Thanksgiving Point Reindeer and Mater

After seeing the lights as part of the birthday celebration, we went to visit the two reindeer that were visiting Thanksgiving Point for the Christmas Season. They left on the 22nd, just in time to get back to the North Pole and take Santa out for the Christmas festivities.

Everyone had lots of fun watching the reindeer. There wasn't a roof on their pen so who knows - maybe each night they flew away and then came back to visit more kiddos the next day.

 I like watching her face in these photos - they tell the whole story!

Very interesting Reindeer Factoids that Thanksgiving Point shared with us visitors:

Alli & Mom wanted in on the "what does a reindeer antler feel like" action too:

 Afterwards we looked at some of the lights around the main area of Thanksgiving Point and then we took off to eat some dinner and watch Nika open her gifts!

(Don't judge the way I look - I had a migraine and was in bed ALL DAY before this little outing.)

Skip ahead to the next weekend. I convinced Alisha to let the girls come have a sleepover at my house. I had told them about Mater from Cars being in the area and they were really excited to see him. As soon as they got to my house they said they wanted to see Mater so in an effort to get them there before it was dark, I loaded them right back into my car.

Mater was visiting only 4 blocks from where Mike & I live. Unfortunately I was talking to Alisha on the phone and ended up driving a couple of miles out of the way. I realized this when I saw the Krispy Kreme doughnut sign/building. So I asked them if they wanted to get a doughnut and they said, "No! We want to go see Mater! We need to go to Radiator Spings!" They were that excited. So I made a U-turn and headed back to Mater and/or Radiator Springs. After proclaiming that we needed to go to Radiator Springs Annika did ask, "Are we going to Thanksgiving Point?" I said, "No." and she said, "Oh, because mostly everything that we want to see is always at Thanksgiving Point." ;0) I thought that was pretty clever. We made it back to Radiator Springs and I was so happy that Mater was still there!

 I don't know who brought Mater out for a visit, but I love that they did! He was exactly what we would have imagined. Annika & I toyed with the idea of leaving my car with Mater over night so that he would have someone to talk to when the people weren't around, but we decided it was too cold and we should drive home to be warmer.

Stopping for one last photo after running around Mater for a while. Definitely a super fun meet-n-greet!