kaleidoscoping chaos...: Preparing to Party!

In an effort to you know, make the most of our party theme "Transportation Celebration" - we went with a related activity this morning to get us in the mood for tomorrow's party... (as if my three yr old ever needs to get in the mood for things that go!)

To the train station! This weekend happens to be Montgomery County's Heritage Days (see here) and it turns out there is a very cool historical landmark train station for the B&O Railroad not even 15 minutes away from where we live in Silver Spring, MD. It is The Historic Silver Spring B&O Railroad Station and it was participating in Heritage Days. The station was open and there was supposed to be model trains, a play area, refreshments and coloring. I figured, why not? We'd give it a try.

Jocelyn was off doing errands and needed to go to the office, so Jonah, Vera & I went adventuring on our own. The station is unassuming, but just as we drove up, a very long and colorful freight train was going by on the track - Jonah was totally psyched!

The station is small but totally cute. They were very excited to see us. The "they" is the Montgomery Preservation Inc. Turns out they host these "kid friendly" events at the station once a month and encouraged us to return. There were 2 model trains on tracks set up. Very small trains in tiny miniature cities, not the usual model trains I've seen in places like the botanical gardens. There were some guys actually building little houses for the trains sitting right there. They also had a train table set up with a bunch of train toys. In the side room there was another model train set up and a "switching" station, where you were allowed (even encouraged) to move the button each way to see the train go in opposite directions. True to the advertising, there was a table with coloring sheets - Vera liked that. They gave each kid paper conductor hat when you walked in the station. And there was a table with juice and cookies. Jonah & Vera had a BLAST!

Jonah loved watching the small trains on the tracks and following them around. It was set up basically right at his eye level so he was completely happy. Vera liked coloring and playing with the toys. The whole place was totally laid back and low key. If it wasn't for what a good time my kids were having, I would have thought it was a totally silly (and a little weird) event - but who am I to argue with happy kids. (It was a bit like being in your nerdy uncle's basment and he is a little obesessed with tiny model trains...)

We spent about an hour and then it was lunch time. Originally I thought we'd head to the Silver Spring water sprays with our snacks and then call it day. But as we were walking around the train station checking stuff out, I realized the Silver Spring Fire House was right next door and the Firestation 1 Restaurant was across the street from there... I remembered that our buddies from Not-So-SAHM had visited recently and given it a thumbs down... so I wasn't sure if we should go there. But it was gorgeous out and once Jonah saw the firetruck as we walked by, it sorta wasn't really a choice... so we looked through the windows at the real fire station first, then crossed the street.

When we got in, Jonah insisted he wanted to sit near the big truck outside and then he spotted the large toy fire truck... and he wanted that too. The place was pretty empty and no one was sitting outside. The hostess was happy sit us anywhere we wanted and gave Jonah the big toy fire truck to play with - WOW - that is super nice service... We knew not to order the mac & cheese (thanks Not-So-Sahm) so we quickly ordered the grilled cheese with apple juice. Vera and Jonah were loving sitting next to the Fire Truck, watching the traffic on Georgia Ave and even seeing another train go by! The grilled cheeses were fine. The fries were good. The apple juices came in fun plastic cups that had dragons on them - so Jonah was again super excited and the toy train that he had with him began talking to the dragon about Mike the Knight...

The morning went pretty much perfectly.

That is until I realized I forgot my phone in the car. When I got to the car I had like 20 messages from everyone in my family. Nana was coming to visit today for Jonah's party tomorrow. I figured we'd be back home in plenty of time to meet her but her plane got in a bit early and she made it super quick to our house. When she got there and we weren't there it triggered a small bit of of complete and total emergency hysteria. After multiple phone calls to allay every one's fears, we got home as quick as possible and we spent the rest of the day with Nana.

I guess now that I am a mom, I get it a little bit, that we worry about our kids - no matter how old they get. I was so sorry to make everyone worry, and I didn't mean to - on the other hand, we were ONLY 15 minutes late...

Oh well. Your mommy, will always be your mommy!

In the end, a good day!

We are now absolutely ready for our "transportation celebration" to get underway!