On to the polar express...

The girls made a dent in their suckers on our 6 hour drive.

Welcome to Bearizona.

On the polar express.

Our super fun chef.

Santa on the polar express.

Snow angels.

Ridge thinking about tasting snow.

He'll try anything.

Ridge's reaction.

Our snowman with features made from fruit loops from the hotel continental breakfast.

We left California behind, hoping to leave the rain with it. Too bad for us, the storm is chasing us. It rained like crazy for 5/6 hours on our drive. It stopped for one glorious hour, then we came around a bend and there it was, waiting for us. What can you do? We went to Bearizona. It is a drive through zoo featuring bison, wolves, dall sheep, mountain goats, and black bear. It was really cool. The wolves came right up to the front of the car. We noticed our brakes grinding on our way to Bearizona so when we went to a gas station on the way back to the hotel we had the mechanics there take a look at it. They told us the brake pads were completely gone and the brakes were rubbing on the rotor. A very nice lady found me and the girls a place to sit, gave us hot chocolate, and offered us cake (which immediately set Katelyn off on "I'm hungry). Rusty called the rental car company and they brought us a new car. It is significantly smaller but is all wheel drive. The polar express was great. We boarded the train in the poring rain. Once we got on it was toasty warm. We were served hot chocolate and a cookie while we listened to the story of the polar express. We made our way on the train to the North Pole where Santa and an elf were waving to us. When we turned around to head back to the depot Santa was gone. We sang Christmas carols, led by a hilariously lanky, uncoordinated, off key "chef" who kept pointing wildly at the kids to involve them in his polar express choir. The mystery of the missing Santa was solved when he burst through the door of the train car and greeted all the children and gave them a bell. When we got back to the depot we were excited to find 2 inches of fresh snow. The girls had a heyday. They went crazy with a snowball fight, a mini snowman, snow angels, and snow tasting. Katelyn kept grabbing snow and running after Kyleigh screaming, "hey KyKy I've got something for you." We had to pull Katelyn from the snow kicking and screaming. She was sure the snow would be melted by morning. She woke up at about 6 a.m. the next morning and ran to the window. It had snowed about 6 more inches during the night. It took a lot of talking to convince her she could sleep for a few more hours and play in the snow when she woke up. We played for about an hour and a half before we couldn't stand the cold anymore. We are so glad we got a little bit of snow time. There is a 0% chance of snow in Silver City until January 8th. No white Christmas for us. Even though we waited to leave, the all-wheel drive car was helpful on the roads for the first half hour. Then the roads cleared and we had smooth sailing to Silver City, a 6.5 hour drive. We arrived in Silver at about 6 p.m. on the 23rd. We are excited to spend time with everyone.