Day Out with Thomas

For 60 years, Thomas the Tank has been delighting children.  Mine is no exception.  He is SO enamored with the Island of Sodor and its steam-driven inhabitants that about a year ago his room became a stopping point for the entire "Can-do Crew." Two days of painting, stenciling, stickering, and sweating later, and his room was transformed into a Thomas and Friends wonderland.

About the same time last year, we wanted to take him to a program that travels around the country called "Day Out with Thomas." Sadly, timing was off, and we missed it.

Thankfully, Ziggy's seriously AWESOME Nana (aka Mom) happened along an advertisement for the program and learned it was coming back around this year.  Would we miss it again? Pass up the opportunity to foster the Island dreams of our special boy?

Nay.  Not if I could help it.  So, tickets were purchased, and we were set.    Two days before our journey in into Thomas heaven, a friend from my childhood posted a status on Facebook saying he would be driving Thomas!

When we were kids, Shaun lived three doors down from me.  To say he was obsessed with trains would be the largest understatement in history!  His entire upstairs had the most amazing model train set.  If I was ever looking for him and he wasn't at home, I knew I could find him at the tracks.  When we were in high school, this of course became something used to tease him, but he stood his ground, loved what he loved, and continued to foster this love.  He remains one of the few people I know who had big dreams as a child and LIVES those dreams as an adult. He was one of the first "brave ones," facing ridicule and enduring it to later prove that he would do what he wanted and be successful. 

So, a couple of FB messages later, and we had plans to ride Thomas and to see the locomotive that drives him (actually on the other end of the train: kills the mystery, I know).  It proved to be the BEST part of the day.  Ziggy got to pull the horn, sit in the engineer's seat, and dream locomotive dreams.  If you ask his favorite part of the day, it isn't the big slide, the ride on the train, seeing Thomas, or anything else we did today.  It is getting to see the "big train" with Shaun. He was so entranced that he asked to see pictures over and over again. 

In the end, the adults had just as much fun as Ziggy did.  He got to see a train close up and will go to sleep dreaming engineer dreams.  And I got to reconnect with a friend who inspires me to be who I am, no apologies, and might just inspire me to get moving on that book...