As soon as we got home our first activity was to build our first snowman!  Good job Parker.

I'm glad we could take a fun little trip with the kids.  They love trains and I hope we can always re-enforce their love for trains.  I'm glad that we were all safe in the travels and that we didn't have to visit the ER.