Christmas Eve

This year we did something completely wild and crazy for Christmas. We left the comfort of our home and traveled! We've never done that since we've had kids. This year, Mark was off for the week leading up to Christmas and he wanted to do something special with the kids. I had friends talk about The Polar Express being a lot of fun, so we decided to look into going there the week he was off. The night left happened to fall on Christmas Eve so we thought, why not? We booked the train ride and the hotel room and planned in secret for our special Christmas eve and Christmas away from home.

Here in Arizona, there is no guarantee of snow at Christmas time. As we were enjoying pleasant temperatures down in the desert, we waited w/ anticipation as to whether or not a good old fashioned snow storm would hit the high country.  We were so happy and thanking God for his special gift when we got a ton of rain a few days before we were supposed to leave. This time of year, rain down here means snow up in the mountains! Yay! God is sooo good. :)

By Christmas Eve day, the roads were clear, the sky was clear but the ground up north was covered in a beautiful silvery white.  The kids still didn't know everything we were doing. They just knew we were going up to play in snow. Ever since we left Ohio they've been asking to go see snow again. We finally granted their wish, 7 years later. ;)  We packed up everything we would need for 2 days and one night, including hats, mittens, gloves and the coats we purchased on our way up to Sedona over Thanksgiving. I made sure to have their Christmas eve presents, new PJ's and our special Twas the Night Before Christmas book we read every Christmas Eve. I also packed along the advent books and candles. The hotel we stayed at was non-smoking - a good thing but not so good when you're trying to find some matches! I forgot to pack some of those! LOL 

All of these extras were tucked away and out of sight of the kids, so they didn't know that we were spending the night anywhere. :)

 heading out! Destination - unknown

 A Christmas tree in the middle of the highway

The very first signs of snow

getting deeper

San Francisco Peaks all frosted in white

Foreshadowing of things to come ;)

winter wonderland

Our first stop was for some sledding at a spot just beyond Snow Bowl in Flagstaff. The kids had a blast sledding down the hill. A. even took K. down and she loved it!

building a fort

sledding

After sledding we drove to the hotel, which was the first time the kids knew for sure we were spending the night. We checked in, got settled and I handed them their Christmas Eve presents and told them to put them on for dinner!

 Williams, AZ

We all headed down to eat in our jammies. What fun!  The food was good, a huge Christmas eve spread. It was all buffet and they had Prime Rib, Turkey, stuffing, corn on the cob, green beans, salad, rolls, desserts and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember! It was a real Holiday feast!

 Cutie in her jammies

It was sooo cold!

Believe!

A. stuck around while I finished dinner and we walked back to the room together, posing along the way. Can you tell she's cold? I think it was around 20 degrees. Good thing we were grabbing our coats before waiting for the train!

 The lobby was toasty warm w/ a huge fireplace and everything decorated for Christmas.

 

After dinner we had a little bit of time before our train left so we went back to our room and we did advent and read our Christmas books and then headed back out into the very cold night to wait for our train, The Polar Express, to roll into the station and whisk us away to the North Pole. :)

 waiting for the train!

keeping K. entertained while we waited

It's coming! Woo-woo

The Polar Express pulling into the station!

The train ride was fun. They keep you entertained the entire time you're riding w/ songs, retelling the story, hot chocolate and cookies and on the way back, Santa hitched a ride with us and gave the kids a special present for riding on Christmas Eve. :)  We don't really do Santa, but it was fun to watch the kids as they got into the whole spirit of the evening.

Back at the hotel, we posed for this shot w/ their new mugs (pretend it has hot chocolate in there) and our Christmas Eve book and then headed upstairs to actually read the book.

The kids had a hard time settling down after the exciting evening but eventually, they all fell asleep. Poor S. ended up getting a fever that evening and had a hard time sleeping and ended up hallucinating in the early morning hours. Poor guy (and poor people in the room next door - I can only imagine what they were thinking hearing him screaming, "Make it stop!"). By morning, his fever was gone and he felt good again. Weird stuff.  Since he was doing okay, we decided we would continue on with our journey which I will share with you, tomorrow! :)

Holiday Traditions - Christmas Lights

Every year we try to go check out the lights around the Valley. Some families really do up a huge display, with walk throughs, synchronized music, cut outs, etc. While others put up a ton of lights. All are fun to drive by and enjoy.  We make a thermos of hot chocolate, pile into the van and go driving around looking at all the pretty lights. This year we found some really spectacular displays. We happened to be behind a few limo tours. Did you know they give limo tours for viewing Christmas lights? Someone found a niche!  One of the ones we seemed to be following, the revelers were enjoying champagne as they drove around. Fun, but I prefer my hot chocolate with the kids. :)  Does your town offer Christmas light limo rides?  It might be a fun thing to do if you have a lot of family in town or for a Christmas Party w/ a group of friends. :)

Our first house

 the other side of their yard

 these were cool icicle lights. The lights moved that gave the illusion of the icicle dripping

I can't believe we don't have a better still shot of this house! This one had the lights synchronized to music and when the whole thing was lit up, the yard was ablaze! This house had a lot of people out of their cars watching and listening. Lots of fun!

 We saw a bunch of houses but this house, our last one of the night, was by far the best! You can't see much from these pictures but they had a walk through part in their side yard, the entire front yard was lit up with various scenes and they had two snow machines! Such fun and a perfect ending to a fun evening out. :)

 The snow machine just turned off. K. is still looking up at the snow. :)

See the "snow" in her hair. She wasn't amused. LOL

 

 

 

Holiday Traditions - Las Noches de las Luminarias

Trying to catch up on all we did this past month!

Every year we try to go to the Desert Botanical Gardens Las Noches de las Luminarias. All the luminaries transform the garden into a magical place where you can stroll along the lit paths, listen to various musical acts, sit beside a blazing mesquite fire and sip hot chocolate (or eat, they have full meals available as well). It is always a lot of fun for our family to go and something we all look forward to every year.

This year we invited our friends to come along. They had never been before, so it was a treat to share this with them. They have 4 boys, ages 2-14, so the enthusiasm wasn't as strong as for my crew in their anticipation, but they were all great sports and I think at least one of them might have enjoyed themselves. :)  For their privacy, the pictures w/ them included have been blurred.

We started off by having dinner together. It was a fun time of gathering and fellowship, even with simple pizza being served.

K and their youngest are special friends

 The Chihully exhibit at the entrance

fun sculpture hanging down and sparkling

  bad lighting and angle but pretty poinsettia tree at the entrance

A watching K around the candles. There are 1,000's candles, all hand lit every night during Las Noches 

goofing around while we're waiting for our friends to arrive

My pretty first born gal

  wrong setting for the camera gave this lovely shot! lol 

The bells are a favorite to go and listen to. While waiting for the performance to begin they invite you to come and check out the bells and give them a ring.

J. giving the bells a try (curly head on the right is my sweet K.)

Me and Miss K. lasted maybe 5 min. before I took her out. She was a little loud for the bells. Happy, but loud. She didn't want her picture taken here, can you tell?

 One of the acts along the path. 

 ah, fire! E. entertained us, and some couples that were sitting there, with a scary ghost story. Thanks Uncle Joe for sharing that gem with the kids. ;)

On the way out, a group shot (w/ our friends cropped out for blogging purposes ;) )

The goofy shot, or is this their normal faces. I get them confused. :)

It was a wonderful evening. It had been raining throughout the day but had cleared up while we were there. It made the desert smell delicious and the air feel crisp and cool. Not too cold, like some years we've been there and not too warm, like other years we've been there. Absolutely perfect. :)