A Visit to the Big City

Every year for the last 5 or 6 years my family has joined my friend's family for a trip to the big city for the Christmas season. We love the sites and sounds and food that we experience when we go. In this picture you'll see my cookie decorating friend and her two girls and my kids (J in the way back) and my hubs waiting in the new transit station for the new light rail train. Some of my family were not aware that I was taking a picture, LOL!

Here's our ride. It was a neat experience. Parking was free and no one had to drive all that way and find parking which we would have had to pay an arm and a leg for.

My daughter and her friend sat together here.

My friend and my hubs sat across from me and my son. There were heaters by our feet and we could see out the large windows. There was a large digital reader board telling us what stop we were at and a lady's voice telling us where we were and which side of the train to exit.

Once we arrived we started going into the stores and taking pictures and window shopping. Aren't these hats funny?

We ate lunch and then we rode the carousel. I don't know the young man smiling at our camera, but he's a cutie isn't he!!

HI EVERYONE!

Next we walked to a hotel that hosts a Gingerbread display every year. This year the line was pretty long. My son looks so excited. He really isn't a depressed, boring child he just doesn't smile for pictures much.

This year the theme was Christmas movies. This picture is something to do with a Sesame Street Christmas. I forgot to observe the name.

This one is obvious.

Charlie Brown's mail box. There were two letters in it. One from Snoopy and one from Woodstock to Santa. Charlie Brown's Christmas tree is here too.

This shows the Who's down in Whoville from the Grinch. As you can see these displays are all candy, cookies and gingerbread. They are huge and take months to create.

The other half of the Grinch display.

The leg lamp and flagpole from A Christmas Story. I love this movie. It reminds me so much of the years I was a child.

More of the Christmas Story. Each display has so much detail it's hard to capture it all.

And lastly here is the Polar Express. Very cool! And then my camera batteries died and the ones I brought (brand new ones) wouldn't work.

So I do not have pictures of the horse and buggie ride, but it was fun. The kids went in one carriage and us adults went in another. We sang some carole's and looked at window displays. We ended our day with a trip to Border's Book store.

This was such a fun trip. If you ever consider coming to our big city you should come during Christmas. There is much more to do than we were able to fit into one day.