Polar Express 2009

******Pictures to come!!!!!!!!!!

My mom and I have been talking about doing the Polar Express with the kids for about 2 years now. And this year, after talking it over with Erik we decided the kids were at good ages to go ahead and do it. Halle was asking me to read her the book Polar Express all summer long and was SO excited when we told her we were going. Of course, it just wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't have the rest of our families there~so we asked our parents, Erik's sister Anissa and her fam, his brother Artie and his fam, my sister Lindsey and her fam......and everybody wanted to join us!!!!!!! I think I was just as excited as Halle and Costa about this! I LOVE the movie and have always thought it would be a cool thing to do.

So the day had FINALLY come:) Everybody was SO excited!!!!!! We were going on the Polar Express! December 22nd 2009......we were packed up and ready to head out by noon that day. We figured plenty of time to get to the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel by 6PM to get our tickets.....train leaves at 6:30. We thought that by leaving at noon we'd be there a little early so the kids could see Mrs. Claus and participate in some of the fun stuff they have going on before getting on the train. We had even planned on maybe stopping in flagstaff for a little late lunch. On our way we were getting phone calls from Anissa telling us to be careful that it was really blizzardy and there were some cars off the road! And Erik had also called Seth to have him check the weather conditions for us.....he said it was a WHITE OUT! What? I thought to myself? Could it really be that bad? In arizona? I mean I know it snows in flagstaff, but seriously? And why today? We got all the way to flagstaff by about 3PM and saw that everybody was right....it was snowing pretty good and the roads were HORRIBLE! I've seen some snow storms in my time, being from Washington but this was UNBELIEVABLE! Snowy, foggy, slippery......SCARY! Obviously we didn't have time to stop and eat and decided it was a good idea to just get there. Williams is only about 20 miles past flagstaff but who knew how long it was going to take us to get there with these road conditions? So we started to get back onto the freeway and noticed there were police cars and they were directing traffic away from the freeway. It was CLOSED! They had completely shut down the freeway due to an accident! WHAT!?!?! Oh no!!!!!!! What do we do now? Do we REALLY have to tell these kids we aren't making it to the train? I dreaded turning around to tell them and how sad they would be! We pulled over at the nearest gas station and Erik got out of the car to talk to his brother Artie and see what we should do. When he got back in the car I asked him...."what's the plan?" He said "there's a frontage road.....we're going to try and get there that way." My mom and I immediately started praying....it was crazy! I thought are we SO stupid? Is this worth it? We're going AROUND the police to try and make it to the Polar Express!!!!!! But I kept my mouth shut because I trusted my husband that he would get us there safe.....and I didn't want to add any more to the stress I know he was feeling. I also trusted God that he would work a miracle for us:)

We got to the frontage road and it was back to back cars......just sitting in a line, waiting. Everybody had the same idea as us! There was hill and most of the cars weren't making it up. We decided to go around everybody and try and make it up. Thank GOD the Acura pulled through for us! We continued to go extremely slow and eventually the frontage road did take us to the freeway....little did we know the frontage road we were on was Route 66! Thanks Route 66!!!!!!!!! We literally made it there when the train was BOARDING!!!!!! We parked the car and starting running to make it! And I'm SO happy we did! It was AWESOME to see Halle and Costa......they were in awe! It was JUST like the book and movie. We drank hot chocolate, sang christmas carols, saw the North Pole and Santa even surprised us and gave each child the gift of a bell. The kids were in heaven!

Although, it did feel INCOMPLETE for me. Papa and Grandma Contreras were about 20 minutes behind us during the drive up and didn't end up making it to Williams. They shut down the frontage road right after we got on it. SO SAD!!!!!!! I just couldn't believe that they didn't make it......it didn't seem real. We didn't have time to think about it too much because we BARELY made it ourselves.....but once I sat down on that train, my heart hurt. I tried to enjoy my kids happiness as much as I could, but we'd been planning this for so long and they were SO excited to come participate in this with ALL their grandkids! It just wasn't fair that they weren't there with us! Each year, Grandma buys all the kids new PJ's......so she also had all their christmas jammies with her! We missed them and it just wasn't the SAME without them!!!!!!! We love you guys!!!

Oh and we also missed my dad (Grandpa Tom) and his girlfriend Terry(they had to work!!!!) and my sister Les and her husband Alex.....we'll go again when you guys have kids:)