Day Out With Thomas

Last Sunday, we drove to Lebanon, OH for a Day Out With Thomas. Both kids love to play with our Thomas trains & tracks, especially Degen, so we were very excited for the opportunity to 'meet' Thomas and take a train ride with the spunky, blue engine! It was a wonderful experience and we have LOTS of photos to share!

The town of Lebanon is a beautiful, little town with grand, old houses and a main street with brick sidewalks lined with antique stores and shops. The train tracks run through town and the L,M & M railroad regularly brings tourists to the town.

Here comes Thomas! Almost as soon as we arrived, Thomas came chugging down the track! Degen was very excited!

We had tickets for the last train of the day, but arrived early for pictures and to enjoy the many Thomas-themed activities available. If you don't know who Thomas the Tank Engine is then you are missing out on a huge celebrity. We were surrounded by every sort of Thomas memorabilia imaginable: books, toys, movies, clothes, balloons and more.



The storyteller above (who called himself Sir Bottompants) knew every little thing about the world of Thomas and animatedly read some of his favorite books.

Kids posing with the Diesels (above) and the Steamies (below).

The kids posed with Sir Topham Hatt who runs the railroad on the Island of Sodor. Degen really liked this and was talking to him and tried to 'give him five.' The pictures above & below are two of my favorites!

Between stories and tattoos, train sets and merchandise the time passed quickly and soon it was time for our "All Aboard!"

The kids were excited for this first 'real' train ride. We were in the first car, right behind Thomas. On board, the kids looked out the windows. Darren helped the kids practice their calls of " All Aboard!" as we waited for all the passengers to find their seats.

I LOVE Kyrie's face in this photo!

After our train ride, we went back to the 'Imagination Station' so the kids could play with the trains & Mega Blocks. Since our train was the last of the day, many of the families were gone by this time and the kids had a better opportunity to play. Degen liked playing with the tracks best, while Kyrie spent more time building with the Mega Blocks and coloring.

The lines to pose with Thomas were very long, but as we were walking out there was no one there and some smiling workers let us pass the rope. You can see how excited Degen is to be so close to Thomas! I think that we may just be the only people with a picture like the one below. Darren lifted both kids to sit right on Thomas, and I snapped pics waiting for someone to tell us that it wasn't allowed. A kind worker waited until after we got our photos to tell us that it indeed was not allowed.

After our Thomas fun was done, we walked to the nearest ice cream shop for cones! A great end to a perfect day 'working' on the railroad!