North Pole

The weekend before Thanksgiving we took the kids to the North Pole. It was a lot of fun (except for the long windy drive through the desert and into the mountains). We got on a tram and the elves took us through a magic portal to Santa's Workshop.

 Here we are in front of our tram. It had green velvet seats! Talk about fancy. We saw the reindeer in their stalls as we pulled up.

 When we first got there we met some elves who led us through the Toy Hall of Fame. There were lots of cool old toys. The Hall of Fame was in Santa's "old" workshop and there were even some funny old toy prototypes.

 Once Alabaster Snow (Santa's chief elf) took us into the toy shop the kids got to help the elves make toys for little boys and girls. Here Sadie is stuffing a bear.

 They also got to play with Ram Rockets and shoot all the elves. Madoc really liked this part.
Our tour group had a lot of no-shows. There were only three families with a total of seven kids. The elves outnumbered them by a lot so the kids got a ton of attention. I think Sadie and Madoc had six or seven elves surrounding them. While the kids worked on the toys I let Charlotte wander around. Elves kept coming up to her wanting to hold her and find her dolls and toys. Apparently even elves can't resist cute little Charlotte.

 After toys everyone got cookies and "snowman soup" or hot chocolate while the elves sang Christmas carols. Then we went to Elf school and learned all about how to be an elf.

 After that the families went into Santa's office one at a time to write letters for Santa. Charlotte just tried to get the tree the whole time.

Then we saw Santa! He was a really good Santa. Charlotte didn't even cry.

 At this point we went outside around a big fire to wait for the tram. It was really cold and the wind kept blowing the flames at us. Not a fun part of the night.

 Our last stop was back at the lodge with Mrs. Claus. She read a Christmas story and then the kids colored pictures.
When we got to our hotel for the night we were all very tired. Then we discovered the hotel didn't have baby beds. Charlotte ended up in our bed and wouldn't go to sleep. Not a fun night, especially when we had to get up the next day to drive to California.