So we went up to the North Pole last Sunday. It was a beautiful drive even if it it was long. There was a two hour stretch where there was absolutely nothing and no one...it was a little unnerving...there were a lot of slippery slopes if you know what I mean. Zach handled the trip pretty well. We played musical toys...keep changing it up and they are fooled-for a while at least! The roads were very clear considering the time of year. Once we got to the North Pole it was about 8 degrees or so. Two days later and it was 40 at times! They got a major heat wave...it felt like summer! =D

It literally looked like a winter wonderland. Everything was white. The area up there (Fairbanks/Eilson/North Pole) has mountains but they are much further off so it seems farely flat compared to where we live. You could see the sunset and sunrise for several hours of the day. It was very beautiful. Chris thinks it was prettier than our neck of the woods but I disagree!

Chris and I tried some Sake...it was one of the worst things I've ever had. We were able to walk to all the restaurants because it was so warm! =D

Santa's House was pretty awesome. Very pretty at night. The reindeer are made out of ice and below is the largest Santa in the country. 50 feet tall!

That is snow you're seeing.

Zach did well in the Hotel we stayed at. He slept really good and REALLY enjoyed being able to open the drawers.

This was a very nice hotel and they gave us $50 off on top of the military discount. We must have seemed needy...we came from the Eielson AFB lodging almost in tears! haha. Eielson had a policy you couldn't stay in their main hotel if you were under 18 because their aircrews were so rowdy...so they stuck us in this old, small, smelly TLF room. It was pretty awful...seedy motel like. The Hotel North Pole was like a breath of fresh air. The people were very nice...in fact all of the people at the North Pole were nice.

Here we saw Santa's reindeer. They were the biggest reindeer I've seen up here. Zach thought hey were pretty interesting.

This picture is hilarious. I have saved the best ones for Christmas cards so I'm not putting them up here. but Zach spoke with Santa and told him what he wanted I guess. It was not a long conversation however. =D We spoke with Santa who was a very very nice man. Also very busy. He seemed t o be quite the world traveler...which is only to be expected. =D

Here you'll note that Zach has just kicked off his shoe.

So you can see everything had melted by the time we went back home. ALl the trees were brown and green again!