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Day Out with Thomas

If I had to pick a character for Benjamin to be in love with, I guess Thomas-the-Train would be high on the list. I would much rather prefer the hard working little blue engine than the fighting superheros, such as Spider-Super-Bat-(fill in the blank)-Man that seems to be so popular with little boys right now. Yes, the movies are quite bland for my taste, but Benjamin just can't get enough of them. However, when I've had my fill of them (which is rather quickly), I insist that we switch up the movies a bit and insert a little Elmo's World or Baby Einstein into the mix. Afterall, a mom can only take so many British-accented children's songs about trains and rail roads. Sometimes a little classical music is in order, or at least a cute, fuzzy puppet giggling about Big Bird and Cookie Monster! :)

Anyway, because Benjamin is infatuated with the spunky blue train and all his friends (his actual favorites are Percy and Henry) Nathan and I took him up to Santa Cruz yesterday so he could spend the day with the locomotives themselves. Gramma and Grampa were good sports and joined us for the day trip. To get into the spirit, we watched a Thomas DVD on the way there (boy, was I excited to watch it for the thousandth time) and by the time we got there, we all had the theme song stuck in our heads. We took our picture with a huge blow-up Percy (which Benjamin enjoyed seeing from afar, but not so much up close!), played with the small wooden trains on multiple tables, shopped through the Thomas-the-Train paraphenalia (did you know you could buy Thomas hand sanitizer??), and Benjamin even got his own Percy tattoo applied to his hand (we called it a stamp). Ben was very impatient to ride Thomas, but since we still had some time to kill before our turn, we rode the shuttle train back and forth to the parking lot, which seemed to appease him a bit.

Finally, it was time to board Thomas. We found our spots and took a 25 minute ride on the famous blue engine through some beautiful redwoods, along a pretty river, before heading home for the day. The little guy fell asleep before we were even on the highway, admiring his Percy "stamp" and perusing through his Thomas-the-Train catalogue we got him in the gift shop (it was free!) He was one tired and happy little boy. Even though it wasn't something that I found fascinating (while there, it struck me that as the mother of two boys, my life was destined to activities such as these, so I better just get used to it) I did love watching his excited face when he saw his beloved engines in person. Oh, and I especially enjoyed the Olive Garden dinner in Salinas on the way home. :)







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