North Pole Express!

For Hallie's baptism, we had the entire Merkley clan come and stay at our house for a few nights.  We had 21 people here that weekend--Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night.  Some stayed Sunday night too! It was a really fun mini-Merkley reunion.  All the Hendersons were at the baptism too, but none of them were housed with us.  We had a family in each bedroom, and one in the front sitting room (which has doors that close). 

We kicked off the weekend on Thursday December 19th by meeting up in Heber to go on the Heber Creeper which is called the North Pole Express for the month of December.  We have never done it before, and it was lots of fun! It was a great way to be able to spend quality time together while at the same time doing something fun. The train was a great setting to talk and catch up. 

It was a pretty nasty snowy day for roads, so we left our house really early to make sure we got there on time.  We got there way early as a result, so we played around the train depot for awhile until the rest of the family arrived. 

 Then Mike and Lacey and Kallie arrived! We hadn't seen them in a LONG time, so it was really great to see them again.

Cute Kallie!

And then the rest of the troops came rolling in:

 Then it was time to get on the train! All the elves on the train called our family the Owl Club because all the kids had their owl hats on. 

Fa-fa put on Evie's hat so he could be in the owl club too!

I love this picture.

And I love this picture too!

 Our train traveled to the North Pole and picked up another passenger--Santa himself!

Santa visited each child and gave every passenger a silver bell souvenir.

That baby Dallin is SO absolutely adorable!

Merry Christmas!

After we got off the train, we all headed back to Bridger Valley.  We had dinner at Sizzlin's that evening and everyone came and settled into our house for the weekend.