Day 11 Santa Time

Today we drove with Anna's host parents Leena and Pauli back to Rovanemi the Lappish capital. It was good to have them with us so as to familiarize ourselves with the area and get us back to where we needed to get to.

Our first port of call was to the local rain deer farm which Pauli knew the owner however he was not there!! We still saw this big reindeer.

Then on the way we stopped at a lake there is plenty of them and the boys had the first experience of walking on the ice. See the lake in the background.

Our first port of call was cheesily named Santa Park

We went to this attraction and there was plenty to do. You went down into a cave coolly lit.

Eilian, anna, Leena going into the cave.

The boys with one of the Elfs.

then we went to he Santa Claus post office which was well done and had the letters arriving, and Elfs answering them, Luke bought a fountain pen and ink and a cool diary, 

Then we went to elf school which is where the kids got taught to be an elf, 

The kids enjoyed it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the boys wanted to decorate gingerbread obviously for Cody and Luke to eat there and then.

Sweet!

Then we went on a tram ride a la small world around the Elfs toy workshop.

Open ur eyes!,

Then we saw some amazing ice carvings.

Polar bear express

My kind of bar!!

Grizzly Jones

Moosey

on the throne!

After all this it was time to go on a husky ride the boys loved the dogs and then we went like the wind on a sleighride.

It was cool and snowing too.

Then it was off to see the real Santa he was cool and had great chats with the kids

Elfs one word to describe them I could think of many others.

In the Santa Claus village.

daredevil Cody jones.

this is one cool snowman.

We then had a reindeer burger it was delicious.

Our fun was only just going to begin it was 7 pm

We drove well out of Rovaniemi however that was short lived as we had to drive the 80kms to the cottage. It was pitch black and snowing. Having negotiated the first intersection we then had to negotiate another left turn we missed it ahhhh it took us 20 Kim's out of our way. We turned around and found it.

Then we found the correct road again and were 100 m away from our destination but missed it as it did not look familiar. We got stuck trying to turn around which was a pain. We did a 100 point turn to finally get out. We drove again for 15 mins and realized that the right place was where it was meant to be. We needed sat nav !!.

We got there at 10pm bugger. Anyway no one died all good.