Christmas Trains

Our boys love them some trains. So when we set out to see Christmas-y things, we make an effort to head to place that involve a train, because that's all they really want to see anyway.
We headed to Christmas Lane on Wednesday night.  They ran right by a giant sleigh that they could sit in, they ran right by Santa, they ran right by a ginormous tree, and they didn't stop until they got to the train.  Micah may be too tall to ride it next year, so I'm glad he got to ride this year.  Here's the train starting off.

They got to ring the bell, which is thrilling.  Micah's in the red shirt in this picture and he's doing the ringing, while Liam is looking out the window ready to wave to us.

I'm really not sure if they even cared if Santa stopped there.  There was a sign that you were only allowed to ride the train twice, and Micah and Liam were thrilled to ride the second time with their friends from across the street.

Here's the pretty tree they ran right past.

I did talk them in to getting in the sleigh, but clearly Micah's attention was on other things.

My friend Sue showed me an article in the paper about a man who lives about 20 minutes from us, and who has restored a real train caboose in his front yard.  Every year, he opens it up at Christmas and Easter for two days for people to come and tour it.  The boys were soooo excited to be getting on a real train.

I managed to get them to stop long enough to get their picture taken by the crossing sign.

And as a bonus, look who we found sitting inside!  This is a bad picture, but they printed one out for us and gave it to us.  Everything was free, which made it even better.

When they boys found out that they got to be in the top where the windows were, there was no containing the excitement.  Liam could see our car, which I think is what he's telling me when I took the picture.

This gentleman has also restored an engine.  Check out the boy running up the ramp to get inside.  He could not wait.

They got to (pretend) to steer the train,

and (really) ring the bell.  The family running this family was so sweet.  I kept asking the boys to take a rest from ringing the very loud bell, but they kept saying it was okay and they were having fun.

Micah standing by a real live crossing gate!!

And then by a real live crossing sign!! (I thought he was going to pass out when they gave him a box of train-shaped graham crackers.)

Steering a little yellow train car, also in the yard.

A cutie pie in a train.

Posing on a bench made partially out of train wheels.  

They are open for Easter.  Those pictures coming to the blog on March 30, 3013. :)