The ride was supposed to occur on his birthday but the last ride was a week before his birthday. We decided to take that one. It was fun telling Will about the train and telling him it was for his birthday. I also tell him that all the Christmas lights people put up are for his birthday. I love telling him people are excited for his birthday. We have been learning days of the week and learning how many days are left.
I was especially excited about the ride. I knew he was going to be super excited and extremely happy. He did not disappoint me. In preparation for the adventure I bought him some cute overalls with little red trains on them. I bought Kiki a boys outfit that had a train theme as well. My kids were going to be so dang cute. Before we left James reminded me to not put the kids in their outfits. They would without question have them filthy and most likely unwearable by the time we got to the train. I miraculously remembered to pack myself an extra shirt. On a daily basis I have barf on my left shoulder. Virtually from the time I dress myself. I look like a bird took a huge dump on my shoulder and it cascaded down my back. I did not want that look on this exciting adventure.
We took our time making the 3 hour drive. We stopped at REI, we had stopped to feed Kiki on the side of a road and we had to stop to get some lunch. We went to a Safeway for lunch and James and Will went inside. I fed Kiki in the car. While burping her she took a huge poop. Now, I have an excellent car for changing babies. The trunk is high, flat and big. It's perfect. That is if the stroller is not in there (which it was) and if its not freezing, windy, raining or nearly snowing (which it was). Then my car sucks to change a baby. I was forced to change Kiki in my lap. I wound up with a glop of baby poop on my jeans. Awesome. I also wound up with a massive barfing on them. Excellent. My remembering to bring an extra shirt was squashed to meaningless when what I really needed was pants. I did all I could do. I took a butt wipe and scrubbed.
We made it to our train ride in perfect time. A hard feat with children. It was so freaking freezing. Will was literally shaking from being so cold. I was just thankful I had everything I needed to keep him warm. It's honestly very, very hard to accomplish this seemingly simple task. Items get taken back into the house to be washed and don't get brought back in. Items get left behind. Some items just don't ever get put into the car because someone just didn't think to include it. We were good here though. The kids were going to be okay.
We saw the train getting fueled up and watched it release tons of steam. Will was pleased as punch. We got nice seats and were able to look out the window. We walked up and down the train. We lived dangerously and looked out open cars. We even had hot chocolate for the first time. We made some friends. We saw Santa and shook his hand. We had an absolute blast. We will do it again next year. Only this time we will catch the earlier train, bring better clothes and hope momma doesn't have poop on her pants.
