Train Ride

 Let's take a train ride.

On a real train!

Say hello to the conductor.

Bring your cousins. All aboard!

It's a beautiful day... enjoy the open air passenger car.

Enjoy a tasty snack from the refreshment car.

Lovely day. Now back to the station.

**********

The Lebanon Mason Monroe Railroad is a local attraction that offers all sorts of themed train rides in authentic, original passenger cars built in the 1930s and used for 40 years as commuter trains in New Jersey. It departs out of the quaint, historic town of Lebanon. Our trip was The Cat in the Hat theme, and we took a 40 minute train ride to a park where we disembarked for some activities, and then loaded up and returned to the station.

Adam was not interested in meeting The Cat but did enjoy the other "stations" -- games to play to win small prizes such as bubbles and bouncy balls and playing on the playground. The LMMR also offers other themes, such as date nights, rides with other characters (Thomas, Curious George, Clifford), trips to the pumpkin patch and the Apple Festival, transportation to Cincinnati's annual Labor Day fireworks, and a special North Pole Express. Another local train, the Cincinnati Railway Company, offers a dinner train in vintage dining cars. We are excited to explore a lot more of these opportunities.

We coordinated this event during a visit from Michael's sister and Adam's two cousins.  Since moving from Florida we don't see them as often, and when they are in town we make it a point to get all the family together as much as possible.

All but one of the Moreland cousins!
From left, clockwise -- Channing, Austin, Noah, Sam, Alyssa,
Carter, Adam, Sophie and Emma

Framing that one for sure.

The Festibul

A couple of weeks ago we checked out the St Max Family Festival at our local catholic church. We've attended service there a couple of times and Michael even volunteered to help out and worked a couple of hours on Saturday. Friday night, though, we decided to drive on over and have a family date night.

Last year we took Adam to the Lexington fair and, frankly, he was less than thrilled to be there. If you remember the story, as we were parking he told us he wanted to stay in the car. A year later I feared he'd have the same reaction.

He seemed excited to go to the "festibul" this time, and after parking we walked over and entered by the kiddie rides. There was a sack slide, a jungle jim/funhouse thing and some rockets that circled and raised and lowered.

Adam said he wanted to ride so I purchased a few tickets not knowing how this was going to go over. He chose the jungle jim contraption with a tunnel to crawl through, obstacle course, a rope ladder, suspension bridge and two slides. I think I was more excited than he was that he was willingly climbing up on his own! He zipped through the lower portion, ascended a ladder up to a platform, saw the inflatable tube slide and, well, stopped to admire the view for the next 10 minutes. We could see him debate the merits of sliding or climbing back down as other children climbed over and around him to continue on. We were those parents standing on the ground trying to yell up to him over the carnival noises to encourage him on but it finally took the kid who was manning the ride to go up and assist him.

Once he conquered the ride once, he was anxious to try it again. On his second attempt, he only hesitated 7 minutes on his platform before another, helpful child helped him forward. As he came down the slide we could hear a triumphant "I did it!" From then on, his fears were conquered.

He zipped down the sack slide all on his own and immediately wanted another go at it. When it came to the rocket ride, though, I had my doubts that he'd go on it alone. This kid has never been fond of machines and doesn't even want to sit on a stationary lawnmower with the engine off. {He dislikes the vacuum, too, so of course I refrain from upsetting my child as much as possible.}

But there was no hesitation at all! In fact, we had to go buy more tickets so he could ride it a couple of times. Meanwhile Michael and I enjoyed the kind, easy conversations with other parents and the overall feeling of belonging to a community.

Like I mentioned, Michael had volunteered on Saturday afternoon, so of course we had to return then to ride a few more rides. And for this.

And this.

And of course, this.

Fair food. Enough said. 

Would you believe this is Adam's first full ice cream cone? Yes, he has finally come around on liking ice cream and desserts in general! Yay!

{And what does it say about me that I made the food pictures larger than the others??!}

All in all these two days at the "Festibul" were good practice for our upcoming vacation and the Carolina Beach boardwalk rides with his cousin Jake.

So, you think he's excited to go to another Festibul?

And Sam can't contain his excitement either.

Looking Older

Over the last few weeks Sam has made the transition from looking like a  Baby to Infant. Everyone who sees him these days says he looks so much bigger and older. After extensive research and consideration, his new aged look can be attributed to:

• Haircut

Before:

After:

• Tooth (well, now teeth on the bottom)

• "Solid" foods. (The boy loves his spoon!) 

• Sitting Up. This is Sam's preferred position. He can finally see everything that's going on.

• Standing?? (Only with support close by. No, he isn't pulling himself up on his own just yet, but I know it won't be long before he is!)

• Swimming, Scooting, Rocking, Diving, Creeping (and occasionally a forward crawl)

We keeping thinking this will be the week that he starts crawling. He has gone forward about 2 or 3 feet but isn't consistently showing forward motion. Most of his movement is actually backwards. He spends a lot of time on all fours and has even shown us some Downward Dog yoga moves. His signature move is to sit back on his hind legs and reach around to the back with his left arm and scratch at his left thigh. This is clearly a sign of significant intelligence. We try to entice him to move forward but often he just ends up diving forward to get what he wants. And then does the swimming in place motion.

I honestly don't know why we're encouraging him so much to start crawling. I love love love him just the way he is... and where he is. Not sure I'm ready for the baby gates and baby proofing!

So, bottom line is, if you haven't seem him lately, come visit Sam soon. He's already changing oh so much.

The Great Outdoors

We wrapped up Memorial Day weekend at Grandpa Dave's with family. I was hesitant to camp overnight with Sam as I was afraid he'd be up early or wake in the night and disrupt everyone. If you've ever been camping you know the sounds of a zipper on the tent door is ten times louder in the wee hours of the morning. But Sam was super. He takes to camping well.

Adam is a great age now to take camping. I don't have to keep such a close eye on him anymore, and since he mastered the art of peeing outside (thanks, Daddy), he was quite self-sufficient.

I managed to not get any photos of all the other family there. Or with Uncle Rich and the boys who came up on Monday for some 4-wheeling and fishing. Or the huge campfire. 

But here are a few of our weekend.

This One Belongs to the Reds!

We kicked off our holiday weekend with our first Reds game of the season!

With cousins! And Grandpa!

Sam's first game!

Family...

Food...

And Fireworks!

(and a Reds win, too.)