Day Out With Thomas

This was probably our last Day Out With Thomas.  It was kind of sad.  The boys were pretty excited to go though.  So that helped.

 There are always a ton of activities to do.

 These two could have stayed at the Lego table all day.

 You can tell he was concentrating because he was sticking his tongue out.

 A picture with Thomas.

 THOMAS!  The boys were very excited to be this close.  Thomas eyes and mouth move so he looks just like the original videos.

 They also got to see Sir Topham Hat again.

 This Day Out With Thomas is held at the Illinois Railway Museum.  The boys love looking at the old train cars and playing on the old tracks.

Everyone seems to be excited.  Well, almost everyone.  Anders is a bit ridiculous.  Don't feel sorry for him.  There is no crying on Thomas.

Gus was very excited to be doing this again.

Anders removed himself from the funk.  We were all happy about that.

The sand pile is always a draw.  The boys were begging to do this from the beginning.  I held them off until the end so they didn't have to walk around with sand in their pants all day.  Although I'm sure they wouldn't even notice.  This how they live during the summer.

It was a fantastic, fun filled day.  Now if only Spider-man hosted events around the states with activities like this.  I might have just come up with a lucrative idea!

A Day out with Thomas

Yep.  You read it right.  We went to Thomas...again.  But the boys just love Thomas and I'm really not ready for that phase to be over.  So, like it or not, Anders will have a Thomas fascination as well.

We weren't sure how long John would find all of this stuff fascinating, so my mom decided to get in one last trip to see Thomas for John's birthday.  She flew in to Chicago to celebrate his 5th birthday by going to Thomas and then helping me for the birthday party/open house.  So we drove an hour out to the Railway Museum in Union, IL early on a Friday morning and spent the day enjoying all the event had to offer.

There were clowns...

and magicians...

and bouncy dragons...

and the star of the show, Thomas!

 Gus spent about 5 seconds of the 20 minute ride like this...

 and the rest of it like this. 

If you have never been to A Day out with Thomas, I highly recommend it for train lovers of all ages.  Sure, people older than 13 don't care about the ride on Thomas, but these events are held in train yards and museums, so you get to explore trains other than Thomas.

I'm not sure that I will ever forget our 6th wedding anniversary.  I say that, but I'm not sure what we did for the other 5.  Sorry honey, you married an unromantic, completely practical girl.

John tells me I also can't forget to mention Sir Topham Hat...

miniature golf...

the huge sand pile...

and the cool tattoos.

 Doesn't this make Gus look like such a bruiser?

About 6 seconds after getting the tattoo John started scratching it off.  Then he changed his mind and wanted to keep it on.  So this little tidbit of Thomas stuck around for about a week.  I don't even want to know what his teacher thought of us on the first day of school.

A Day out with Thomas...Again

We are still a Thomas family.  Gus has fallen in line and I find Anders chewing on Thomas every now and then.  We had already been to "A Day out with Thomas" in Colorado, but decided to visit the one in Texas too.  I'm so glad we did.  Each train station sets up the event a little different and the one in Grapevine was actually better.  The boys were so excited when we got there.  It was like we had never been before.  The only reference to the first time we went was when John was telling all of the volunteers that this was Anders' first time riding Thomas on the outside (of my belly).

To get into the event you had to walk right by Thomas.

 All Aboard!!

On a side note- Gus is actually holding up a ticket...he is so white you can't tell!!! I'm also not sure what John was doing in this picture.

 

Riding the train!

After we finished our train ride it was time to check out all of the other stuff.  John found his old train friend, Eli.

 They could have stayed right here.  All. Day.

 Seriously.

I love that this is how Gus chooses to close the door.  We might need to work with him on this...he ended up getting his fingers caught and started screaming.  Funny how that didn't deter him from trying it again.

After we peeled they boys away from the train tables we stood in line to see Sir Topham hat.

 Sir Topham hat arrived and the kids were so excited...all the kids, not just my own.
I should have mentioned earlier that is was 85 degrees out that day.  I was not prepared for that as you can see John is wearing a long sleeved shirt and they both have on jeans.  The boys were fine, but I'm sure Sir Topham Hat hated the hot weather.

Waiting as patiently as they can.

John is just in awe.  I love how he is holding Sir Topham Hat's hand.

After Sir Topham Hat, the boys got some tattoos.  As I write this you can still see remnants of their tattoos, 2 weeks later, because they won't let me wash their arms.

 Yep, they are still there.

It was a great day all around.  Hot, but good.  I'm told that Thomas comes to the Chicago area in August...we may just have to check that out.

A Day Out With Thomas

You all knew this was coming, right?  How could we have a Thomas fanatic in our home and not attend the event where Thomas comes to town?  So we bought some tickets and set out early one Saturday morning for the Colorado Railroad Museum, where Thomas was waiting to take kids for a ride.  All we told John was that we had a surprise for him.  He was very excited and kept asking what his surprise was.  When we got to the museum we had to park about half a mile away and a charter bus took us all to the front gates.  John thought the bus ride was his surprise and kept thanking us for the great gift.  Hans had to assure him that we would not drive 30 minutes away from home just to take a short bus ride and that more was in store for him.  Then my little boy saw Thomas' face and was so excited.  He just stared at him for a few minutes...probably not believing his eyes.

Waiting in line to get into the train yard.  John is just staring at Thomas.

There he is.  All set to take the kids on a ride.

John needed a closer look.

Soon  it was time to board the train.  We had a choice to sit in a covered car or in an open car and John wanted to ride in a troublesome truck.

The next series of pictures is what happened while we were waiting for Thomas to get going.  Gus woke up at 5 this particular morning and was not in a tolerable mood.  What am I saying?  No matter how rested these kids are this is what my days are like.

I will say that boys just hit each other and get it over with.  They were both fine after this episode.

Now, back to Thomas...

This was the conductor and he came by to punch everyone's tickets.

Thomas puffing up the track.

After the train ride we walked around the grounds.  There were various stations set up with lots of different activities.  We have all of this stuff at home, but I still had to drag both of the boys out of here.

There was also a small petting zoo.

Caged animals are always trying to get out.

Just so you all know, as I was laughing and taking these pictures I was informing Hans that our kid was climbing the gate.  I do wonder how far up he would have climbed.

Here we were at the roundhouse.  The ropes are blocking off about an 8 foot drop.  This did not deter Gus from trying to go explore.  What a boy.

At the end of the day we got the boys Hobo Lunches.  This was a very cute idea and the boys gobbled them up.

Gus couldn't even wait to get it out of the bandanna.

We all had a wonderful day.  This will be something we will do every year until I no longer have a child infatuated with Thomas.