Last weekend, we made a quick trip North to spend Saturday in Duluth and catch cousin Huxon's baptism in GR on Sunday. It was a really short trip with a lot of driving - but was also a ton of fun!
After Buggy's flush on Saturday, we hit the road and made it to Gpa V's before lunchtime. We checked out Gpa's train room and blew Declan's mind. The girls remembered it, but it was new to the boy. Fiona got to drive the trains a bit and Quinn and I had a fun time looking at all the details that Grandpa has built in (including the group of tiny people mooning the train. We laughed and laughed!).
Hanging out in the caboose
We ate lunch at Grandpa's and made a quick trip over to Mike's Uncle TJ's to drop off some Christmas gifts. The kids did not want to leave the cousins and their toys ... but they were really excited to go downtown to the Depot. The Duluth Depot is a real train depot - complete with an entire floor of real trains that the kids can climb into and explore. We met all the grandparents there. Yep, all of them. Gpa V, Gma and Gpa N, and Gma and Gpa J! The kids were in grandparent (and train) heaven.
Once Declan was convinced that the trains were not going to spontaneously start rolling away with him in them, he was all in. The girls thought it was really cool as well. There was even a train car in the display that Gpa V had worked on in his days on the railroad. And Bugs' mind was blown. In addition to exploring the trains, the kids found a little theater and put on quite the performance(s) for us. The Vs know how to dance!
Bentleyville in the background
We headed to our favorite pizza place (Sammy's) for an early dinner so we could go to Bayfront for the Bentleyville Christmas lights display. It's supposed to be the coolest thing - with Santa, marshmallows and fire pits, and over a million lights. You know what else there was a million of ... people!!! After walking for over 15 minutes (once we finally got a parking spot), we still had not found the end of the line to.get.in! What a trainwreck! We ended up bailing and had two sad, crying girls in our possession. They were so so disappointed. We were able to help soothe the sadness with some hot cocoa at Gpa's. [We found out that some friends were there that night and it took them over 3 hours to get through. THREE HOURS! Glad we gave up!]
Drowning sorrows in hot cocoa
After hot cocoa and one more viewing of Grandpa's trains, we jammied up the kids and loaded up to drive to Grand Rapids. The kids watched part of a Christmas movie to start out the drive and then Quinn asked to turn it off so she could go to sleep. When I turned it off, both girls snuggled up in their seats to sleep. Dec was not quite ready and was talking a lot. I told him to "Shhhh" and for the next 20 minutes, we heard a rather constant stream of "No Shhhh. No shhhh." from the backseat. Until there were suddenly no more No Shhhhes.
When we got to Gma and Gpa J's, we got everyone transferred to their beds and got to spend some time with Mike's sister and her family. Then on Sunday morning, we met the family at church for Huxon's baptism. All five kids were so good and it was great to be there for Hux. My favorite was watching Otto and our kiddos play together after church and at Liv's house. They had the best time and Otto wanted to come home with us. We promised him we'd be back soon and the kids can hardly wait for several days together at Christmas!
1 comment:
I've heard bentleyville is awfully busy on the weekends, we've never tried going on one. Too bad though, in sure the kids would have liked it.
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