Regan and I Are a Family!!

Shepherd, Regan, and I Are a Family!!!

Saturday, December 22, 2007

The Longest Train Ride in History

Tonight we winged it and did some really fun stuff. We stayed out way past the kids' bedtime, but hey, we are officially on Winter Break!!!

We started by having dinner at one of the Chinese restaurants. Konnor always wants to go, but he goes to his mommy's on Friday nights (the night we used to go) and so we switched it to every other Saturday or so...we treat ourselves to dinner out. Konnor always chooses Chinese, although I don't know why because he always gets pizza! We had a new waitress and she stayed around for a long time wanting to know about Regan. Then she kept telling me how lucky Regan was. I kept insisting I was the lucky one, but she was just as persistent that it was Regan who was lucky. She then said that I could have adopted her (we are about the same age!) and I said I would have!!!

After dinner, we went to the Calusa Nature center to see the planetarium show. We first stopped off to see Santa and this time I made my mom hold Regan so that I could get some pictures. Regan knew the score the second time around and wasn't having anything to do with the big, jolly guy in the red suit. Santa was a hoot! He was the funniest Santa I have ever seen. He was doing all sorts of things to make kids laugh. He was great!

We then went to the mall to get Konnor ice cream. We feel like we have kind of not really pumped up Christmas this year and he is such a good cousin to Regan, I told him I would treat him to ice cream. It didn't hurt that I got a scoop of my all time favorite: chocolate peanut butter! By this time it is obscenely past the kids' bedtime, but the mall was about to close and there was no one on the train and I wanted to let Regan ride the train. It is her first Christmas in the US of A and you have to ride the mall train!

It was the longest train ride in history, I am sure. I'm going to have to check with Guinness, but I'm pretty sure it must be up there in the top ten! There was no one on and so I thought it was perfect timing, because I wasn't sure Regan would like it and this way, I could have the train stopped if I had to and not disrupt a bunch of kids riding. She wasn't sure about the ride, but held onto Konnor tightly and they went around 4 times and some kids were lined up to get on. I was pleased they had gotten such a long ride! I thought Regan and Konnor were done and so I stood at the gate to help unload Regan. Nope.....not done! The train conductor just leaves them on and loads up the other kids. They then went around about 25 more times, I'm not kidding! The conductor was counting the till and writing in his books, and basically doing the entire night's worth of accounting. He kept checking his watch and when the mall closed, he promptly stopped the train, got the kids off and closed up shop. I guess he just didn't want to load up another set of kids. All total, the ride last more than 20 minutes, going around and around and around and around and around some more. My mom and I were in hysterics it was so funny. There it is: the conductor absolutely not caring how long the kids are hostage, the kids go from sitting nicely to absolutely bouncing off the walls in the train. There were limbs hanging out and kids laying on the floor, and faces pressed up to the glass. Too, too funny! It absolutely topped off the night!



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