Visiting the North Pole with Ella!

Although I have heard about the "North Pole" at the fairgrounds for several years now, I have never taken the time to look into going to it with our kids.  Since I love sharing fun, holiday experiences with our children, I am not really sure why I never bothered to find out what this annual event is all about.  Luckily, for the first time ever, Ella's preschool arranged for a field trip to be held for all of their students and parents today to the North Pole.  After arriving with Ella, we were both amazed by this wonderful, holiday wonderland that had been created in one of the buildings on the fairgrounds and is tailored entirely for little people to enjoy!  There is room after room after room set up for children to play in  all decorated in different themes.  It was rather impressive and after spending an hour and an half there with Ella, we decided that we have come back one more time this holiday season to share it with with Lia and Logan.  Here are some pictures of our adventures today!

We happened to arrive at the same time as Ella's friend from church, Amelia.  Here is a picture of the two girls standing in front of the large tree just inside the entrance.

A mother-daughter picture.

Ella enjoying the play kitchen in the 'toddler room' after first arriving.

Ella making an adorable, felt pizza in the pizza parlor room.

Putting her pizza into the brick oven to bake.

Ella cooking up an enormous meal for me to eat in the 50s style diner.

We kept on running into Ella's two other friends from church and ballet class who also attend her preschool.  Here are Emmy, Ella, and Mia posing while Harper (a girl in Ella's class) photo bombs the picture. :-)

Ella posing inside one of the elf, photo cut-out stands.

One of the reasons why so many people visit the North Pole every year is so that they can have their picture taken with Santa without waiting in a long line (since reservations are required).  But since Ella's preschool scheduled their field trip in the morning before the North Pole was opened to the public, there was no Santa sitting on his fancy chair waiting to take pictures.  As a result, the girls were able to sneak into the photo room and try out his chair without getting in trouble.  Here is Ella posing for me on the beautiful, green velvet chair.

Emmy, Mia, and Ella posing on Santa's chair together.

Harper and Ella serving up some frozen yogurt from the food truck.

Ella going shopping in the amazing grocery store that was fully loaded with shelves and bins full of every kind of toy food you could imagine.