Trip to the North Pole

Sunday, December 27, 2009

All year long I've been promising to take the boys to the North Pole, the real North Pole.  So, when the
weather turned cold I decided I should put the date on the calendar.  Our calendars were so hectic with swim meets, holidays, work trips, etc. I realized we only had 1 weekend available so I snatched it.  We left town the Saturday after Thanksgiving and drove to Coeur d'Alene, ID.  Ssshhh, don't tell the boys the address.  Steve was called in to sub on Monday morning so wasn't able to join us.  We video taped everything from the moment we parked the car to the time we saw Santa and shared it with him as soon as we returned home.  It was a bummer to not have him with us.

We knew we had arrived at the hotel when we turned the corner.  We went from driving n pitch black to a million white Christms lights in the blink of an eye, it was amazingly beautiful, you could see lights forever.  When we checked into the hotel we were informed we'd received a complimentary upgrade.  The room had two beds, a sitting window, a flat screen tv, a sunken living room, two bathroom sinks and a deck overlooking the boat docks below... honestly, I can't imagine what they normally charge for that room!  I think she took pity on a frazzled mom with two boys, it was such a nice blessing!

We headed over to the ticketing area to pick-up our pre-purchased boat ride tickets... that's how you get to the North Pole, on a magical boat.  What, you didn't know that?  We boarded the double decker boat (imagine something like a houseboat but a bit larger).  The Ferry took us to the North Pole (the other side of Lake Coeur'd Alene) past several moving Christmas images all light up, to the hotel resort owners home.  It was all lite up with Christmas lights and they had a dock with a 'house' at the end of it.  The Ferry pulled close to the house and all of a sudden the lights came on and you could see directly into Santa's living room, dog and all!  Santa told us little stories and then read from the Nice list he'd recently received.  Thank goodness both of the boys names were read.  Jordan spent the entire month of December telling everyone he was not on the Naughty List... a very good thing to be proud of!

We later enjoyed a nice dinner at one of the hotels restaurants overlooking the Christmas lights on the water. We even shared a big snickers sundae for dessert.

The next morning we left and enjoyed some shopping time at Cabela's. We also saw the movie 'A Christmas Carol' in Spokane in 3-D and then visited with Santa at the Spokane mall.  It was a wonderful weekend!

(Note about the movie: not recommended for younger children without lots of hand holding and closing of the eys.  Both of the boys had been well prepared for it and enjoyed it.)




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