Thomas, You're the One!

This is the story of a vacation that almost wasn't. Based on previous traveling experiences with infants, we nearly decided to cancel all summer vacations. But I wasn't going to let that happen. So we compromised - a nice long weekend with an equally long drive. Four days in Blowing Rock timed to Thomas the Train's arrival at Tweetsie.

We could have called it a successful vacation after by 10 am on the first leg of the trip. Typically, Johnathan doesn't get to play at the playplaces at fast food restaurants. But we all needed to stretch our legs and Matthew needed a bottle. So Johnathan got to play at McDonalds and was thrilled. Vacation success!

Nervous doesn't begin to describe putting both boys in the same room for the first time. We just knew that no one was going to get any sleep. Amazingly, it worked itself out. Though the first two nights Johnathan wasn't excited to hear Matthew's 4 am conversation with himself and we found a little person in our bed for a couple of hours.

Speaking of the chatterbox (Matthew), this kid rolled with the punches. No nap, no problem - I'll take 3 hour naps when we get home. Don't like baby food from a jar - no problem - I'll eat your BBQ chicken and bison burger. Get bored in the car and get cranky - well - we never found a solution to that one other than to keep throwing toys at him.

We "climbed mountains", had lots of junk food and ice cream, played at the park everyday, had amazing children who ate in restaurants at least once if not twice a day without incident.

And then was the grand finale. Day out with Thomas at Tweetsie. I don't know how people do Disney. Tweetsie wore us out. Though Thomas was not as exciting as we had expected. The rides were more fun as were all the Thomas tracks they had laid out to play with. My favorite part was when we took Johnathan to the gift shop. We told him he could pick out one item to take home. Every single Thomas train was there - but he chose a little Thomas flag. He chose a $5 flag over all the other stuff in there. But his little mind was made up.

We're glad we didn't cancel the vacation but I have decided that 6 hours on a plane is easier than 6 hours in the car for an infant.