All Aboard!

Well, ya comin'?

Where?

To the North Pole, of course!  This is the Polar Express!

When Ra was 3 1/2 my parents took him to ride the Polar Express not the Smoky Mountain Railroad which is about 2 hrs from their house.  This year, with us deciding to spend Christmas Day at mom and dad's, Andy and I decided to look into taking the family to ride the Polar Express together.

Andy found out that the train ride also included free entrance into the train museum.  We are never ones to turn down a model train museum, so we headed out to Bryson City, NC right after lunch so we could have time to walk through and look at all the trains.  Boy are we glad that we did!  There were TONS of Lionel trains there.  Lionel is what Andy's dad runs and what Riley has in his collection.  

I found out from a friend that they had a scavenger hunt in the museum and the kids and I worked long and hard at finding each and every item on the HO scaled layout (which is MUCH smaller than Lionel size).  The layout was HUGE and some of the items were tiny, like a squirrel in a tree!  We had fun working together to find all 38!

After we finished in the museum, we headed out for a snack before meeting my brother and his family for the train ride.  We warmed up with some hot cider and the kids devoured some yummy cupcakes.  

Here they are on the caboose that is parked on Main St. in Bryson City.  Our family loves trains so our kids thought this was great!

My 3 favorite people

Here is the cute little Smoky Mountain Railroad Depot in the heart of Bryson City

Other side of the depot

The Smoky Mountain Railroad ready to pull the Polar Express to the North Pole

This was such a cute car sitting outside the depot

My babies

Loving all the Christmas trees at the depot

A small layout inside the train museum.  The big layout was too big to capture in a picture! It was in a different section of the museum. You can see the Lionel cars all behind class cases along the walls.

Thought this winter scene was adorable.  I really enjoy the Christmas scenes in layouts.

Riley decided to read the story of the Polar Express to the girls since my niece said she wasn't familiar with the story.  Our kids know this story inside and out. It's a family favorite at Christmas time.  

The girl cousins in the Jingle Jammies

Keeping an eye out for the North Pole

They had the kids get out of their seats and march up and down the aisles at the beginning of the ride

What Polar Express ride would be complete without HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT Chocolate?

The conductor came through to punch the kids' tickets just like in the movie

Showing off their tickets and hot chocolate

Still not at the North Pole, but getting closer...They actually read the story to you on board and we followed along in our book.

 We finally arrived at the North Pole!

After we passed by the North Pole, Santa hopped on the train and brought a jingle bell from his sleigh for each child on board.  He also signed our book for us.  It got signed by Santa when Ra went and again this year for Sissy's first ride.

It was an awesome experience for Sissy and she was happy that her cousin got to experience it with her!

At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them.  Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound.  Though I've grown old the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.

Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see.