Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek
Lil' Miss Priss is in LOVE with Thomas the Train.
She's barely ever watched the cartoon, so how the heck did this happen?
Well, her cousin owns every Thomas et. al. train in existence. AND all the accessories.
And in spite of my daughter's oh-so-young age, she still wants to be JUST LIKE her older cousin!
So when we heard Thomas was coming to town, we knew we HAD to go.
"We" would be Sissy and her man, his two kids, one kid's friend, Miss Priss and myself. They were so excited when we told them they were going to meet Thomas!
Then WE found out it's THREE HOURS AWAY, in an itty bitty town called Boone, Iowa.
Stuck in the trap of "keeping our word," we rented a van, transferred the car seats, packed some lunch, stopped for coffee and we were on our way!
There was only one thing Miss Priss wanted to do during our long journey.....drink water.
Do you know what happens to a little girl who does nothing but drink water during the three-hour-long car ride that had ZERO rest stops because we left town late?
She walks like this when she finally gets out of the car.
Mommy earned her "Planning for Disaster" Badge by having the forethought to pack an extra outfit for just this type of emergency.
Seriously, my mom will be mortified that I'm telling you all this, but baby girl was standing beside me while I got her changing stuff together and I heard the weirdest noise, like water raining on plastic. Yes, folks, she peed AGAIN and her diaper was SO FULL it was dripping down, splashity splash, onto her crocs.
HA!
OK, moving on....
All Aboard! We made it just in time to board the train and take about a bazzilion shots of all of us looking out the windows.
If you can even call them windows. They were more like gaping holes that caused horrific images of my daughter tumbling out and getting her legs chopped off flash through my mind during the entire 30 minute ride.
But I swear, it really was fun!
The monkey ran up and down the aisle before Thomas started moving. Check out the lady to the left of her. She's got that "some mom's just REFUSE to keep their child under control" look.
Whatever, lady, bite me!
Of course, have to throw in the "Artsy Photos of Wonderment." I love these. 
But I have to admit, this one on the right was after the Wild Child had settled down a bit.
She was insistent that she did NOT need mommy holding her around the waist. She's an Independent Woman after all.
Mommy, loaded down with visions of the look on Grandma's face if she had to tell her that granddaughter's legs were chopped off by a train, simply REFUSED to take the death grip off.
Independent Woman finally stopped her squawking and enjoyed the ride.
How cute is she standing with Thomas down below? It's her "I hear the train" pose. That's her attempt to cup her hand around her ear. Thanks, Mickey Mouse, for teaching her that one!
There was also a trolley we were able to ride the opposite direction
down the tracks. That's the engineer leaning against the house in the photo to our left. He was a grizzled looking fellow, the type of guy a song like "Desperado" was written for. You could see on his face that the tracks were not the chipper lifestyle Thomas makes them out to be.
And what's with the supposed "windows?" Would it be too much to tack up some chicken wire or something?
Speaking of "less then chipper," my poor little snickerdoodle had NO NAP during this whole entire day! So I saw the look to our right more often then I would have liked!
We had a wonderful day together! And it was all thanks to Sissy. I would have never had the initiative to get off my lazy keester and drive the kids for three hours to do this. I only wish Priss could retain the memories of that day. Good thing we've got so many pictures! And her very own little Thomas the Train, that has since been driven all over the coffee table, up the walls, down my arm, in a myriad of shopping carts...
Thanks for bearing with me on such a long post. It was an opportunity to share our Thomas Trip with hubby as well as all my bloggy friends, without having to type it all out twice!
