The Polar Express - Heber Style

Last night was IBM's Christmas party for the Salt Lake City office folks. As such we were invited to attend. Last year, Hans got to go up and help the magician at the Little America in SLC. This year, it was a tough commute for us, but we drove down to the Heber Creeper Depot and caught the 'Polar Express.' It was indeed Polar, not reaching above freezing yesterday for the second day in a row of those temperatures.

We rode up to the North Pole {although the train was going South} and had Mrs. Claus' cookies and some mildyly warm Hot Chocolate. We had two elves in our car and a story teller. His microphone did not work the first half of the trip {to the North Pole at all} and so he shouted out the 'Polar Express' story by VanAlsburg.


We had Mrs. Claus come through and offer us cookies and talk with the kids and families about all sorts of stuff. Our two elves were Cocoa and Earl. They told Christmas jokes as well as helping make sure we had copies of the Polar Express, cookies and more.

Here are JoJo and Zander waiting for for Mr. Claus to come and talk with them. We had just stopped and he entered our car first.

As we slowed down at the North Pole there was a jolly elf outside waving to all of us. He climbed aboard our car first and it was soo soo exicting for all involved. The kids were waiting with aniticipation.

Mr. Claus actually had time to climb aboard and ride the 'Polar Express' back to Heber with all of us, talking with each of the kids as he went through the cars. Mr. Claus and the elfs passed out 'Bells' just like in the 'Polar Express' story. So we had a high pitched ride all the way back to Heber.

Here is what Pappa overheared told by the kids to Mr. Claus. JoJo told Santa she wanted a 'Tree House.' She was going to tell him she wanted a 'Kamas Pool' but we convinced her that we would not need that in Atlanta, nor could Santa carry all of that. Zander wanted a Darth Mole and Darth Mole mask and outfit. Emilie, not sure what she told Santa. Hans told Santa, that he wanted a Ferrari. I wish he had mentioned that before Dad came home from Italy earlier in the year. Oh well.




After such a long trip to the North Pole and back {90 minutes from Heber...I never knew we were so close to the North Pole}...when we got in the Honda {our red sleigh} to come back home...we had kids falling asleep and some that wanted to continue to ring their bells.