18 October 2008

Jackson, Meet Thomas

Today was big day in the world of Jackson. About a month ago, his Aunt Debbie invited us to take a ride on Thomas the Train with cousin Eli and family. Of course we accepted, but not because Jackson loves Thomas the Train...as a matter of fact, Jackson had no idea who Thomas was. But he loves trains, and one of his favorite things to do when he's playing is to climb on the couch and yell, "All aboard!" So we all hopped into the car and made the trek to Rusk.

Along with the other seven thousand two to four year olds and their parents. Apparently this Thomas the Train thing is pretty big. Who knew?

I was actually relieved to see that the other 6994 people were not all waiting to take the train (at least not at the same time). The appropriate title of our little outing is something like, "A Day Out with Thomas." This included a bounce house (...Oh, and by the way, here's my two cents about something that irked me a little during the day...if your kid is 8 or 9 and still wanting to wear his Thomas pajama shirt to ride the train, and if he's a foot and a half taller and 40 pounds heavier than every other kid in the bounce house...GET HIM A NEW HOBBY.), a picnic lunch, a petting zoo, hay rides, throwing pine cones in the lake (probably not a Thomas sanctioned event, but the boys loved this all the same), blowing bubbles, and of course, playing with miniature Thomases...in other words, three year old boy heaven.




The biggest hit was definitely the train ride. From the moment the boys saw the train pull into the station, they were hooked.
They danced, "choo chooed", clapped, laughed, and thoroughly enjoyed every second of the thirty minute ride.
I have a short video of all this action, but silly me videoed sideways, and I don't want you to break your neck (or your computer) trying to watch a seven second video. So look at the pictures and use your imagination.
As we walked away, Jackson kept yelling, "Bye train! I had so much fun! Choo Choo!"




By the end of the day, the boys were both totally exhausted. Jackson was asleep ten minutes into the ride home. Usually a nap in the car means a moody little boy later, but he was in a great mood after he woke up and loved telling the rest of the family (especially Sadie, who sat this train ride out due to a little fever...oh yeah, and being a nine month old) about riding the train. I feel certain this would rate in his top five favorite days of all time.




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