My #2 has loved trains since he was 18 months old. He had a Thomas the train party for his 2nd, 3rd, and 4rth birthdays. No kidding. We were encouraged for years to take him to "A Day Out With Thomas". Somehow, we never took the time and money to go. We finally decided that if we did not go now, he would definitely be too old to enjoy the magic. So we squeezed the money out of the budget, ordered the tickets, packed the snacks and lunches, and headed for the mountains on Saturday and had a wonderful day as a family. The kids were all amazing during the long ride there and back. The rainy forecast was wrong and it was cool (70 degrees) and cloudy. The kids had fun. Although the train ride was not magical for the boys, they enjoyed themselves so much. I realized that my little boys are growing up as I looked around and saw the 2 and 3 years olds squeal with glee and wave at Thomas. The boys are coming to an end of the preschool years and entering the grade school years. It's bittersweet. I am thankful to be able to look back at the last 7 years and see the Lord's hand and grace in their growth. Here are a few family pics (*Notice my man's beard? Doesn't he look different? He's also lost 15-20 pounds this summer. He's growing the beard for the pirate party. He's dressing up as a pirate to lead the treasure hunt. The party is Tuesday. I'll post pics and how I did with my $75 budget that I was trying to stick with for the party. See this post! Until then...):
The man of the hour
6 comments:
Looks like they had such a fun time! Lydie is getting so big!
Ok...yes, please tell me how you did that on $75! We are planning on our Thomas trip at the end of October and I am trying to figure out how to do it with me quitting! The tickets for the 3 of us will be $56 and its a 3 hour drive to get to any of the Thomas sites! :) Looks like ya'll had fun!
Sorry, Lu! The $75 budget was for the birthday party. We spent around $60 for the tickets last month. (We have $60 a week in our budget for "entertainment". We just didn't do anything for a week last month.) And then we took $90 for the trip. We had that much left over in our "entertainment" envelope for this month. We also are around a three hour drive. We filled up the car for $50, and then spent $10 on souveniers. The kids each got a $5 toy. There were only about 4 things that cost $5 or under, so beware of the gift shops! The other $30 was spent on food. We packed drinks and snacks as well. It turned out to be a very expensive day! We agreed that for an almost 7 and almost 5 year old, we could have invested $150 better. (We could have gotten an annual pass to the zoo or museum for the cost!) But, they had a great time. And for a 2/3 year old Thomas fan, the $150 would have been very well invested!
Thanks for the response! As soon as I left my comment, I realized what you had meant by the $75...Sorry! Bubbie is almost 3 and he's loved Thomas since he was about a year old. He eat, sleep and dreams all trains. We had talked about taking him last year, but decided to wait a little while. I can't decide whether to take him. He is so excited. I might do what you did- pack lunches and snacks. We either have to go up to the mountains or to South GA, so that might be a nice day. How long did you spend at the actually Thomas event? Thanks for the info!
We got there at 11:00, just in time for our train ride reservations at 11:15. The ride was over in 20-25 minutes. We ate lunch and then they looked around and played for about 2 hours. I think we left around 3:00.
Is that Grizzly Adams traveling with you ;)
Post a Comment