Riding the Christmas Train

On a whim last Sunday evening, we decided to go to Alvin to ride the "Christmas Train." It was cold outside, so we bundled ourselves up and got there right when they started doing the train rides. However, everyone else in a 20 mile radius must have had the same idea, because we ended up waiting about 1 hour and 15 minutes for our "color" to be called. We occupied ourselves with walking around the lake and taking pictures (most of which didn't turn out), and sharing a funnel cake. For our picky eater, she really enjoyed the funnel cake, but not so much the waiting. We sang songs and tried to keep her occupied until it was our turn.


Mommy and Micayla outside during our walk--it was in the low 50's and the wind was blowing, so we were glad to have brought our jackets.


Micayla thought the manger scene was quite fun to play in---she kept telling us about baby Jesus (which she almost always exclaims in a very loud voice; it's quite hilarious).

I'm not sure what this says about me--almost every Christmas tree she saw, she would go and stand next to it and say to me, "Smile, cheese!" So here's the obligatory Christmas tree photo....



All aboard! They had blankets for you to put on your lap, which Hudson was not really wanting to do, until the wind cut through us and we decided that it was probably best. We pulled out of the "station" and heard a loud sound....the last car on the train jumped the track so we ended up sitting in our car for a little while. Then, the engine had issues. Then a worker who was running to help out slid on the gravel and rolled into a small ditch. (He was okay.) He fell right next to us (and he was big guy) and thought that he could pull himself up out of the ditch by holding onto our little car...I was a little concerned that he might cause our car to tip over or jump the tracks, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Micayla kept asking him, "okay? you okay?" Finally, the engine was repaired, the last car on the tracks, and we went for our 12 minute train ride that presented the gospel through various signboards set to "Twas the Night Before Christmas." There were a ton of lights, and Micayla especially liked the pen-ga-quins (as she calls them).

It was a great outing for our little family to continue being prepared for the Christmas holidays, and seeing it through Micayla's eyes and voice just made it that much better. :)