Day Out With Thomas

This past weekend we headed to Strasburg, PA with Lenny to see Thomas the Tank Engine. My mom was kind enough to stay at our house with Brooke and Nathan. It was so nice because we made the entire weekend all about Lenny. He loved it. He wanted to go camping so that is what we did. We left on Friday and came back on Sunday.

Mom had a great time with Brooke and Nathan. She may be a little biased, but she said that they are really good kids. She was amazed at how well they know their routines. I told her before we left that if she forgot to do something that they are used to doing, they would remind her. She said that they did show her how they do things. I think she had a lot of fun with them. She even gave them a bath Saturday night and took them for some walks. They even slept in until 7:30 for her one day! Thanks Mom for taking such good care of them.

Gloria came down Sunday afternoon so that Mom could head on home a little earlier. We ended up getting home earlier than we expected. Thanks too, Gloria for your help.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Dominic at our camp site. We also celebrated Dominic's birthday while we were there. It was Saturday.


While we were eating lunch at the Hershey Restaurant, we ran into our neighbors that live right down the street from us. We didn't know that they were going to be there that weekend. They were also going to see Thomas on Sunday. It's so funny that we drive three hours from home and our neighbors end up sitting at the table next to us for lunch.

Dominic and Lenny next to the big Amish man.


We visited the National Toy Train Museum while we were there. Lenny loved watching all of the trains "chugging" down the tracks.



We all really enjoyed the horse and buggy ride. Dominic and Lenny were able to sit up front with the driver. I had to laugh because the driver said that if they felt some wet drops, it was just the horses sneezing. Lenny and Dominic ended up with horse hair and sneezes all over them.


On our buggy ride tour, they took us to a working Amish farm. It was very interesting to learn more about how the Amish live. And we were surprised to discover that they like to wear Sketchers. They were showing us one of the buggies and they opened up the trunk. There must have been five boxes of Sketchers in there.

Lenny wanted to get a better view of the barn.


Lenny has been very interested in bugs. He's not afraid to pick them up now thanks to Meemaw. He took his bug box with him this weekend and found a few bugs. He didn't find any roly poly bugs which is what he was looking for. Here is his inch worm friend that he got off of the tent.


Lenny decided to name the inch worm "Friendly" because he said the worm was nice. He had a great time talking and playing with Friendly. They even played hide and seek together. That was very cute. Lenny covered his eyes, counted to ten, and said "ready or not, here I come". When he uncovered his eyes, he looked for Friendly. He said, "Friendly, you were hiding under your leaf."

As we were getting ready to leave Sunday, I told Lenny that he had to let Friendly go back to his family. As Lenny was letting him go, he said, "Mommy, Friendly just told me that's not his name." I asked him what it was. Lenny said, "Food". I'm guessing some other bug or bird called him that at some point but Lenny said it was because he liked food. Anyway, somehow Friendly's full name became "Friendly Stanley Food". Stanley is a new engine on Thomas.

After we packed up the camp site, we then headed out to see Thomas. We planned to meet the Jones family there and Lenny was so excited to see Mikie. They had a great time together.

Lenny and Mikie in front of "Toby".


Lenny and Mikie in front of "Salty". Lenny was having a rough time standing on the track.


Lenny and Mikie riding on Thomas' coaches.


Me, Dominic, and Lenny. I was having a frizzy bad hair day for sure.


Lenny was excited to see that they had a big puzzle to put together in the tent. He had fun with that.


We had a great weekend together and loved camping. We really needed it because we had a rough week last week before we left. I will post about that in a few days.

Lenny's Reading

I've been meaning to post about this for a while and keep forgetting. Lenny is still really enjoying reading. He loves it and wants to read everything. He has read, with little help, quite a few of his Thomas books. He has also read quite a few Dr. Suess books including Go Dog Go and Ten Apples Up on Top. I'm so impressed with him.

He loves to search for treasures in our house. He has me draw a map on his doodle pro, then he goes and finds the treasure that I hide where X marks the spot. Anyway, a few weeks ago we were playing it and I was tired of drawing pictures. I decided that I would write words instead. He would have to read the words and find the treasure that way. He LOVES it and it's a great way for him to learn to read new words. Plus, it's much easier for me to write a word than it is to draw a piece of furniture. :-)

This has nothing to do with his reading but I had to write this. His other favorite game is to draw a new map for Mario Kart on his doodle pro. He comes up with a new map, then names it, and then tells me all the "cool stuff" in the race. Sometimes you have to drive into a Shark's mouth. It's hilarious to hear him come up with the names and obstacles. I told him that we need to contact the makers of Mario Kart and give them some of his ideas.