thomas

a couple of weekends ago we made the long trek out to hood river to visit a special friend - thomas the train! thomas has been a mild obsession around here for about the last six months or so. i never quite understood the fascination with him (have you seen the show? it's a little strange!), but our boy really loves thomas and all of his friends. we're starting to build quite the little collection here. anyway, thomas comes in real life to hood river once a year, so of course we had to go see what is was all about!

our little engineers!


yep, after a few days of sunshine it decided to rain on us. fortunately it stopped while we were doing all of the outside activities.

i have to admit, he was pretty cool! we approached the train station and there he was in all his smiling glory! the look on kellen's face made the almost $100 in tickets/paraphernalia totally worthwhile. we were running a little late due to an accident along 84, so we were almost the last ones on the five car steam engine (which actually worked out well as we didn't have to stand in line with all the other thomas fans!). as we took off, the engine had us "help" thomas by chanting push, thomas, push and of course the all familiar thomas music was playing in the background. the actual train ride itself was pretty insignificant (especially since the kids and i had just taken a 35 minute train ride around washington park and the zoo a few days before!). we literally went down the tracks about 10 minutes and then back (with a pull, thomas, pull chant of course!).


see the line of people waiting...ya, it went back about 2 full train cars! the "official" picture station is just to the right of the kids and aa!

after the train ride you could stand in line with the other 500 passengers to get your picture taken with thomas - starting at only $12! aa was a smart one and pulled us out of the line and took us to the exit, where we could get the same shot with our own camera for free!!! here is the money shot:


we then met sir topham hat, who both frightened and facisnated maya at the same time. she wouldn't go near him, but kept saying "ata hat! ata hat!". i finally figured out she meant sir topham hat and she'd shout it when he was out of her sight. there were also lots of train tables with trains, blocks, a kid sized train to ride, temporary tattoos, coloring, a thomas movie viewing area (which was a highlight for kellen - really did we need to drive to hood river to watch a thomas show!?), story hour, bounce houses (k was not a fan!) and of course the mother load of thomas toys, trains and trinkets under one giant tent. fortunately we made it out of there without having to purchase another train!


love kellen holding maya's hand! also note his diesel 10 tattoo!



after a couple of hours of thomas overload it was time for lunch...and a beer! we headed up the hill to big horse brew pub for some grub and then over to mike's ice cream for a little treat before the kids and i settled in for a little nappy on the ride home! all in all, a good day.


this girl is trouble!!!


kellen's "don't take a picture of me...funny face"

**side note: we made the mistake of telling kellen about this little adventure on monday when our thomas engineer hat and whistle arrived in the mail. bad idea. every day, every hour we had to discuss when we were going to see thomas!