The North Pole

In Greer, AZ there is a magic portal that takes very good little girls and boys to the North Pole to visit Santa's workshop. Julia has certainly been a very good girl this year so when the opportunity came up, we couldn't say no. Our friends have a cabin near Greer so we didn't have to pay the North Pole rates to stay overnight. We had such a wonderful time. Our friends have three little girls and so Julia and Kara were never bored. I think Julia would move in with them if I would let her. Their little three year old kept calling Julia her best friend all weekend. I'd let her move in with us if her mom wouldn't miss her! So the girls played in the snow and drank hot chocolate and played in the snow some more.

Yes, that is Ben aiming a giant snowball at his crippled wife. It wasn't the first one either.

Then we went to Greer. Here we are waiting for the Candy Cane Express to come whisk us away to Santa's workshop.

Getting on the Candy Cane Express.

At the doors of the workshop.

Meeting the elves.

Helping Santa make toys.

Eating cookies with the elves.

Learning what the elves do at the Elf University.

Reading stories with Mrs. Claus

Meeting Santa!!

Our friends had gone through first and very sweetly told Santa about Adria. He talked to Julia about her and told Julia that she was with us at the North Pole. It meant so much to Julia. I, on the other hand, was crying like a baby. Ben was glad we went until it came time to drive back to the cabin. The North Pole weather had followed us back to Greer and we now had a 40 mile drive in the dark through almost 12 inches of snow. Just when we were on the home stretch our GPS failed us. I took us down the wrong street. Unfortunately it was a hill that hadn't been plowed and our poor rear wheel drive Caddie got stuck. Then we got it out. Then we got stuck again. Then we got it out. Then stuck again. The last 5 miles took almost 2 hours. But we made it. The next morning we woke up to find that the snow had continued all night. It was breathtaking!

Luckily for us it had also been plowed so we headed home.

We truly had a magical weekend. We are so glad our friends invited us to join them! Thanks guys!!