A Day With Thomas

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Saturday was a big day for Nick and his cousin’s because Thomas the Train was in town and we went to see him.  Thomas was at Greenfield Village which is part of The Henry Ford.  Greenfield Village is a fun place to visit anyways, so the addition of Thomas and all of the fun activities that were there because of him, was an added bonus.

Saturday dawned grey and overcast.  We all kept telling ourselves that it wasn’t supposed to rain.  The temperature was supposed to be 68 degrees, so I decided Nick and I should wear long sleeves with a fleece over it (of course it got warmer than expected so we ended up dressing too warmly).  Nick woke up a little after 7:00 and luckily was very happy.  The night before he had fallen asleep really late and hadn’t slept great, plus he had been pulling on his ears a lot, so I wasn’t sure how he’d be doing.

We had decided that we wouldn’t leave until late morning, so we spent the morning relaxing.  Well, Nick relaxed more than me.  He got to play with his toys while I got everything ready for the day.  Still I had enough time that I didn’t have to rush around and get stressed out by it.  Mom arrived around 10:15 and she took over playing with Nick which allowed me to pack his food for the day.  At 10:45 we loaded all of our stuff, and Nick, into mom’s car and headed out.  Sadly Jason had to work so he couldn’t come with us.

The whole family met up at a McDonalds along the way for lunch.  Nick had slept most of the way there, so he was still quite happy.  As soon as we got inside I put Nick into his booster seat and started feeding him which was a lucky thing since he was very hungry and ate a lot, so it took quite a bit of time.    Once everyone had finished we loaded back into our cars and headed out.

When we got to Greenfield Village the parking lots were packed, which we had been worried about, but we did find some spots at the back.  Once we had parked we all got out, setup the strollers, and started our trek to the entrance.  As we were walking in Thomas came chugging by us on the tracks.  The kids couldn’t see him very well due to the gate wall, but it sure got them excited.  When we got to the entrance we all had miscellaneous things to take care of (bathroom breaks, diaper changes, bottle feedings, ticket collecting), but we managed to make it into the park within 30 minutes.

As soon as we got inside we headed to the working farm.  The kids loved seeing the baby sheep.  From there we went into lots of other old buildings.  At one point we even stopped and fed a duck.  Before  long we stumbled onto a model train setup that they had because of Thomas.   The kids loved it.  There was so much to see and there were buttons that the kids could push to make things happen.  When the kids actually started to tier of the trains we headed outside for more fun activities.  There were toy cars for the kids to drive, a continuous bubble machine (Nick loved that), and other games and activities.

Eventually we got back to exploring the buildings.  We went into the Wright Brother’s bike shop and the kids were enthralled with the story of their first flight (even Nick listened with intent).  Eventually Nick got tiered of the starting and stopping, so mom and I wandered off so that we kept his stroller moving more.  We wandered into a little shop where Nick played with a little music box, and then we headed to the Thomas Gift Shop.  We got Nick a cute Thomas shirt for next summer (the smallest size they had was 2T) and we got him a set of board books.

By the time we were done shopping Nick was really done with being in his stroller, so we let him get out and walk around. He played outside of the store for 10 minutes or so, and then it was time to go ride Thomas. Nick was enjoying being out of his stroller for so much that we let him keep walking. He walked all of the way from the store to the train station!

Once we joined the rest of the family we didn’t have long to wait until Thomas was pulling in. As soon as the group in front of us got off the train we were cleared to board.  Our group got the back of the second car.  Some of us went forward and some went backwards, but we managed to all fit on the four small benches.  We had to sit until the actual trip time, but it wasn’t too long.  Nick was starting to get tired of waiting when the train started.  He was really ready to walk again, but he decided he liked riding the train.  After that he happily sat on Nana’s lap for the 20 minute ride.

Almost as soon as the train ride was done Nick showed signs of being tired which wasn’t surprising since it was past his nap time.  We put him in his stroller, tipped the seat back, and gave him blankie and binkie.  Within minutes he was out cold.  The rest of the family still wanted to look at a lot of the buildings which was fine with us since Nick was sleeping.  Some of the buildings we could take the stroller into, but when we couldn’t mom and I would take turns looking inside and pushing the stroller.  The big thing was to keep Nick moving, so there were times that we just walked around which was really nice too.

After about an hour we all decided it was time to leave.  We stopped in the main gift shop on the way out which woke Nick up, but he had gotten a good nap in so he was happy.  The walk back to the car seemed really long.  We had been in the back of the park, so we walked all of the way to the front, and then our car was so far away that we walked about the same length as we had walked to get back to the front of the park.  We were all wishing that the was a back exit!

Once we had all loaded up the strollers, the kids, and all of our stuff, our caravan headed out.  We were all going to another family member’s house for dinner.  The evening went pretty well.  Periodically you’d hear one of the kiddos crying (they were very worn out from the day), but overall they were happy.  Around 7:30 I changed Nick into his jammies and we headed for home.  He did fall asleep on the way, but he woke up when we got home.  Luckily he was happy to play in his crib and he did eventually fall asleep.

We had the best time going to see Thomas the Train at Greenfield Village.  If Thomas ever comes to your area I highly recommend going to see him (for those in the area just an FYI, Thomas will still be at Greenfield Village this coming weekend of May 12 and 13).  We’re hopping he comes back next year so we can do it again.  I know Nick won’t remember it, but it was a wonderful day that I won’t soon forget.