The Polar Express in Lindon, Utah

Cute Uncle Dennis....a very happy conductor of the Polar Express! 

My husband's brother is one of the train engineers for the Lindon, Utah, Polar Express.  It is a mini riding train that travels around his neighbor's property. This neighbor must be a very lovely person and he must have an exceptional family. They decorate the whole acreage with lights on all the trees, big blow-ups of Santa and his reindeer, large lighted posters of  Jesus, angels,  and scenes from the bible as you ride by, and a lighted up, life-sized creche with the animals and baby Jesus.  All this you see as you are riding along listening to Celine Dion or Josh Grobin singing Christmas carols with the music piped in along the way.



Here we all are waiting for our train ride....so fun!

As we were waiting for our ride we were ushered into a giant room with a regular movie screen in this big movie house which was playing none other than... you guessed it...  The Polar Express! (Tom Hanks version).  I almost wanted to just stay and watch the movie. It was cool. Lucky kids that get to watch movies on THAT big screen!

The property itself is a very large 4 acre plot or so where the owner had his own home and several for his kids' built on the lot corners. In the middle is a mini Disneyland with every kind of activity you can imagine, besides just the train. There is a pool with lots of giant slides, a baseball field, golf, batting cages, all kinds of fun! Here is a link to get an appointment to ride. It is free but they ask a small donation. Stringtown USA Polar Express.



Just a few of the things we saw as we rode past...

His family decorates it it all up kind of scary for Halloween and then all beautiful and colorful for Christmas so kids in the community can come ride and have a fun outing with their families.  There are stops along the way to Santa's workshop to visit Santa Claus and his elves.  My little granddaughter Megan (2 years) was afraid of Santa but was mesmerized by his giant "toy" train that ran all around the inside of the room filled with every kind of toy imagineable. They really did it up nice!



Visiting Santa's Workshop...at the Polar Express in Linden Utah.

They had lots of trees, lights, toys and decorations inside Santa's Workshop. Lots of fun things to see. 

Megan is watching the large Lionel train coming toward her on the track...

Santa passed them out a little card with the story of the baby Jesus on it and a candy cane taped to the back, so cute! I got to snap a few shots of my older granddaughter Marisa who isn't afraid of Santa anymore. The elves dressed up really cute too. I wonder how much time they donate to this activity?



The Moss brothers, Dennis and John (my husband is on the right)

 I know Uncle Dennis is there quite a few nights for his "shift" in December.  They have several trains running at once and they take turns being the train conductor. Here he is with my husband John who took video of us riding the train. He was too tough to actually get in with us and ride. :)

After the ride was over we saw some other relatives on Grandma Merlene's side who had come later and were waiting for their ride. Just outside the train area there is a community service project writing to missionaries serving all over the world. It had cards to sign that looked like this. What a great idea!

Tiff and the girls and Aunt Danielle and cousin Casey and Jeff with their girls. It was fun to ride the train with everybody. 

I think people that do these kinds of things for the community, all for free, should recieve gold stars. They are wonderful to do this. My family had such a good time. I think I'd like to make that a yearly tradition, as long as it lasts.  We feel lucky that we were invited to go ride the Polar Express.  What fun it was for us!  Thanks Uncle Dennis!

Megan and mama....

Marisa and her candy cane treat.