Toy Train

Before I can talk about Christmas in Washington, I just have to say a two words about the drive to and from Chelan:

It sucked.

Okay. I have more words than that to say about it. We haven't driven up to Chelan since Dylan turned one, and there is a reason - that drive SUCKS. Especially in winter. It was crazy. It took twelve hours up and twelve hours back. With three teeny kids. Yikes. Bikes. Luckily, we drove up right after those big storms hit the Spokane area, so we weren't driving in the blizzard. We were just dealing with the after-effects. It was insane. We stopped in Spokane to eat, and there were literally three feet of snow on the ground. That was one huge storm.

The craziest thing happened - about a half hour out of Spokane, our roof started making these popping noises. And we couldn't figure out what was going on, until we saw our temperature gauge - it was negative 24. Negative 24!! We figured out that the heat from inside the car was making the ice on the roof pop. Like ice pops when you put it in warm water. It was very creepy. And I had forgotten to pack our emergency pack. So I was like, "Heavenly Father, please don't let our car die in the middle of nowhere in negative 24 degree weather!!"

Ben and I took turns driving, of course, and it happened, both ways, that I got stuck with the worst roads and the worst weather. It was nerve-wracking.

We were glad to finally get there.

Alright. On to Christmas in Chelan. When Ben was little, his dad bought him a really nice train set that goes around the Christmas tree. And Gloria has kept it all these years:

See the pretty hardwood floors in the above picture? They're new. Gloria has done a lot of remodeling in the past year, and it looks fantastic.

So anyways, Ben dug his old toy train out of the basement and set it up. The kids loved it. And Gloria let us bring it back home with us, so it will be a fixture in our house at Christmas time from here on out She's nice like that. She also gave me her copy of The Host by Stephenie Meyer. Two thumbs up. A fantastic book.

Anyways, here is Dylie with the train:

And yep, that's a mole behind his right ear. He's always had it. I think it's kind of cute - it's not the kind that is huge and poofy. Just flat. Kind of like a birthmark. Its' very distinctive.