Family Vacation Day 2: Day Out with Thomas

The reason we went to Santa Cruz was to go to Roaring Camp Railroads because Thomas would be in town.  "Day out with Thomas" travels all over the country with the real Thomas the Tank Engine who pulls the cars we get to ride.  They also set up all sorts of activities for the day.

We stopped by Blair street quickly on the way:

Blair wasn't in a fantastic mood to start the day.  She wanted to ride Thomas immediately and we had an hour and a half before our time.  We first stopped by the schoolhouse and watched a quick Thomas clip.

You can see Blair is thrilled here to stick her head in here.

We had her picture sketched.  I had to have her watch videos of herself on my phone the whole time to keep her still.  She loves watching herself!

 
They had train table set up.  She enjoyed that.

 She sat still to get her face painted.  She chose to get Molly of course, her favorite!

Next was the bubble station.  She liked dipping her wand into the bubble pan.

 Finally we got to meet Thomas and Blair was super cooperative for pictures.

So we tried to tell her she needed to smile for pictures if she wanted to ride on Thomas, here is what she thinks smiling is :)

Nora had enough at that point and went to sleep.  She ended up sleeping through most of the train ride.

Finally it was our turn.  We were on a covered open car but it was about 4 back from the Thomas Engine so you couldn't really tell you were riding Thomas.  Blair enjoyed the ride still though, she didn't get bored.  

 Nora woke up to enjoy a bit of the ride.  She seemed to enjoy it as it was time for her to eat and she wasn't cranky.

Next we went to meet Sir Topham Hat!  Blair gave him a high five and a hug without problems... smiling for a picture is a No though.

She has gotten over her fear of bounce houses and had a great time.

 She enjoyed playing in the barn too.

She got to pick out a toy at the gift shop which she loved, she wanted everything (there may have been a bit of a tantrum) and she ended up choosing a Bulstrode Boat for the bath.

It was a fun day.  We could  have spent a lot more time with all the activities but we needed to get on the road for the long drive home.  It was a quick little getaway but our first one as just our family, we couldn't have asked for a better time.  We have such wonderful kids!