Summer Trains

At the beginning of the summer Dallen started to express an interest in trains. Jeff is a lover of trains, as was his Grandpa Tibbs. So Jeff was keen to indulge in Dallen's newfound love. We have a "train museum" quite close to our home, and we purchased an annual pass! The Colorado Railroad Museum has many fun events that take place throughout the year such as "Day out with Thomas" (as in Thomas the Tank Engine). Very expensive to participate, even with our membership, so we have chosen to skip out on these "extra" events for now- maybe one day.

The museum is only about 10 minutes from our home, so it's great to just jaunt on over to visit for a little while when we have spare time. Dallen and Sienna both really enjoy climbing all over the trains, and even pretending that they live on them! I love their imaginations- they could pretend on the trains for hours- in fact, they usually aren't ready to leave the museum when Jeff and I are ready.

Throughout the summer we have visited several different trains, and I thought it'd be fun to share some of the pictures that we have taken! The first several are from our family's first visit together to the railroad museum...

Can you tell that Jeff is just as excited as Dallen at this point?? They very much share this interest!!
Here the kids are on one of the many cabooses that are spread throughout the park.

I can't hold all the details of these trains in my head- too much train info for me and my brain shuts down, but I can tell you that this is a steam engine, and it is VERY OLD!!
Isn't it insanly crazy how HUGE this engine is?? My hubby not a small man, and he looks tiny next to this monster of a train!!

This looks like just your standard caboose picture, but notice me and Dallen up in the top window?? It was pretty fun to climb up there!!! :)
This is Dallen hanging out on one of the big engines. He was pretty happy, but I couldn't catch him smiling and looking out at the same time... he wanted to be INSIDE the train, not outside.

Now this next picture down below was when we went to Jeff's cousin Melody's wedding in Salt Lake City, UT. The wedding was at "This is the Place" monument, and they have a train there that rides over the property and gives a tour. Dallen was SO very excited!! Actually all of the little cousins were excited. We met all of Jeff's family there, so all of our kids cousins on his side of the fam were at the wedding too! It was great to be there for Melody's wedding, and really great to have all of us together- we just don't see each other enough.
Here we are on the train- from left to right- Taven, Ellie, Mikayla, Sienna, Ginny, Meah(with her head turned), me, Dallen, and Emily. I have long been told of an amazing park down south of Denver called Belleview Park. We had never been until this summer, and I can't wait to go again!! It was about a 40 minute drive, so I can't imagine that we'll go often, but it's definitely worth visiting for a day trip once each summer. There is not only a great playground, but also a covered picnic area with grills, bathrooms, a petting zoo, a small creek to play in, and a train to ride!! Next year we'll take a picnic lunch, towels, and plan on spending the whole day there!

In September I had the great pleasure of watching my good friend Melissa's kids for a few days before she went on maternity leave with her 3rd baby. One of the days that they spent with us, we decided to take them to the Colorado Railroad Museum with us- here is one of the cute pictures from that day. They all had a blast together!

At the end of the summer, I am happy to report that Dallen's love for trains has grown immensely! In the last month or so he's decided that he wanted to "potty train" and as he's progressed we've been giving him little train presents as rewards for different stages. He's been in underwear now for the last 3 weeks, even when he sleeps!! He's doing great! But he loves his "Thomas" and "Salty" train engines so much that he sometimes takes them to bed with him for naps... it's cute... I'm sure that he will share this love with his Daddy, and his Great Grandpa for the eternities!! We just booked our tickets to go on the Georgetown Loop train for the "Santa Express" specialty train!! Can't wait for December 4th!!