Thomas!!!

We left Maysville around 9:15 am, with Asher still not knowing what the "surprise" was. We stopped for lunch at our favorite fast food place, Chick-Fil-A, about 10:40 am. We ate on the road and then told Asher what we were doing, that Thomas had come all the way from the Island of Sodor to visit the children and we were going to meet him and ride on his coaches, a real train!! He was super excited but not very excited to meet Sir Topham Hatt because, "they scare me all dressed up like that, like SpongeBob at King's Island". LOL (We ended up not even seeing him anyhow.) We arrived at the railroad about 11:15 am. Our ride started at 12 pm. We had to find a spot to park, which ended up being a really good spot - it was crazy busy, much different layout of everything than I expected in my head, we were lucky to find the spot we did. We then had to find the area to pick up our actual tickets since I had booked online. Once we got that done, we found the boarding area for Car #1, which was the last one next to what we thought was the caboose, but ended up being another engine that pulled us the one way, then we returned back with Thomas "pulling". So not a circle, and the scenery was mostly industrial park with some woods. All that for $18 a ticket! I told John they are making a KILLING off this deal!!! At least Allie was free, being under 2. The train cars were NOT air conditioned, and I was nervous about that as it has gotten hot here again, it was in the upper 80s (I know to you southerners that isn't really hot but we are used to milder summers up here now) and very humid. Thankfully there was a nice breeze and lots of windows in the coach. I took a ton of pics and have to weed through them, they are uploading now and I will add some here and then upload to Snapfish. While we were waiting, Asher said he was nervous, he said he was a little scared of the whole train thing. We reassured him and he ended up having a great time. He didn't want his pic taken with the conductor, but Allie did! She loved the train ride! She did get antsy the last 5 minutes but otherwise did just as good and had just as much fun (if not a little more) than Asher. She LOVED the PEEP PEEP of the whistle as we crossed roads, Asher covered his ears and said it was too loud! The train cars were 78 years old! We didn't do any of the other "festival" things there, like a bouncy castle, face painting, etc, just ready to get on with our gettin' on since we knew we had a lot of stops while we were in the Big City. Asher was bummed about that, he wasn't ready to leave, especially to go shopping. But it was just too HOT and too BUSY to try to manage all of the other things. The line to have a pic taken with Thomas was probably at least 100 kids, so John held him up and I took pics! Good enough for us! I also finished Allie's cupcake "pillowcase" dress on Friday. It is adorable although I don't like how the bias turned out on the armholes, going to have to work on that, plus it ended up being a bit too short. I am still in experimentation mode! I did cut the width by 4 inches from the first one I made, and I think that seemed fine although I could have probably kept the width and did OK, too. They scrunch up so much. We shopped at Dick's Sporting Goods and got John golf shoes, new Nikes for work, and new folding outdoor chairs and a few misc items. We looked at golf clubs but frankly it was overwhelming and more $$$ than we were thinking. So, we are going to ask around and see if we can find some used clubs for John/me and also for Asher. At Bed Bath & Beyond we got a new Calphalon One nonstick skillet, ooooh it is so nice, it was on clearance and marked down then we were able to use the 20% off coupon, and we also got some new utensils - FINALLY - we have been down to only 4 spoons in the small size for months, I guess some little elf walked off with the other 4. The funny thing was we were looking at the wall displays of all the utensils and we pick one, only to find the last one on the shelf had the knife stolen right out of the front! Sheesh. So we asked for, and received, 20% off of it - we didn't care to only get 3 knives as long as we had all the spoons! And I got another Yankee Candle in the Sage & Citrus scent, I discovered that scent at the Cracker Barrel while visiting Grandmother in IL. It is totally awesome!!!! I had to get a car freshener, too. :) We also hit Dillard's, in two different locations, and got incredible 75% off savings on swimwear for me and also shirts, pants, and shorts for John. And we found a pair of Ecco shoes on clearance for Allie, in the perfect size for her now, I was looking for a pair of brown shoes with a flexible sole and we had glanced at some that were $48 !!! and said no, then I saw these on a fluke and they were marked down from $55 to only $13!!!!!!!! OMG!!! And they totally fit and are so cute. YAYAYAYAYAY!!!! It was that kind of day with the sales. We got take-out from McAlister's Deli and headed home about 7:30 pm. On the way home, we stopped at Jack's Aquarium to check out new crabs for Asher's tank and a new sand sifter for ours. Hit pay dirt on both. The kids and I waited in the car, finishing eating, while John ran in. Both kids fell asleep on the way home and we got them right into bed. John had to get the new fish settled and then we hit the hay. Definitely a full day, but very fun and I am so glad we did it! Today we have been doing laundry and John ran to Wal-Mart for me, then we had to chase down everything that has blown all crazy outside as we are under a Wind Warning with gusts up to 60 mph. It is unreal!!! OK, on to pics! Here comes Thomas!!! Smoke was billowing out of his smokestack, he was peeping, and it was SUPER COOL!!! Asher was slightly terrified!

I'll post dress pics later, the internet is acting screwy and I want to get this published...