Nate and Georgia and the train show

The Great Train Expo is something that Nate (and let's be honest, Blake too) looks forward to all year long. This is our 3rd year going. Just a few days ago I thought about it and wondered if we had missed it, and when I searched for it online, I saw it was this weekend. I texted Blake: "Great Train Expo this weekend!!!!" He texted back: "I'm so in!" We are dorks. We didn't say anything about it to Nate, but on Friday night a commercial about it came on TV, and Nate got all excited and asked if we could go. Sure! :) From then on, he called it, "The new train show I sawed on TV." If we referred to it by anything else, he corrected us. He was so proud that he thought he was the one who found it.

Today was a very big day. Nate wanted to go to "The new train show I sawed on TV" first thing, but we insisted on church first. As soon as we got to church, we found a problem. Georgia's new shoes were too big on her. To be more exact, one of her shoes was too big. Her feet are different sizes. The one shoe kept falling off, and there was no way she could walk in them. Once we got into church, I took her shoes off and she trotted around with just her tights over her feet. But I knew this would create a problem later. Anyway, it was a great service, and both kids had a great time at church. Georgia is getting to the point where when its time to hand her over to the nursery worker, she actually reaches for them instead of screaming! Wow! And Nate always tells us about the Bible story he learned about and we usually catch him singing a song he learned in chapel.

Anyway, the plan was to go straight from church to "The new train show I sawed on TV" but Georgia's shoe issue created a problem. There's no way we were going to be able to keep her in the stroller the whole time, and I didn't like Blake's idea of letting her walk around the convention center without shoes. But Blake and Nate did not want to waste any train time by going back home to get shoes, so I told Blake he could be the one to deal with a cranky Georgia the whole time. :)

Nate was so excited, he ran the whole way from the car to the show.

Dressed for the occasion.

At one of the layouts, Nate asked the operator, "So, what guage is this train?" The guy said, "This is N-scale." Nate: "Oh, okay." Ha!

At this point, Georgia was still hanging out in the stroller.

Miraculously, I saw a guy selling baby shoes. Shoes! At a train show! Well, they were baby squeaky shoes that had a train on them. I asked if he had any girl shoes, and he pulled out several boxes of pink squeaky shoes! Squeaky, you ask? Yes, every step she takes, they squeak ... intentionally. She was so proud of these shoes. She walked slowly, took big steps, ran ... they all made different sounds. Everyone she squeaked past commented on her squeaky shoes. And yes, after awhile they were somewhat annoying, but she absolutely loves them. And I was happy that she could finally get down and run around and enjoy herself! Look how cute, her saying, "Cheeeeeese!"

  Here's the video of trotting while squeaking. (For those seeing this on email or facebook, click here to see video.)

We came home with just enough time for Georgia to take a nap (all of us were exhausted!) before going to our Superbowl party with our Bible study group. Really, no one there cared anything about the actual game--in fact, most of us didn't even know who was playing until the game came on. Sunday is our usual Bible study night, so we got together for a potluck, and we sang and prayed while the game played in the background. A stark contrast to most Superbowl parties, I realize! But we all had a great time together. The kids played downstairs and wore each other out. As we got in the car to leave, Nate said, "But we didn't get to bowl at our Superbowl party!" That's how much this family cares about football. Our kid didn't even know which sport the Superbowl was about. But trains ... trains, we know.