NaBloPoMo

Ah, November. The air gets cooler (and wetter, here). The days get shorter. And National Blog Posting Month once again rears its head. I had only the vaguest thought about doing this because, um, I'm starting a new job on Friday. "But," I thought to myself, "we DID just go to Alaska. If I posted a photo a day with a brief description, it wouldn't be THAT much work."

And then a friend asked me on Facebook and reminded me that I got her involved last year. 

So here I am. And here you are. Let's just do it, shall we?

Picture #1: One very happy Alaskan-born chicklet very, very early in the morning, waiting to board the first of four flights to get us from Medford, OR, to King Salmon, AK, on the first day of our Alaska adventure. As you can see, she is sporting an Alaska shirt for the journey.

Brrrrrrrrrrr!

It's been unusually cold here on the far North Coast. As you can see, we've had very hard frosts the last three or four days and they are claiming that we might actually get accumulations of SNOW tonight. IN TOWN. On the coast of the great and mighty Pacific Ocean.

I think this has caused some problems here and there. This water-whatever-it-is shares a campus with Darcy's school and there was a worried looking plumbing person looking at it this afternoon when I arrived to pick her up.

Luckily for us, this weather did not arrive until after our Thanksgiving guests had come and gone. The nights were chilly, but the days warmed up nicely. This allowed Darcy to introduce her cousin to some of her favorite things:

Playing on the beach

Finding tide pool creatures (in this case, a BIG sun star)

Life. It's Busy.

I know that we're not the only people who are busy, so it might not be the best excuse for not blogging in over two months, but a) it's the only excuse I've got and b) we are busier than we usually are.

One thing that's keeping us busier than usual is the addition of Willy Wonka to our lives. Michael rehearses four nights a week. Up until a couple of weeks ago, rehearsals were a manageable 7 to 9pm. But then they started stretching until 10 and this week, with the first performances coming up on Thursday, they'll be starting at 6:30 and going at least until 10, probably later. All in all, it's a good thing to be busy with, but it puts a rush on our evenings. Darcy occasionally goes to see part of the rehearsal. You can see her creeping up closer and closer to the stage on the right. She started out sitting on the bottom step and miraculously ended up sitting on the stage She is fascinated. Hopefully, she is fascinated enough to sit through the whole musical on Friday night!


Another new addition to our lives is Girl Scouting. I have become a Girl Scout leader so that Darcy can be a Daisy Scout. Her troop is eight girls strong and they are cookie-selling entrepreneurs these days. More on this another time.


Even with these extras, we are still finding time to enjoy our corner of the world whenever we can. Today found us sliding/monster-jumping/running down an inland sand dune after walking through ankle-deep mud and streams. On the way back, we just walked straight through a temporary (?) arm of a lake to avoid the worst of the mud. It was shallow enough to be sun-warmed and even tempted Darcy off Michael's shoulders and into the water. Michael and Darcy also spent part of a day going to see a couple of recent shipwrecks, documented in this vivid photo:

I can still remember buying that rain jacket. Even though we've been here almost two and a half years now, Darcy is still wearing a raincoat we bought for her before we left the Cima desert. It wasn't super-cheap, but it's lined, and therefore somewhat warmer than the average raincoast, and after debating about it, we decided to spend the money to get her the right gear for our soon-to-be home. It's still going strong and it looks so great in this picture, that whatever we spent on it back then, we've gotten our money's worth.

Welcome To Bend!

The house we rented in Bend for our vacation this summer was great and one of the best parts about it was the dress-up clothes. As noted in the previous post, my sister and I drove to Bend separately from Michael and the fashion plates in this photograph. When we arrived, they had been at the house for about half an hour and the girls had already found the dress-up clothes. When they noticed the car, they poured out of the house like this.

Now those of you who only met Darcy recently have not experienced her curls, so you should check out this post and this one, too, to see what her hair used to be like, especially in high humidity. Then you can click on the picture to see it in a larger format and see that this wig is virtually identical to her old hair. It's amazing. In this picture, Darcy's still wearing her trusty Mary Janes, but they spent a good amount of time for three days in plastic kitten heels, raising fears of broken ankles or worse.

When you start a vacation like this, it can only be wonderful and it was. So much so that we're going back for Thanksgiving! I suspect it will be a little chilly for the knickers-and-beads look, but the dress-up clothes will be well-used again, I'm sure!


(I know there are all kinds of warnings about showing semi-nude pix of your kids on the internet and I apologize to any of you who are either squeamish or hyper-vigilant about these things.)

August Vacation Part I

It is September. Darcy is no longer a preschooler. Yesterday was her last day of preschool and she starts kindergarten on Tuesday. Our August vacation was wonderful and revived us all to enjoy the last bits of summer in Del Norte. I'll be posting some pictures over the next few days. Here is a taste of the joy that being cousins together can bring.

Darcy and Liana celebrate matching outfits sent by grandma (Kathy) ten minutes after arriving at the house from the airport.
They insist on wearing the matching outfits again the next day (and, I believe, the next day, too) while being a great cheering section for my swim in the triathlon.

While I wait for my team mates to finish the ride and run segments of the triathlon, the girls sport their skirts on the surfboard outside Ocean World, our local aquarium. They had a great time and then came to see me get medals -- and promptly claim one each to wear.
The skirts came off for sprinkler time in the yard. Michael was giving our lawn and fruit trees a good drink before we abandoned them for ten days in Bend. It's the dry time and now we have a carpet of redwood leaves from our unwatered redwood fairy ring.

Proudly showing off their wetness once the sprinklers went off.

This is the 200th post for this blog. Not bad, but I've definitely been less prolific about writing in the past few months. I'll try to do better because I know Darcy has a lot of fans out there who are missing out on seeing all the different stages she's passing through. I don't have anything profound to say today. Michael is off golfing, Darcy and I are about to go to the farmers market and we have vague plans to go enjoy the beauty of the Smith River this afternoon. Del Norte is entering what should be two months of glorious weather and I hope we're able to take advantage of a lot of it before the rains start again.

I've been reading one of my favorite blogs a lot recently (Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op) and thinking a lot about getting rid of a lot of the stuff that we've accumulated over the years. I have made some small starts, but I know there are many boxes lurking in the garage that we've barely opened. Life is too short to be taken over by stuff. I learned recently that books can be recycled in our mixed-stream bin, so I'll be tossing a lot of old editions of textbooks that absolutely nobody wants any more. It's going to feel good.

Enjoy the last days or weeks of summer wherever you live. We're busy treasuring every sunny morning.

Happy Fathers Day!

Well, it's Fathers Day! Michael slept in and is off playing golf right now after eating not-quite-what-I-meant-them-to-be breakfast burritos. I think I'm doing pretty well so far. In honor of Fathers Day, here are two pictures of my father, Dave, and many pictures of Michael and our girl. They are more or less chronological.

Michael and the brand new Darcy Jo.

Darcy and her daddy, sacked out in the recliner in King Salmon.

Still in King Salmon...learning how to stick out your tongue.

Darcy's first camping trip -- and first visit to Yosemite!

Rock-climbing on Teutonia Peak trail, Mojave National Preserve.

Darcy's first baseball game.

Sunset among the Granite Mountains, Mojave.

Town ball at Fort Humboldt State Park.

Shark Attack!!!

As you may know, Darcy's current obsession is with all things ocean. We play fishy games pretty much non-stop at home, and she had my cousin Tina, her friend, and me all "growling like barracudas" with her a couple nights ago. It's fish, fish, fish all the time.

And so she loves going to our (very small and overpriced) local aquarium. Often. She went with Betty when she was here. And then last week, her preschool took a class trip there. And she's already anticipating going with my parents when they visit starting this weekend. Oh, and she had already been there three times before the aforementioned trips.

One of the highlights of Ocean World is that you can pet sharks. Darcy never has, but she talks about it a lot. She pets the starfish and has touched the anemones, but never the sharks. She will, however, hang out in a great white shark's mouth:

She doesn't seem too concerned about Michael's well-being, does she?

The Portland Report

A couple weeks ago, we went to Portland for the weekend. It was in place of being able to be with family for Christmas, and we had a good time (and saw family!). The drive went quickly and we arrived in Portland well before we could check into our hotel. So we stopped at a kids' salon on the southern edge of the city (I had looked these up ahead of time) and Darcy got a quick haircut and shampoo. Then we headed to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) where the main attraction was a T-rex fossil that did not photograph well. Their science play room, however, was where we ended up spending the most time. Darcy had a great time playing with water in the waterproof smock and crocs provided by the museum.

She also loved playing with the baby raccoons. Although I suspect they're supposed to stay near the hollow log, she dragged two of the four babies all over the play room. They took rides in a pulley-powered bucket and saw all the sights.

After that, it was time to go check into the hotel. We had splurged on a suite because it guarantees more sleep for all and Darcy, to our surprise, chose to have her bed set up in the living room/kitchenette room. After getting settled, we headed out in cold, heavy rain for sushi for dinner.

The next day was drier and we started out with doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnut. Someone had the great idea of letting Darcy choose her own doughnut and she ended up with a monstrous doughnut covered in FrootLoops. Yum! Then we wandered around the downtown area with a long stop at Powell's City of Books. (Yes, ok. We did some very tourist, very Portland things.)

After heading back to our hotel for a forgotten phone number, we then met up with my cousin Tina for lunch at a vegan place within walking distance of her house. This was after a very enthusiastic reunion with Mimi-cat. It was after lunch that things got very exciting. Tina, being the most excellent cousin that she is, had agreed to babysit Darcy! We dropped them off at the light rail stop so they could go explore the Children's Museum. Michael was tearing up just a little as we watched them walk away from the car:

With Darcy safely in the hands of the world's most well-qualified babysitter (Tina having a Master's degree in early childhood education and all), Michael and I painted the town red! Well, maybe not. We went back to the Powell's neighborhood and Michael browsed at a used record store and I browsed at kitchen stores before we met up at Powell's for some toddler-free book browsing. Neither of us bought anything, but it was very nice anyway and I discovered that a book I got really cheap sells for a hundred and thirty bucks at Powell's!! I practically own treasure. Or an obscure archaeology book. Your pick.

Following our window-shopping, we went out for an early dinner at Toro Bravo, a tapas restaurant. Oh, it was tasty! We sat at the bar after getting there when the website claimed they opened to find not a single free table because they had opened half an hour earlier. The bar was fine. We had, of course, papas bravas, plus the Singing Pig salad (no pig involved), a cheese board, and the salt cod fritters. We were feeling slightly peckish after that and the bar tender recommended the braised leeks with (the unpronounceable) salbitxada sauce. It's a romesco-like sauce of deliciousness. We ate that with a good bread and couldn't quite finish it. I think it would take a third person to finish that many leeks.

We were both anxious to see our girl (one of us maybe more than the other), so we drove back to Tina's house. The anxiety was not shared. It took a while for Darcy to even come downstairs and then she was wrapped up in her conversation with Tina rather than showing any interest in our re-appearance. Tina reported that Darcy was extremely thrilled about riding the "dinosaur train" to and from the museum and that she shouted "Wheeeee!" as it started through the first dozen stops.

The thrill has not worn off. Earlier today Darcy asked me, "Do you remember when I rode the dinosaur train to the children's museum? Do you remember?" She very fondly calls Tina "my corythosaurus" when talking about that afternoon. For some unknown reason, she calls all babies corythosaurus, and she made the leap that Tina, as a babysitter, must also be a corythosaurus. Personally, I don't see the resemblance.

The next morning was the wrap-up of our Portland trip. We spent almost an hour in the hotel's pool, which Darcy loved. After packing up, we drove half a mile to Portland's Ikea. Darcy usually just loves running around the children's section and trying out every kids' bed. This time, though, she was eligible to play in their supervised play area (Smaland). It has a lot of stuff including a big pool of plastic balls. She went there while Michael and I dreamed of furnishing a future house and bought a few small things we needed. We all had lunch there (oh, how we love their hard-boiled egg and shrimp open-face sandwiches!) before starting the drive home.

The drive home was mostly uneventful. We stocked up on Trader Joe's products in Eugene and then crossed over the coast part of the drive. It took a longer, but it inspired a day-time trip back up the coast the following weekend to see what we had missed. It's gorgeous and we can do nice, easy sections of the Oregon Coast Trail within half an hour of our house.

Now we're gearing up for the start of my job. Darcy will be going to her day care for the first time tomorrow, just for a trial run. The plan is for her to be there long enough to get the first lesson in "mommy and daddy will always come back to get you". Wish us luck!

Happy Birthday, Auntie Best!

Here's our very best attempt of making your birthday a very, very shiny one:

A Belated Birthday Present For John

John, because you're so far away, we couldn't really send you anything but our best wishes for your birthday. But then we went to Vegas Sunday to return library books and get Darcy out among people after being cooped up for most of the week with a cold. She gets to choose the park if we go to town without too many errands and this time, she chose the "cake shop park", which is a small, but very nice playground in the middle of an outdoor mall that pretends to be a town center.

Along with a few cute buildings with kitchens, a cake shop, and other furnished rooms, it has a astroturf-walled maze, and a splash pad. The municipal parks in Las Vegas all turn their splash pads off at the end of September and I assumed this one would be off, too. It was when we first got there. And then, it wasn't. I usually have a back-up outfit for Darcy when we go to town, so we didn't fight too hard when she made a bee-line for the water. She had a lot of fun and got SOAKED. But that's not your present, John. I'm just stalling for dramatic purposes. The playground is near the (also astro-turfed) town square where they have live music and other events. Yesterday morning, the event led us to think of a new career path for you.

Whenever you've talked about yoga, the first thing that stands right out is just how darn competitive yoga is. You're always talking about trying to out-yoga all the other yoga-people you know. (Or wait ... is it that I've never heard you talk about yoga as competition?? That would really kill this whole gift-idea.)

The event taking place was the Nevada Regional competition for the USA Yoga Championships. Yes! It was competitive yoga! Yoga as an athletic sport, brought to you by the people who are petitioning for yoga to be added to the Olympics in 2016. So we figured that if the whole travel-the-world-teaching-yoga business dries up, maybe you could start competing to represent our nation at the Olympics. I guess there must not be any prize money involved if they're calling it an amateur sport, but otherwise, I was thinking that it could finance your travels for a while, too.

The people under the red tent were the judges. Each competitor had to do a set series of poses following their introduction. In between the men's and women's competition they had a yoga fashion show. It was all very commercial; again, just what I think of when you talk about your yoga experiences.

According to their rules, you apparently have to do yoga half-naked, which I've never noticed you doing in the photos of your classes. In fact, the more I think about it, maybe this isn't the perfect career for you after all. I guess I'm going to lose the "which sister-in-law got you the best birthday present" competition, huh?





(Too bad, 'cause from what I saw, you could kick their tushies. Then I could brag that my brother-in-law was the USA yoga champion!)

Migration From St. Louis

Some of you might know that when we moved to Alaska (Michael in June '05 and me in January '06), we moved via USPS. That's right ... everything we moved from St. Louis to King Salmon moved by parcel post. That left a lot of stuff behind. We sold a lot on Craig's List. We had a fairly successful yard sale. We gave away a very motley assortment of things (a two-hole three-hole punch, anyone?) at a party we had that was most definitely not a going-away party for Michael.

And that left the things we really cared about. My grandparents' dresser. The chair given to Michael by Patty Jo. Books. CDs. CD jewel cases. My wedding dress. And virtually all our wedding gifts because I couldn't bring myself to send our new dishes to Alaska and risk having them all break. We rented a storage unit and filled it up.

And then we paid for it. And paid for it. And paid for it. Last summer, we considered going to get our stuff. But gas prices sky-rocketed and truck rentals were expensive, too, so we put it off. And paid for it. And paid for it some more. But no more!

We are all done with paying for storage because our stuff is all here in Cima! It's very, very exciting, let me tell you. Even with the pictures of the full storage unit, we had still managed to forget some of the things that were in there. Olivia poster? Totally forgot that we had a framed Olivia poster, but Darcy has now claimed that as her very own.

In theory, I'd love to go through some of those boxes and totes and get rid of some more stuff before we move next month. After all, we've lived without it for almost four years. There must be some of it that we could continue to live without. But it's not in an easy-access format right now, so we'll see how much of that gets done. If not here, we'll do it in Crescent City where it can live in half of our two-car garage while we work our way through it.

We owe a huge thank you to Michael's brother Stephen for flying out to St. Louis and helping with the packing and driving. They did an amazing job of packing and unpacking quickly -- the whole trip was only about 72 hours.






We enjoyed an extended visit with Juliana and Henry, too! They came out on Friday and spent the night so they could take Stephen home after the unpacking was done. Henry seemed keen on walking around outside in the desert. He and Darcy had a good time together!

Out here, company is always nice, and we had even more over the weekend. Our friend Matthew, an undergraduate student while we were at WashU, was on a whirlwind trip to the (wild) west, and stopped last night for dinner before heading on to Vegas (last night) and Zion and Bryce National Parks today.

It's been an eventful week, but with a lot of fun and satisfaction in the mix. It's going to be very nice to set up our new house in Crescent City with ALL our things instead of just the parcel-posted stuff plus what we've acquired over the past four years.

Dresses, Reprised

Way back in 1972 (or 1973?), when we lived in Australia, we went to a wildlife center where a person could hold and pet a koala. Or, more accurately, where a person of sufficient size could hold and pet a koala, and a person who was not big enough could only pet a koala. Notice Ev's grin. I still maintain that she was lording it over me that I wasn't allowed to hold the koala, but I might be willing to admit that she was just excited. Or possibly in pain. They have sharp claws. I know this because I went back there as an adult and snuggled with Micah the koala early one morning.

The point of this post is not to re-open old wounds, but to show off the matching dresses made by my mother. And the reason one might want to show them off is because she tried to make identical dresses for Darcy and Liana for our stay in North Carolina. The fabric is different, of course, but it's pretty close and the style is the same:

Darcy's shoulder ties were extra-special long (we need to trim them) and Liana used one of them as a leash to pull Darcy upstairs to the "sleeping loft with ocean view", which had been claimed as the lego space. Or, as Darcy said when she first saw the legos, the "disaster toys". This comes from Christmas, when some lego towers were knocked over and Michael said, "Disaster!" Her memory, it is long.

I think that views on sun exposure and sun block usage have changed drastically in the past 35 years or so. Ev and I are brown! Darcy and Liana? Not so much, despite both living in hot climates. And, for the first time, I might be forced to admit that Darcy might look a little like me.

Darcy Loves Orville

Darcy returned from vacation with a new obsession. Orville. Wright, not Reddenbacher. As in one of the fathers of human flight. Airplanes are no longer just airplanes. They are Orville rides. She thinks every one is owned and piloted by Orville. Apparently, at the same time.

On Wednesday, we went to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk. Darcy likes airplanes, so we thought there was a good chance she'd be entertained there. We didn't know the half of it. She sat through about half of a program about the engineering problems the Wrights overcame to create the first successful airplane and then she had a good time looking at all the airplane-related things in the visitor center bookstore. I bought her a board book called The Story of the Wright Brothers. Who knew that one could regret buying a book? (At least a little.)


Following the program, we asked a staff member what the other buildings at the Memorial contained, trying to decide whether we should just leave. For small children, he suggested a metal sculpture/model of the 1903 Flyer installed for the Centennial celebrations. So we drove around the monument hill and drove to the installation seen above. It has statues of all the people involved with that flight. The photographer whose perspective we borrowed had never taken a photograph before. Orville set it up before getting in the Flyer. Orville is flying the plane and Wilbur is the figure running by the wing. This is the famous "First Flight" shot seen everywhere. The 12 seconds that changed the world, so to speak. And again, who would have thought one might live to regret taking a small girl to climb on a reproduction of an airplane? (At least a little.)

Darcy and Liana had a ball climbing on the plane. Or, more accurately, Liana had a ball climbing on the plane and Darcy had a ball sitting on the plane, first at the end of one wing and then next to Orville. Walking on the wing surface didn't interest her. Liana was fond of fixing the engine and here, she explains the various parts to Darcy. Darcy, who has eyes only for Orville. Watch out, Adam! You have a rival for our girl's affections now!

Darcy sat with her arm resting on Orville for a long time, repeating his name and patting his shoulder. Here, she is suggesting the next flight path they should take.

Notice the clenched fist as Darcy waits breathlessly to see if the first flight is successful. She is Orville's best new friend and admirer, and he is very much alive and well in her imagination. She lay awake instead of napping that day and, through the monitor, we could hear her asking, over and over, "Did you have fun with Orville?"

I read the "Orville book" a half dozen times that afternoon, and a few more that night. In the five days since, I think I've read it at least 40 times already. Michael hasn't escaped, either, so she's heard it dozens and dozens of times, apparently without tiring of it one bit. It's possible we've created a monster, but I do love that she says things about Orville and Wilbur as kids and then as grown-ups that show she understands they were kids just like her and, therefore, she can grow up to be like them. While she can't be the first person to fly, she can follow her dreams as the Wright brothers did. It may feed the flames more than needed, but we'll be looking for more picture books about the Wright brothers next time we go to the library. A girl's got to dream...

In Which Horses Are Painted

I found the card reader: Let the vacation pictures begin!

Here is the house we (Grandma/Kathy, Granddad/Dave, Ev, Liana, and the Glores) stayed in for our week on the Outer Banks. Apparently, the architectural "style" of Corolla and other, newer parts of said Outer Banks was influenced by the question, "How many roof lines, cantilevered rooms, half-levels, and decks can we put on one house while raising it off the ground in case of hurricanes?" Truly bizarre. Ours tried to put as many languages in its name as it had roof surfaces: Castle de la Mar. English and Spanish and French, oh my!

In truth, the house did right by us, with plenty of space for active girls, a well-equipped kitchen, and beds and bathrooms for all. It also came with access to a community pool, kiddie pool, and playground, which will be featured in later photo installations.

We had an active vacation, with plenty of beach and pool time, and some exploration of the northern part of the Outer Banks. Darcy picked up a new obsession (Orville Wright -- more on that later, too). We all got a bit bronzed. And we ate lots of local shrimp alongside the agricultural bounty of the Carrboro farmers' market.

We also had some art time. The local wild horse museum does horse-painting as a fundraiser on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer. No, you don't get to paint a wild horse, but for six bucks, you do get to don a plastic apron, get a plate-full of paint, a handful of brushes, and a pretty big wooden horse cut-out to paint.

It was a great event and the horses are reusable, too! We got to old Corolla village early so we could do other things before painting horses and saw the museum workers painting over Tuesday's art. Here are our young artists tackling their equine canvases. Darcy needed a bit more help and guidance than Liana.

The artists were more than happy to pose with the finished products after painting the smaller wooden horses that they got to bring home with them. A fun time was had by all.

Carly And Ryan Are Married!

Well, we just downloaded 379 pictures from our camera. Not all of them are from Ryan and Carly's wedding, but a lot of them are and I promise not to post all of them over the next few days. I won't even post all pictures of their very cute flower girl. But I'll post some.

We have to start, of course, with the wedding couple themselves, seen here slicing into their dramatic (and delicious) wedding cake.

Here are Darcy and her cousin, Alfred, all dressed up for their roles as flower girl and ring bearer. They both did a great job and will probably get asked to do other weddings. Random strangers will want to have them in their weddings. If you're among that group, please give us at least six to eight weeks notice. Thanks.

Later on, at the reception, they danced up a storm. Darcy was pretty much a perpetual motion machine for two and a half hours. She did dance with a few BOYS (a boy! a boy!), but also insisted on having her various bugs join her on the dance floor.


And, finally, I can't post about a wedding without giving the bride her due. Carly was, as you can see, a beautiful bride. The pictures of her before the wedding with Darcy didn't do her justice, so here's the bride and her ring bearer shortly before the ceremony started. Fun was had by all. Next time you have a glass of something fizzy in your hand, raise a toast to the newlyweds, please!

Thomas! The! Tank! Engine!

The morning of the last full day of our visit to Simi Valley was spent riding a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine in Fillmore, CA. They had been advertising the event on PBS and I happened to notice it and actually put two and two together that it was happening during our planned trip to Simi. Luck was with us and Darcy's cousin Alfred was able to go with us -- a good time was had by all! Several different styles of (oh...I have to interupt myself -- there's a coyote loping through the yard! Yay!) historic cars were lined up for the ride. Darcy plopped herself down in this one, which I think reminded her most of Annie and Clarabelle, Thomas's passenger cars. A couple of others were from the 1920s, but this one was a more recent vintage.

Darcy was all giggles through much of the ride. That's not really all that much giggling because the ride, catering as it does to quite-small children, was only 25 minutes long. Michael's Grandmother lives in Fillmore and the train went past her house, but not much further before going back to the depot. We did get to cross a road and see the stopped traffic and go through a tunnel, so it was all good.

Through a fluke conversation, Mimi (Betty) found that a good friend of a good friend is one of the engineers for the historic trains in Fillmore, including the Thomas event, so we got just a little special treatment after our ride was over. Charlie took us up into the engine compartment of the 1960s diesel engine that was doing all the actual work of pulling the train. Alfred sat in the engineer's seat and blew the horn; Darcy was a bit shy of taking a turn. (We'll get all the pics of Alfred to you somehow, D & J!)

Our ride was at 9:50 on a Friday, which we chose in part because it seemed likely to be less crowded than a weekend day. Our train was much less than half full and even with that, there was a bit of chaos afterwards, as the next train was fuller, so many more kids were milling around. Charlie told us that all of Saturday's rides were completely booked and that the previous three-day weekend, they had 17,000 passengers!! That's a whole lot of toddlers in one place at one time! Glad we missed the worst of it.

Among other things, bigger crowds would have made it impossible for Darcy to have played at the train tables they had set up in multiple tents. She had a lot of fun with the different types of tracks -- who knew there were so many options for Thomas trains -- even Duplo/Lego has a set! It explains why they are the corporate sponsor of the Thomas shows on PBS, though.

And, finally, Darcy consented to a picture of Thomas instead of more play. Charlie, our personal connection, is holding her in front of the almost completely decorative Thomas. Darcy returned home with some new Thomas gear, including a kite. This morning, we held the first Cima House Kite Flying Event, with great success. Photos will follow soon.