Tis the Season 2010....The Polar Express

The day after we flew to Midland, we headed north to Lubbock to ride the Polar Express. Kassidy, Jaxon and Rylan joined Papa, LeLe and crazy Aunt Sarah for an exciting ride! We went on the ride last year and Joel loved it so I knew it would be a big hit with the boys.

Joel was a little serious and Jaxon is all smiles.

I'm learning that Joel tends to take new experiences very serious until he gets comfortable.

Happy boys with their pretty momma!

My little cuties!

So handsome!

Jaxon and Aunt Leah Beth

Sarah, Kassidy and Rylan sat on the first row.
Joel, Jaxon and I sat behind them.
Papa, LeLe and Silas sat behind us.
At least that's how we started....and then it was musical chairs.
What we didn't get a picture of was Silas climbing back and forth between the seats. Instead of going over head first or one leg at a time or even just walking around the aisle, he would lean down in the seat, put his hands down, get into some kind of handstand and then push himself over the seat into the next.

I'm sure that Joel was telling the conductor a very interesting and obviously entertaining story while he punched the tickets.

And then the chefs brought our cookies and hot chocolate. And let's talk about the hot chocolate. Joel was obsessed. At one point his got spilled and he went into a complete pout. Thank goodness my mom knew one of the "chefs" and she graciously brought him a new one. He held onto it like it was gold.

There was lots of silliness.

And look at all that blonde!

And lots of checking out the view.
Joel was looking for wolves.
There are pictures of them in the book!

Silas and our friendly chef!

Soon we made it to the "North Pole", where we saw some elves dancing around and then Santa joined us for the ride back. The funniest part was when Santa boarded the train. He spoke to all the kids, handed out the bells and asked what they wanted for Christmas. Joel told him a motorcycle. What? Yep! That was his story and he stuck to it until Christmas morning. After Santa had moved on to the next group of kids, Joel told me he needed to talk to Santa. He walked over, tapped Santa's leg, pointed to aunt Sarah and said, "You forgot her." Of course, Santa obliged and returned to ask Sarah what she wanted for Christmas. Her request - a car. Unfortunately, that didn't fit in Santa's sleigh this year. Maybe for graduation? We didn't get a great shot of the boys with Santa. Joel was very serious when it came to Santa and Silas was hesitant. Overall, such a fun night of memories with the 4 fantastic fellas!