This afternoon Daddy, Mommy, and Abbie went to Northlandz - a 52,000 square foot museum of toy trains surrounded by an odd selection of random dolls. Website claims there are over 8 miles of train tracks and 400 bridges which stretch in/out of the entire building climbing "mountains" that are 30 feet tall. It wasn't really a planned trip -- just looking for something to do after her nap in the rainy weather. Plus I've been long overdue for a blog post.
Abbie was really excited in the car -- shrieking "go see trains & babies!!!!" over and over. But as soon as we got there, Mommy was overly concerned about bumping into a gaggle of pedofiles and I kept re-checking my wallet wondering why it cost so much.
However, once we entered, Abbie was AMAZED. No lie... so were we. It's pretty impressive when you start to realize how much work went into it. The owner started building it almost 40 years ago in 1972 (probably hasn't had a date since, but who's counting).
Anyway.... we treked through the dark hallways and pointed out all the trains entering/existing tunnels -- which she liked. After 20-25 minutes walking, Abbie started to get a little bored. And then we saw this sign:
"You have now completed 25% of Northlandz"
Awesome. I remember thinking, "a two-year old meltdown is in my very near future". Although she was just tall enough to peer over the ledge, we ended up carrying her most of the time. That didn't help either of our lower backs, but Abbie hung in there and stuck it out for an hour to at least make it money well spent. Here's some cell phone photos from the day....
Last Sunday we celebrated "Pop Charlie's" birthday with the crew. Earlier that week, Abbie insisted on buying party hats. She picked out Thomas the Tank Engine especially for Pop Charlie. Party hats were mandatory....
