december dailys--polar express

It's hard to put into words what an impact the Polar Express has had at our house over the years. We first took Ben to see it when the twins were just babies. He loved it so much that I think the last time I counted he had seen it in the theater somewhere around 11 times. We still have most of the ticket stubs hanging on his cork board in his room. That Christmas Grandma Train found all kinds of Polar Express stuff for him, including these little train ornaments from Hallmark. (Will has taken over that love for the ornaments, and was recently playing with them)

And then came the music. Once we got the soundtrack, I couldn't listen to anything else in the car!! That went on for months, and now I feel like I've come full circle because the twins LOVE the music and that's all they want to listen to in the car. Will's favorite song is "the one at the top," the Polar Express song, and Jake's favorite is, "I'm wishing on a star," aka "That's All I Want When Christmas Comes to Town." They have watched the movie several times already since we pulled it out a month ago, so we figured it was finally time to ride the Polar Express.

Luckily I scanned this ticket onto my computer a couple years ago (because it we can't find it now). We bought tickets to go on the Polar Express in Heber on Tuesday, but the real tickets were too boring, so I copied off this ticket, one for each boy and one for Gpa and Gma Train, who came with us. They opened up their ticket on the way up to Heber, but it wasn't until we passed the Park City exit that Ben realized what we were doing.

We made it just in time to take a picture and board the train. I was a little worried about this train ride, because I knew the expectations were going to be very high--Will even mentioned several times that he wanted to jump from train car to train car "on the top," just like the movie.

You can see the excitement in Ben's eyes as he holds out his golden ticket.

"Hot hot, oooh we got it. Hot hot, hey we got it. Hot hot, say we got it.....HOT CHOCOLATE!"

I loved this picture of Jake sitting with Grandpa Train, both of them with their hats perched on top of their heads.

They passed out copies of the book to follow along as they were reading, and then Mrs. Claus came through, passing out her special cookie recipe, which included an elf's laugh.

This was the boys suprised look as they saw Santa coming in the door. Santa passed out bells to everyone.

And finally the ride ended with all the kids singing Christmas songs with the crazy elves. So it probably wasn't exactly what they boys had in mind for the Polar Express, but they did have the best time. We wrapped up our excursion with dinner at Magelby's in Orem--YUM! It was very late for a school night by the time we got home, but it was worth it.