It was starting to feel like things were settling down and I could once again think of fun things to do instead of just worrying about making it through the week! I noticed that Thomas the train was coming to the Grapevine Railroad and knew the boys would absolutely love to go! And since I’ve been trying to psych myself up for road trips, I bought tickets and forced myself to make it happen.
I mentioned to Theresa that I was nervous about traveling with all three of the kids (alone!) and she gave the very great advice of just planning to make a stop halfway. That way you get everyone out of the car for a break and hopefully it is before anyone starts melting down. And since West, home of the world’s best Kolaches, is about halfway to my parent’s house - that’s where we stopped!
There is a playground right down the street from Kolaches, so we wandered over there to play for a little while. I also just bought a new phone that has a fun “portrait” mode setting, so I made the boys pose for me to try it out.
It looks really neat! You can adjust how much it blurs the background of the image, but the AI for knowing what is face and what is background does an impressive job.
We made it up to my parent’s house without too much stress and then the next morning we headed off to see Thomas the train! There was a bunch of other activities there for the kids, though I am still very unclear on how a tortoise relates to a train…
When I realized it was a pretty gloomy forecast, I made a quick stop at Target to get Natalie a raincoat. I was hoping to not need it, but better to be prepared! On the bright side, she looks so adorable in it!
Grandpa and Nonni also joined in the train fun. It’s pretty easy to convince my dad to come along to anything involving trains. And Nonni is usually up for anything! :)
Natalie seemed pretty excited about being able to stare out the window and check out the scenery during the ride. Clearly she has the train genetics in her DNA.
Obviously the boys were having a blast as usual!
Look at these two happy little guys! Well worth all of the anxiety to get up there! :)
At some point during the trip I made a comment about sundaes and neither of the boys knew what I was talking about. How have I never given my kids a sundae?!?!
Well that was promptly rectified with a trip to Braums! And I bought them the most classic of sundaes - a banana split!
Pretty sure they approved…!
Natalie got a few bites of ice cream as well. She obviously approves as well. She was trying to steal more bites from Nonni & Grandpa!
We planned a different stop on the way back in Waco. I was looking around on google for a park to stop at and this one by the river did not disappoint. Everyone had a blast running around - even the littlest one! She’s clearly figured out this walking business and has quickly moved to running. :)
We had to make a second stop on the way back to feed the little one, so the boys got lucky and got another sundae at McDonald’s. Their dad insisted they needed to try them as well and I was in a great mood since no one was throwing a fit in my car. Win-win! :)