catching up on things, part 2 - thomas day out

back in june we spent five hours traveling in the car to spend the weekend with jake's aunt and uncle - 

and thomas the tank engine.  

 ben loves thomas!  he really spends hours playing with his wooden trains.  so jake and i thought it would be fun to do something really special with him this summer before baby sister comes along later this fall.  

we drove around five hours on a friday afternoon (including a fun stop for pizza along the way), reached our destination, and settled in for the evening.  ben had no problem getting used to aunt janet's - she had a whole pile of "new" toys for him to play with, his own inflatable kids bed, and she had made him a thomas pillow.  (not to mention a whole jar of homemade cookies to enjoy - or maybe that was mommy who liked the cookies the most!)

saturday morning we got ourselves together and were dropped off at thomas day out by our wonderful shuttle service (thanks again to aunt janet).  ben was in complete amazement when he saw thomas - 

it was a look i'll always remember.  

a little later in the morning, grandma and grandpa arrived at the station to meet us.  ben was super excited to see them and show them the big tent with all the trains.  we also made a quick run through the gift tent and grabbed a new t-shirt, and some other goodies.  and before you knew it - it was time for our train ride.  we sat in the open air car - the weather was perfect that day!  the ride was around twenty minutes or so and ben really enjoyed it - almost so much that he was pretty close to falling asleep.

after the train ride we tried to grab a couple of pictures with big thomas, and then it was time to head out.  our shuttle service picked us up again and we were on our way back for a fun cookout with family.

we stayed one more night before making the long trip home on sunday.  the weekend went quickly and we were all a little tired at the start of the week - but it was all worth it.  

 

thanks to all our family who took time to share in our weekend.

you are all really useful engines!