Our visit 'Up North'

We couldn't have asked for a better weekend to see Santa. Our good friends, the Carlsons, generously invited us to join them in their timeshare weekend in Flagstaff with a visit to the North Pole on the Polar Express. On Friday, we ate a late Thanksgiving dinner, played peewee golf, drank hot chocolate and put together puzzles and played games. The highlight was seeing Joshua back home with his family, starting to enjoy many of the things he did before he entered the hospital that scary day 6 weeks ago.

Saturday had a magical feel, as snow was in the air and everyone around us was dressed in their pajamas. Once we were on the train, we ate cookies and drank hot chocolate and listened to the story of the Polar Express. Before long, Santa entered the train. It was difficult to get the right angle for the video and photos, but the sound captures perfectly how excited Stewart was to see Santa this year.



Casper has entered the stage of the skeptic, as you can tell by his vigilant stare to see if Santa knows him and whether he has a real beard or not. He was very attuned to the fact that this year's Santa was too busy to even ask him what he wanted for Christmas, so I can tell that ring of the bell is getting harder and harder for him to hear.

Whitney was so excited to see Santa, she was speechless as to what to ask for--suddenly saying, "A dog!" A dog? Isn't she terriried of dogs? Well, maybe she's warming up to the idea...

We loved that we were able to start out our Christmas season with such a fun activity and that we are all actually looking at the camera at the photo shoot with Santa.