End of An Era

Once upon a time there was a little boy who fell in love with GeoTrax trains. His collection grew and grew. The little boy and his Daddy delighted in coming up with complicated track patterns that covered the living room floor.

But then the little boy started to grow up and became interested in different things...... like sports and computers and reading and videogames. And the trains did not get played with as much anymore......

So this past weekend when we went home to Tampa, we loaded up all the trains and tracks and accessories and gave them to Grandmommy. The plan? For her to pass them on to the assistant pastor at the Presbyterian church where she works, because he has a little boy who has fallen in love with trains. We hope that they bring that little boy as much joy as they brought to our little man.

More Spring Flowers

Today was such a productive day. Mommy and Daddy had a date day, watching the movie Armored at home with video on demand and then going out for lunch to Tiajuana Flats. This is our new favorite restaurant - Parker calls it Tuna Flats! :-)

Then we went to Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Michael's before picking Parker up from school. That was so we could do all of the birthday shopping for Mr. Parker as well as the Easter shopping for both boys....some exciting stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks!

After picking up Parker we headed to the mall where we visited Sears, JCPenney, and Macy's in order to finish getting the family's Easter outfits. Finally it was on to Home Depot and Lowe's to get some more flowers for the front porch - two hanging baskets of petunias and some bougainvillea for the big decorative pot.

After all of that, Mommy went to Boot Camp to Exercise and Daddy played trains with the boys. While at Toys R Us today we picked up a big foam mat to go under the trains and protect the floor. Wesley has fallen in love with the trains!

Playing Trains

Tonight Parker got out the train set and made a loop of track with the train station and gas station for his brother Wesley. The little guy is finally big enough to understand about running the trains along the track and the two boys had a great time playing together. Especially when they would run the trains down the hill and watch them go "boom!"

Sunday Stuff

Today was our 30th anniversary and church conference celebration in worship this morning at church. One of the former pastors came back as our guest speaker and afterwards we had a lovely potluck luncheon complete with an anniversary cake and some snapshots from over the years.

After worship we came home and watched the Bucs game. Actually Daddy and Parker watched the whole game while Mommy and Wesley napped. Wesley has not been feeling well yesterday and today - we think he has a slight cold on top of teething - he has a low fever and a very runny nose! But everyone was awake for the 4th quarter and overtime to watch the Bucs come back and win the game!!

While they were watching the game today, Daddy and Parker redid his train tracks and this is what they came up with - pretty great!

Worn out by all the day's activities, Wesley later decided to take another nap, this time on Daddy.

New Train Layout

So here's the most recent train layout taking up our living room floor. Actually Daddy turned it this time so we have about half a floor and then train central on the other side. It's pretty cool, if Daddy does say so himself!

Parker's Obsession with Trains

Parker's train set has gotten so big it doesn't fit on a train table anymore. This is the GeoTrax set from Fisher Price. The trains have remote controls that Parker can easily operate. And so many of the pieces make noise or do something cool: the bridge lights up; the mountain tunnel makes noise; the windmill turns; the factory works and sends pieces into the train cars; the gas station sign turns and makes noise; the firehouse door opens and makes noise...it just goes on and on!

Daddy has as much fun as Parker in putting the stuff together and rearranging the train into layouts. Daryl's cousins Sam and Clark visit us often and join in the train fun too, coming up with cool designs. This is what our living room floor looks like now: