A Day Out With Thomas

You may remember my telling you that my sister Melanie got the boys tickets for A Day Out With Thomas for their birthdays. Jack knew we would be going on the day after Wy's birthday and began asking me nearly every day "Is it Wyatt's birfday yet?"

Friday was the big day. We packed the boys up and headed out for Baldwin City. John drove leaving me to be map girl. We were heading south on 35 and knew we needed to take 56. Suddenly John saw a sign for OLD 56. I start feeling uncomfortable; is there an old 56 and a NEW 56? We were already running almost an hour behind schedule and I was not going to be happy if we took the wrong road. John decides to take old 56. After a while we are on these blank stretches of country 'highway'. There is nothing on the map to indicate that we should cross X street or X highway. There are no signs on the road that say Baldwin City X miles. After a half hour I finally asked John if he was comfortable with the direction we were going in. He said yes he was. I told him that was nice because I thought I was going to puke. I had no confidence that we were on the path to Baldwin City. Once we reached the town limits of some nameless little town, John eased my spirits by letting me ask for directions and I will admit before everyone - that John was right - we were on the right road with only another 10 minutes to go. I was wrong.

We pulled into the Baldwin City Bulldogs High School parking lot and piled the boys onto a school bus. Jack was all about picking out school buses on the street, but he did not want to ride one. Wy was overjoyed. The bus took us to the Thomas 'park' which was a series of tents built around a railroad track. There was a fire truck and a small crew of fire fighters just inside the gates - but Jack wasn't interested in that either. We headed off for the mini hay stack maze, which the boys had a blast chasing each other around in. Then it was a petting zoo - though you couldn't really pet the animals - they were in cages and didn't get too close to the people.

As we left the petting zoo, Thomas came pulling into the station. Kids came running from every direction. Poor Jack took some convincing that our tickets were for later in the day and that we would play in and around some of the tents before meeting Thomas. Next we went over to the Imagination Station. This tent had about 5 train tables set up with tons of trains to play with. Little boys were everywhere playing and sharing. It was really sweet.

Next up was face painting tent. Sadly, there was no one inside painting faces or anything else. There were however, a number of ladies putting Thomas tattoos on kids. Jack hopped right up for his Thomas tattoo and was immediately disappointed as one of Thomas' wheels peeled off. After that it was just pick, pick, pick at the tattoo until there was nothing left. I couldn't believe it, but Wy wanted a tattoo as well. I think he was comfortable with the whole thing after having watched Jack get his. Wy picked out Percy and proudly showed off his tattoo all day. (I did catch him sucking on his arm late in the day. I think he was trying to eat it - so we finally washed it off.)

Just as we finished tattooing the boys, a lady popped out of a tent to announce story time. We moved into the next tent and helped her read James Goes Buzz-Buzz. And then we went and met Sir Topham Hatt!!! Oh the boys were so excited. Wy bounced up and down the whole time we were in line. Finally it was time to get in line for our train ride. One of the ticket fellas kept trying to convince us to ride in an open air car, but we stuck to our guns and rode in one of the passenger cars. I'm super glad we stayed the course because Wy would have made the trip very stressful. As it was, he spent the majority of the ride with his head out the window like a dog. We had a nice long ride and the boys had a great time. I have simply come to accept that sometimes Jack's happy or excited face just looks sad and solemn...

Anyway, after Thomas brought us back to the station, we had the boys get their picture taken with their favorite train. We let the boys play in the Imagination Station again while we waited for our pictures to develop and all too soon it was time to go home. Poor Jack was distraught. I finally convinced him to take a look at the fire truck while we waited for the return of the school bus shuttle. He took a turn sitting in the driver's seat. He let the fire truck lady help him into the fireman's gear; boots, pants, jacket and helmet. Poor kid could barely manage to stay upright under all that weight - even with the lady helping.

Then, it was time to get on the bus. He didn't fight too much about it, he just got sad. Jack didn't talk much on the ride back to the bull dog parking lot. He refused to leave the bus when we reached our destination. He was the very last person on the bus. He wouldn't go with me so I finally said goodbye and stepped of the bus. He came hurtling off the bus and then just sort of collapsed in the grass and cried. It was so sad and funny all at the same time. John didn't have to work too hard to convince me to get Jack's picture. So there he is, sitting alone and sad, crying his little heart out in the grass. After I snapped his picture I sat down and cuddled him for a good long while. We managed to get everyone in the car and within 5 minutes, the boys were out cold. I say it was a great day.

I have already had to promise that we will go back to visit Thomas next year. We spent the weekend in Omaha - Jack kept asking if we were driving to "Bawan City for Thomas?" I have been telling the boys we fly to California on Wednesday. Jack is asking if we can go to Baldwin City when we get to California. I have told him we will ride a cable car in San Francisco and he keeps going on about going to meet Thomas when we get there...

Hopefully you can follow this link to our Day Out With Thomas slide show. Let me know if you have troubles, I will see what we can do to help y'all out.

http://owenlandparkproductions.shutterfly.com/


Peace, love and many blessings,
Owenland Park