All Aboard!!

The Polar Express!

Remember learning about the Gold Rush to California back in the 1800s? Remember learning about the railroads being built to bring everyone out here? Well Sacramento does at the California Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento. It's a legit museum with lots and lots of old trains, some that you can even walk through!

During Christmastime the museum turns one of their one hour train rides into The Polar Express! You can get on a real train and take a ride to the North Pole to see Santa preparing for Christmas! When I heard about this back in September, I knew it was something that Mitchell and I had to do. I was a little concerned that it was a kid thing but I figured we might as well go. Why not? Well poor Mitchell got heckled majorly by his co-workers for being drug to such an event. Whatever. We are up for some fun and adventure!

Our train ride was schedule for December 9th at 8:00pm. We arrived early and spent some time walking around Old Sacramento, checking out the massive Christmas tree and doing some Christmas shopping in G. Willikers Toy Store.

Pretend like the nice man who offered to take our picture actually got all of the "Express" in the picture!

At 7:30, we went back to the train station and waited in line for our ride on The Polar Express!

Pretend like the nice lady who took our picture had a steadier hand ;)

About to board!

On board!

Mitchell waving good bye to Sacramento!

This picture cracks me up because it looks like we're about to be t-boned by a car but someone outside the train took a picture with a flash at the exact moment I took the picture inside the train!

Here comes the hot cocoa and cookies!

Tap dancing cafe servers!

Time to read The Polar Express!

Almost there!

Santa's Workshop at the North Pole!

SANTA!!!!!! I know him!!!

Guess who came on the train to deliver the silver sleigh bells!?

I got my picture with Santa and I whispered in his ear what I wanted for Christmas! :)

All in all it was a fun experience, albeit definitely for kids. We had a great time but probably won't do it again without kids ages 3-10. I love that our city has this event though because I feel like it's truly unique to Sacramento. Yay for exploring this city and doing all that we can while we're here!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Ahhhh December! You have arrived at last and I forgot how much I enjoy this time of year! There is even more anticipation for us as we finally get to see friends and family after several months!

December happenings:

7.5 Hours of Moving a Friend
Yes, our sweet friends, the Aldredges, needed help moving their 4-person, 3-bedroom house on the first Saturday of December. Mitchell and I were happy to help but we weren't anticipating it taking that long. We all got a GREAT workout moving for that long, especially Mitchell and Casey. Check them out installing the washer and dryer in the new house!

Tuesday Mornings with Colton
My dear friend, Allyson, is 28 weeks pregnant and was having major contractions over the Thanksgiving week and spent a few days in the hospital. Since then, she has been put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. She is a stay-at-home mom with 2-year-old Colton. Luckily her mom is retired and is able to come live with them Monday-Friday while Michael works but even grandmas need a break! On Tuesday mornings I have committed to taking Colton for about 4 hours. Last week we went to the Sacramento Children's Museum and today we went to the Sacramento Railroad Museum. We had so much fun together!

Painting on the glass wall!

Not liking the paint on his hand, haha!

Sitting on the engineer's seat in the steam engine!

Oh little boys and toy trains!

Greenleaf Power Christmas Party
Last weekend, we had the opportunity to get dressed up all fancy for Mitchell's company Christmas party. We had so much fun eating a delicious dinner and chatting with Mitchell's coworkers and their spouses. I won a $10 Starbucks gift card during one of the games!

The Polar Express.... deserves it's own blog! Stay tuned!

'Tis the season to be merry!

Christmas Cheer @ the Martin house

I really wish Christmas lights were a year round decoration. It makes the house so cozy! Check out how we decorated for Christmas!

Of course it all centers around the tree!

No mantle for our stockings so they're hanging on the chairs

Extra ornaments in my lantern

Swapped some pillows out on the couch for Christmas
colors and have a very happy, stuffed snowman on the chair!

Our nativity set (handmade from clay by Mitchell's great aunt!

Christmas lights in our bedroom!

And we aren't even going to be dismayed by our December calendar! Phew! It's going to a busy, fun-packed month!

Thanksgiving & the weekend

This blog post almost didn't happen because iPhoto deleted all of my pictures once I uploaded them and deleted them off the SD card. Luckily, Mitchell is tech-savvy and patient enough to recover them. Phew!

When we decided to do Disneyland in November we realized we wouldn't be able to come home for Thanksgiving. We hoped that with all our out of town friends in Sac, we'd be able to find some people to spend Thanksgiving with but everyone left town. We thought it was going to be slightly depressing to not be able to be with family on that special holiday but it actually ended up being a great weekend!

Starting the day right with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and a yummy breakfast!

We also enjoyed FaceTime-ing with both of our families when they were gathered with extended family!

Our neighborhood is full of trees that have all changed color with the season. I am admittedly obsessed so we took a walk to take pictures.

Don't you want to go run through those leaves!?

Our orange trees are growing up some incredible navel oranges! Just a few more months!

This Christmas will be our first Christmas that we get to have a real tree so I spent part of Thanksgiving morning wrapping up this tree skirt!

I'm a little excited about decorating our first real Christmas tree! I saw an idea on a blog I follow for making homemade ornaments and recruited some help to make a few!

A good sport!

That evening we decided to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner even though it's just the two of us. I just couldn't NOT have turkey on Thanksgiving so I bought a frozen turkey breast that was plenty of meat for the two of us.

Turkey on the platter and stirring the gravy!

Turkey, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and homemade bread
Someone is excited!

Happy Thanksgiving!

After dinner we got a wild hair in us to go get a BluRay player at Walmart for $38. Well as I'm sure you know, Walmart opened their doors at 8pm this year. We got there around 8:30 and it was PACKED! I have never seen so many people in a Walmart. It was total chaos and almost scary. Our player wasn't released until 10pm so we had some time to kill and take this picture. 

Most excited about this!

On Friday we decided to go out and get our Christmas tree since we will only be able to enjoy it for 3 weeks before going home for Christmas. We always had a fake tree growing up so this was my first experience picking out a real tree! Super exciting! So many choices!

Have I ever told you how much I love our Honda CR-V? She fit right in!

Tree skirt!

All decorated! Check out those homemade ornaments!

Adding the bow on top!

Saturday was a much more chill day and Mitchell started the day off washing the car, which is a huge blessing to me. Love language!

We did some Christmas shopping that afternoon, which I won't elaborate on because then it wouldn't be a surprise!

Lastly we got some Christmas lights hung up outside! Christmas cheer!

Happy heart!

What an incredible weekend we had! I'm so thankful that I can spend 4 days straight with my husband and have so much fun. Btw, we have a slight Harry Potter addiction now and are on the 4th movie!