Whew! Been kid-busy here! We colored eggs on Friday, Grant's first time, he had a TON of fun. His favorite part was "I check it out, this egg." He would lift the eggs again and again to see how dark they were getting.

Saturday we "practiced", I sort-of-hid eggs around with Grant just a few feet behind me, finding them. I hid those 20 eggs probably 10 times!

Our Kit was once again passed from woman to woman. I am hoping to keep her comfortable around lots of different people. She did very well with one exception of getting overly tired around 5p and having a small Momma-Only meltdown. It was a good day.

April 9th - Grant to Dentist, went in all by himself. Did a great job. Got some xrays, no cavities or other problems.

April 11 - Kit wanting to snuggle/nurse constantly. Discomfort in her legs from shots. Schedule out the window due to three consecutive "disrupted" days.

By now, you know how much Grant loves trains. It's all trains, all the time. So when I saw an ad on a local station promoting a safety program coupled with a ride on a real Union Pacific train, I wrote the date in the calendar immediately. Unfortunately, there was no phone number or ticket info flashed on the screen. I googled my fingers off, but couldn't find any mention of this program, nor could I find anything about it on the Union Pacific web site. I figured others would be haveing the same trouble, and I would watch for the ad to play again; perhaps there was some info at the beginning that I missed.

I never saw the ad again, and the date was coming up soon. After trying twenty or thirty different search word combinations, I finally hit upon a local radio's "Community Calendar" page with info on the event. But it turned out that the only way to get tickets was to pick them up in person at the Chamber of Commerce in the "big" town 25 miles away. It was a Thursday, the event was Saturday.

Kevin and Grant were going in to town Friday anyway, so he promised to swing by the CoC to pick up some "boarding passes". To make a long story short, they were all gone. The rep there said they were probably going to add another coach, and there would likely be seats available. Kev drove to the train yard to see if he might meet anyone able to give us a better chance. Nothing like disappointing a 3-year-old with his hopes up. No luck at the train yard, but Grant did love watching all the trains. Kevin began prepping him that we might not be able to ride.

On Saturday, we showed up an hour before the scheduled ride. Grant was decked out in embroidered Thomas the Tank Engine jacket and striped engineer's cap. Kit was in the front carrier looking sweet in baby pink. As soon as we got there, I saw a woman unloading an SUV and wearing an "Operation LifeSaver" shirt. As we walked over, a man from UP saw and admired Kit. I stopped, smiled, let him coo at her. He asked Grant if he was going on a train ride today. I said (loud enough for the official-lady to hear) "Well, we're going to try, we don't have boarding passes." The train-man said "Aw, we'll get'cha on." The Lifesaver woman said "Well, then you are first in the StandBy line. We should have no problem getting you on." I smiled, Grant thanked them, we walked down to look at the coaches.

The wind was pretty biting, so we walked back towards what I called the Train Station. Well, UP hasn't carried regular passengers for years, so the actual stations are long gone. This building was where the train men checked in; there were lockers, time clocks, vending machines, phones, stuff like that. Nevertheless, we went inside. In the main room, I told Grant that these were the men who drive the trains, and fix the trains, and make sure the trains go where they are supposed to; again using a voice a bit louder than normal. Several of the train men approached while we were there, each asking Grant if he'd be riding the train today. To each one I answered the same as above, and got exactly the same reply "We'll get'cha on."

I felt like I had done all I could do, so we went outside to wait. Grant was practically crawling out of his skin in anticipation. When it came time to board, they separated us into pass-holders and non-pass-holders. Each group seemed about the same size to me. Looked like a lot of people had been told there'd be room.

While the pass-holders were loading, "our" Train Man walked by, pausing to say "Stick with me, I'll make sure you get on" in a low voice. So while Grant bounced around watching a crisp navy-uniformed "conductor" help load people, I kept my eye on our Train Man. When about half of the pass-holders were loaded, I saw Train Man (sorry, I never got his name) talking to one of the People In Charge, who handed him two passes. Train Man signalled to me, and we were off like a shot. I felt a pang of sadness for the little boys standing on either side of us who stepped off the curb to follow us, only to be pulled back by their parents.

Tickets in hand, Train Man guided us to the door of the coach. The other passengers were boarding, then turning left into a car like the one pictured at left. Train Man led us to the right. We went down one hall and another, through cool air-lock-type doors, and into a beautifully appointed club car. It had arm chairs and little cocktail tables, but I didn't know how well Grant would be able to see. No worries, because we didn't stop there, but continued up a small flight of stairs into a Dome Car like the one pictured above. SCORE!

Then began the wait for us to start moving. Unfortunately, this took 20-30 minutes, which is a lifetime to a little one. But we finally began, and not only did Grant's eyes light up, it was like he had been injected with wiggle juice. He was beside himself with excitement. He could see everything from our perch, even over the top of other trains in the yard. He was thrilled. The Safety Lecture that was the ersatz point of the ride only lasted about 20 minutes, and the rest of the trip was just a relaxing ride. Or would have been, if I weren't tending to the needs of my two little sweethearts!

The train picked up speed on the outbound, so we were going nearly as fast as the vehicles on parallel highway 30. A few trains passed on the neighboring track, and boy, were they CLOSE! I kept waiting for us to stop, but we just kept going and going! Finally, I called Kev to let him know that we might be coming right by our house! (I thought it might be fun for Grant to see Daddy waving, or maybe catch a picture.) True to my usual luck, our train stopped right at our town's City Limits. There was some honest-to-goodness calf roping happening in the pasture outside our big window. Grant was more interested in watching traffic, as usual! We sat still for another half hour or so, during which Grant needed to use the bathroom. What fun.

I had Kit in arms, and held Grant's hand as we went back thru the cool airlock doors to what looked like a little cabin. There were a couple of padded bench seats and a good-sized window. Then I also saw that there were two sinks and a tiny drinking fountain. And a door that opened to a tiny, airplane-type bathroom. It struck me that the people sitting on the bench seats had probably been quite excited to see their "deluxe suite" when they first boarded. I bet they were quite surprised to learn that they were seated in a bathroom! For us, getting Grant & I thru our 'business' while I had use of only one hand was... let's say, a challenge.

The train finally headed back after switching tracks and shifting personnel. The return trip was a leisurely one, much to Grant's chagrin. He kept asking me to make the train go faster. When it became clear that I refused to speed up the train, he decided to use his little jacket as a blanket and snuggle against me for a little snooze. Well, Kit, who was supposed to fall asleep in the tummy carrier hours earlier, had missed her nap(s) as well. And her diaper was wet. And she was getting hungry. The literature had said that the train ride would be 60-90 minutes. We boarded at 2pm, and it was around 4... So the natives were getting restless. I ended up sneaking Kit a little Momma Milk, and snuggling a bit with the boy. When we at last got back to the train yard, we got to see all kids of cool stuff. Union Pacific is replacing all the creosote-soaked wooden railroad ties with nifty new concrete ones, so there were stacks and stacks of ties of both types. Then we saw these huge red-brown hills, that I first thought were large piles of broken-up wooden ties. As we got closer, I could see that they were great piles of railroad spikes! Mountains of them!

The trip wrapped up without incident, a couple of the women onboard mentioning to me that they had wanted to hold Kit the whole time. It had never occurred to me, I still have such a citified point of view! We debarked, helped down by the train men, we shook hands with the 'conductor', and ducked the one local news camera that had shown up. Quite a day.

Oh, I had taken pictures, but my camera's memory card took a big, corrupted, dump. The pics are lost forever.

While Nana was out for a visit, the little family went out to Grammy's house on the Platte River. Usually, the Platte is mostly sandbars, with small rivulets of shallow water separating them. Recent rains transformed the Platte into a very fast-moving (if not actually raging) river. In parts it was up to Kevin's waist. This day was practically perfect: nearly 90 degrees, with a brisk, cool wind from over the river that kept the bugs to a minimum and helped us all feel warm but not hot. I don't recall the Platte ever so full when the weather was so warm!

"What is this stuff, Mama?"

Snuggled in a towel after the day's first dip in the river.

Playing in the sand on one of the few visible sandbars.

Gotta get in a little nakey time!

Sitting well on her own now, and just as smiley as ever!