THE SNOW CAPPED MOUNTAINS

This is the view from our back door. I thought that the clouds over the mountains were pretty cool. Can I just say that I love the snow at Christmas time?!?

ALL ABOARD!!!

All aboard the Polar Express! While out selling ice cream one day Oren met the Anderson family. Mr. Anderson has built this extensive train track around his home and about four other homes. Every year at Christmas they set it up as the Polar Express. Everything is free, however they do have donations set up for a 9 year old girl in their neighborhood who has a rare type of Leukemia and has just started treatment at Primary Childrens Hospital. They do a GREAT job and make it extremely fun for the kids( OK even us parents thought it was really neat and we all want to build a train set of our own). "When we get there we'll shout yeah laughing all the way........that's the way things happen on the Polar Express."
Here we all are on our little box car. This train holds about four box cars with 3-4 people each. The train then magically took us around to different Christmas sights and lights where we, of course, met up with Santa at the North Pole. It was awesome, even though we didn't get to go down Glacier Gulch...giggle giggle

Santa's Workshop

Lights and such on the ride.

A little house with a merry-go-round inside. The really cool part was the tunnel of lights that we went through the house. It had snowflakes and lots of lights right above your head. Very cool!

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

The kids Loved to see Santa (we even went back for a second time after dinner). About halfway through the Polar Express ride we got to stop at the North Pole and see the big man in red himself! The elves were very friendly and the kids each got a picture of Jesus, a candy cane, and a bell...from Santas sleigh of course.

After the kids saw Santa and the fun side of Christmas they had pictures, music, and props to remind us of the real reason of Christmas. Here is a row of what it looked like to give an idea. It was a GREAT ride and good that the kids could see that Jesus was the center of it all.

The Temple at Christmas time

Beautiful lights...Beautiful family

Here we are at lovely Temple Square. We love to go to look at the beautiful lights. This year we went to dinner with the Stew crew, Anna 'n Jude, and Mary Ellen. We first started the venture by going to The Old Spaghetti Factory then heading to see the lights. We thoroughly enjoyed all the Christmas-y splendor.