The Polar Express

Last weekend we headed to Mt. Hood in Oregon to experience the Polar Express in Hood River with my best friend and her family. The boys always have a blast together and we thought this would be a fantastic weekend and it really was.

It wouldn’t be a trip with Denise without something happening. It started with a six hour drive in horrendous traffic for Denise, March, and the kids (we were lucky to leave quite a bit earlier in the day!). They made it eventually, with some seriously tuckered out boys.

Saturday we walked around the cabin we rented – it was on 200+ acres of land with trails, so we took Chester and the boys for a walk to tire them out before heading into Hood River for the train. I will post photos from the walk soon.

My kids were so tired that they didn’t wake from their naps in time to make it into town for lunch, so we improvised and had our dinner for lunch and then headed out. We programmed the address to the railroad into our GPS and set off, with Marcello following us.

Little did I know that my GPS in my car is … challenged. It ended up taking us through Lolo Pass Road. To say this road was primitive would be kind. Pavement gave way to gravel where there were deep potholes, washed out sections, and at one point a tree down (thankfully we could make our way past it). People were up their cutting down their Christmas trees and I am sure I could hear Denise thinking, “This is where people go to hide dead bodies.” By the time we figured out that this was a serious wrong turn, it was too late to try to head back and pick up the main highway – we would have been late for sure. At one point Carter asked Jeremy where we were headed and his response was, “I believe we are likely headed to the end of a friendship.” hahahaha.

We did make it, we didn’t hit any snow, and we were on time for the train. The Polar Express was tons of fun – we headed out, characters from the book came by, they brought us hot cocoa and a cookie, read the Polar Express book, then we saw Santa’s workshop and house outside of the train. After that we sang Christmas Carols and Santa himself came to our car to give the kids a bell.

The classic of all classic moments happened when Santa came onto our car. He stopped at our table first and sat next to Carter, who promptly slid off his seat and onto the floor. So Santa chatted with us a little bit while Carter hid and then peeked down and asked Carter what he wanted for Christmas. And HOLY COW that kid got up so fast and his mouth started running with what he wanted for Christmas (oddly enough he asked Santa for the Batman Lego game that his dad has but won’t let him play, lololol). Anyway, there are photos below of that whole experience, plus a bunch of the boys. Enjoy!