Polar Express

We took the kids on the Polar Express train ride in downtown Sacramento to help us get us all in the Christmas spirit. Thanks to a friend in my playgroup, we were able to get the tickets (which usually sell out before they are even open to the public). We headed downtown a little early and ate at Joe's Crab Shack in Old Town. Cole was so excited to order crab - he loved it. We are beginning to think his eating habits may be a little on the pricey side, but we are glad he will eat pretty much anything. After eating our dinner, we changed the kids into their pajamas and headed over to wait in the lines for our seats. It was much better organized this year and we had a great train car with plenty of room. The kids were super excited, and so was I. I just love experiencing things through their eyes and seeing the cute little expressions on their faces. 5 and 3 are definitely fun years to celebrate the Christmas Holiday with the kids. They start out the ride but having the conductor come through the car and punch everybody's ticket with the word "BELIEVE" on it, just like the movie. Then they play some of the songs from the movie and have characters dance up and down the isle as the train starts up and heads out to the North Pole. They pass out cookies and hot chocolate to all of the passengers as they begin to the read the story of the Polar Express. This is the second year that I have forgotten to bring our book for the kids to look through as they read it.... bad mommy! Really need to work on that for next year. It takes about 20 minutes to arrive at the North Pole, which is all decorated with Christmas lights, wrapped presents, elves and of course, Santa Claus himself. Santa then jumps on the train and passes out bells to each of the kids. Jim and I always laugh at this point because the first year we went Cole's bell actually DIDN'T ring. He kept saying that he couldn't hear anything and we thought it was because the music was just too loud. But sure enough once the music was off, we rang his bell and heard nothing. For those of you familiar with the story, this is not a good thing. Only those that believe in Santa Claus can hear the ringing bell. We were able to get him a new one that worked, but only something like that would happen to Cole. We were in luck this year and all four of our bells rang! We are all believers in this household :-) Eating dinner at Joe's Crab Shack before our adventure.