I believe...

We just arrived home from an

 *Amazing 

*Alaskan 

*Adventure. 

If any of you have doubts about the validity of Mr. Kris Kringle, let me put them to rest. 

I have met the REAL 

Santa Claus. 

And I have the pictures to prove it. 

It all began with a 6 hour drive north, to: 

Santa Claus house:

Here we are with the ol' man himself:

The kids were simply awe struck. 

I was so pleased to see that right next to Santa was this GORGEOUS display:

The kids took a minute to soak it up before we did a little shopping,

then headed outside. 

This is a big deal because it was -20 degrees. 

Santa's reindeer are protected by a double layer fence, which makes it hard to take good pictures. 

Scott got some awesome pictures of the fence:

(I have to rub this in because I like to feel good knowing that I'm not THE worst photographer in the world, there will always be Scott to take that place)

This was the only reindeer that felt friendly, and we didn't bother to try to hard because our faces were burning and turning black. (okay, not really turning black, but it felt like it)

But don't worry, we actually saw wild caribou on our drive home, which was...

totally awesome! 

*I'll show you those pictures in another post.*