Edaville Railroad

Yesterday afternoon we met Grandma Jan at Edaville Railroad for their festival of lights. This is where Ethan, Steve and Grandma Jan came for a day out with Thomas last year, but I haven't been here since I was a kid! I was very excited to return which is why it was so devastating when we almost had to turn around as soon as we got there. Ethan's coat is too bulky for him to wear buckled into his car seat so he wasn't wearing his for the ride down. We were almost there when I all of a sudden realized that Steve and I were wearing our coats but had forgotten to grab Ethan's! Seriously. How the heck does that happen to New England parents in December the day of a predicted snowstorm!? I'll tell you how. It was one of those afternoons where we kept him up from his nap and he was melting down over everything so we were stressed trying to just get the heck out of the house. To you nonparents out there it may not sound like a big deal, but let me tell you, he can ratchet up the stress level with the best of them. We were so happy when he finally fell asleep in the car! We were over an hour from home when we realized our mistake, so we got off on an exit that advertised several gas stations in hopes of discovering a Marshalls or TJMaxx but that was not to be. Grandma Jan arrived at Edaville ahead of us and went in to see if the gift shop had any winter coats. We were in luck and they had a 4T (one size bigger than our little guy, but better than wearing my fleece!). However, they didn't have it at the first and most convenient gift shop, it was in the middle of the park at the big gift shop so I wrapped him in my fleece, opened my shell and held him against me and walked/ran the whole way in! I was exhausted but they not only had a coat but they had a Thomas coat and the evening was saved. I dreaded looking at the price tag but it was only $25! We were sold. Especially since we'd already paid admission and weren't missing the train ride.




Here's his look of "seriously mom. I do not want to look at the freaking camera but I'm tired of listening to you". I had to get a picture of him in his new coat!




The train ride goes through the woods and past many displays of lights. Ethan started out the ride in his usual overwhelmed state, but once we got going, he really got into it!

Ethan wasn't interested in showing me his ticket, but here is Steve with his!

After our train ride we walked all around and admired more lights, climbed on trains and went on a few rides.

Ethan's first ride was the Jolly Caterpillar. Steve was going on with him and GJ and I were going to watch but then we decided to get in on the action. We barely fit in the car, but we were laughing the whole time! This was definitely a kids ride. We were unpleasantly dizzy by the end.

Ethan and I then went on a train ride together. I was too big to sit in the engine with him. He was disappointed that the buttons didn't do anything.

After refusing to see Santa again and again, I finally got him to agree to go. This isn't a great picture, but it gives you a good idea of how he was feeling about it! He was oh so skeptical about the man in the red suit. He barely spoke and didn't even ask for the black train with the remote control that he's been fixated on for weeks (which he will be getting Christmas morning and we can't wait to see the look on his face!). He did sit there and didn't make a scene or anything but I think he was relieved to get down. Besides, Santa was sucking on a cough drop and didn't sound so good...

We are aware of how this child reacts to chocolate in his system, but with the cold weather, we just had to have hot chocolate. It was delicious and Ethan was a wild man! It took a lot to wrestle him back into his winter gear to go out and ride the airplanes that he'd been dying to ride since we got there. Here he is in the red baron. This plane matches one of the ones on his new shirts so that was cool. What was funny is that there was a "stick" in front of him that makes the plane go up and down as the ride goes around. Every time he passed us we were yelling "Ethan! Pull the stick!". He did eventually pull it and he went up once and then back down and that was it. It was pretty darn cold by that point so maybe he wasn't feeling it so much.

We stopped for dinner at a Bugaboo Creek and then Ethan fell asleep in the car on our way home from there. I thought for sure he'd wake up when we got home but he was exhausted and stayed out for the night. There weren't many people out and about as we were expecting a giant snowstorm, so it worked out great for us. It still hadn't started to snow when we went to bed last night but we woke up to the heavy snowfall they'd been predicting. More on that later!