Trains, Dinos, and Cupcakes

Those of you that know us well know we like to travel. Whether it be day trips to Charlottesville or Williamsburg or big trips south to see all the grandparents, we enjoy seeing new places as well as visiting those we love and don't get to see often enough. Over the holidays, we realized it had been entirely too long since we had taken a trip. We did some brainstorming about where we should go and then thought through the logistics of traveling overnight with two little ones and decided we weren't quite ready for all of that. So our thoughts turned to day trips. Then we started thinking about driving with a 4 month old and all of the frequent stops we would have to take for feeding, diaper changing, crying baby, etc. That is when Adam had a brilliant idea: "how about a train ride?" This was a great idea for any number of reasons, but the best reason was Carter's love of choo choo trains.

We took Carter to a local train show the week before Christmas. And while he seemed to enjoy it, mommy and daddy weren't all that impressed.



So we decided to upgrade to the real thing. Our train left at 8:00 in the morning and Carter was super excited. It didn't hurt that the man at the snack counter in the train station gave Carter a sucker before we left.



Both boys did great on the train ride. Ben took a nap. Carter and Daddy had breakfast in the snack cabin. But as soon as we stopped at the train station Carter was ready for the next activity of the day: Dinosaurs. He didn't quite understand or appreciate that the train didn't stop at the museum, but at the train station and that we had to take the metro to get to another train station and then walk a bit to the museum.

Thankfully he thought the metro was pretty cool too. Ben took another nap as we were traveling to the Natural Museum of History. We stopped for a quick picture on the national mall. Can you see the dinosaur in Carter's hand? He was ready.



As a side note - he knows the T-Rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Pteranodon by name. Pretty cool.

The museum was pretty crowded but Carter didn't mind. He loved seeing the big dinosaur bones. Although this next shot is blurry, it is one of my favorites because you can see with Carter's blurriness how excited he was.



We ended up traveling with just one stroller, no carseat, the baby bjorn, moby wrap and 2 backpacks. We walked through the city with Ben in the moby wrap and Carter in the stroller. Then Ben got to stroll as Carter explored the museum. Here is Ben in his first stroller ride without carseat.



The IMAX Theater was showing a dinosaur movie and we thought Carter might enjoy it. I asked the man at the ticket counter if it was appropriate for a 2 year old. He told me he would love it and that it was cartoon like. So, we bought our tickets, got our 3D glasses and settled into our seats.



Ben took a nap in my arms as the movie started. Then the BIG, SCARY, LOUD dinosaurs appeared. They were NOT cartoon like. Carter was not a fan. I don't blame him. He kept saying "no dino movie no dino movie". So Adam and Carter left. I stayed for the rest of the movie to let Ben sleep and am very glad Adam and Carter left when they did. It was definitely not 2 year old appropriate and I wanted to ask for a refund but figured it wasn't worth the hassle. Besides we had better things to do, like head to the Hello Cupcake store.

They had some really fun flavors to choose from. Carter ended up with chocolate on chocolate. I think he liked it, what do you think?



After a very tasty afternoon snack and a good visit with our friend Matt, it was time to head back to the train station. At this point Carter crashed. What a busy and fun day he had. Ben took another nap too. We got back on the train around 6:00 that night and had both boys in bed by 9:00. It was a great day trip. As Carter would say "do again!"