Loving: The Unbalanced Chronicles: All Aboard the Christmas Train

I've tried really, really, really hard to keep this month from being stressful,

but no dice.

Work, Christmas activities, Sports, and Gift Buying has put me over the edge. To destress, my friend J. took me out to dinner and we decided on a whim we needed to take all the kids to-

Tweetsie Christmas!!

Wooooo. Wooooo (Train Whistle)

These are the things we didn't plan for:

-sick kids

-bad weather

-unexpected schaetic nerve pain (I have to quit carrying such a heavy back pack)

-unexpected finances

-etc. etc.

For example, this month Carlee and I got our annual tickets to Disney on Ice w/ SECOND ROW SEATS!

We could taste the sweat of Mickey Mouse, but as luck would have it.....

we had to leave 15 minutes later because Carlee started gagging and I just knew she would puke on the SECOND ROW. (sigh.)

Never. Again.

That is when I started praying every day about our Tweetsie Trip. There were plenty of moments that had me worried: Carlee and T. Man both had an antibiotic prior, I threw my back out, and the weather man called for the biggest blizzard ever.

Thank goodness all was well by Friday evening!

Our prayers were answered.

Mr. T. Love this kid.

We had a great ride up and down.

Since the train ride/ park opening is at night, I brought hot hands and enough layers for an army. J. said I "had quite the pattern going on".

As you can see from my layers, I've reached a point in my life where I care more about my comfort. I'm rocking the bag lady USA look here. You see T. Man likes it because he has a cool hat!!

Our tickets were for 5:30pm sharp, so we boarded the train right away. Because it was night and required flash, we didn't film/photograph. It was a fun ride through the mountains with a lovely light display and both a Christmas playlist and Christmas lyrics on the screens.

The ride was really beautiful but I believe the kids couldn't fully love it for fear an Indian would pop out and start shooting off a cap gun (no matter how much I comforted them).

We are in jail for not singing Christmas tunes as loud as J.

We put Connor on the little horse because Carlee wanted to get on the big one.

(He was a very patient brother on this trip, I should probably pay him.)

Mr. T. loved Connor too.

Although the temperatures dropped quickly, it wasn't too bad. We had lots of layers (that I ended up carrying across the park).

The only Drama Meltdown was Princess had thin boots, though pretty in looks, were terrible for cold weather. Her feet stayed frozen. She kept dragging her feet like she had a peg leg. We eventually put hot hands in her boots and purchased more socks. That helped the complaints for a bit.

Take it from me, Beauty is Drama

J. caught some great pictures from Tweetsie.

The Christmas decorations definitely put us all in the spirit.

The kids loved the snow ball fight in the snow globe. I think Connor and I may have went a bit overboard. We officially have pieces of that 'snow' all over our house (upstairs and down) as I write this blog.

Meeting Santa was certainly a highlight! The inside gingerbread house was heated and had the cutest gingerbread decor.

The Mr. and Mrs. Clause were awesome and the kids all got a candy cane and button at the finish.

Even our shy (anti person) girl loved the Santa!

animals braving the cold

We have a bit more in our video here:

It was a long day but I think we had a really good time. We certainly laughed enough. By the end of the fourth hour, we had a set of tired and cold kids, so we skipped the show.

Connor wanted to hit the fudge shop, and since we had made him do all the 'little kid' stuff I paid an obnoxious amount for chocolate and peanut butter fudge (plus an 8.00 gummy snake).

I mean look, he had two littles on top of him for two hours back home without complaint.