All Aboard!

Sunday, Stephen and Matthew got to witness a little bit of history in the making. The Southern Pacific 4449 steam locomotive passed through Kalamazoo on the Amtrak line making it's way to Trainfest in Owosso. It is the only surviving GS-4 class of steam locomotives. Stephen was so excited when we read about it in the newspaper that we had to take him down to see it pass through. So....off we went and spent the day hanging out in the bleachers at the WMU track awaiting the steam engines arrival. The original arrival time stated in the paper was around 11:30am. Well, as I am sure you are well aware, trains are rarely on time.....including this one! It finally passed through town at 4:30 pm. Yes you read that right, at 4:30 pm! We left our house at 10:30am. You do the math! Luckily Michael managed to find a website that linked us to the locomotive's Twitter page and we were able to see regular updates as to where it was so that we could estimate a more accurate arrival time. All in all, we had an enjoyable day finding ways to occupy ourselves and even managed to sneak in some lunch! While the boys explored the track and field area, I happily snapped away with my trusty camera!

I love this picture of Stephen. I was actually above him on the bleachers and he just happened to look up with this gorgeous smile on his face!

The boys decided to pick a bouquet of "wildflowers" for me. I of course thought it was the most beautiful bouquet of "flowers" I had ever seen! (I was not about to break their little hearts by telling them that several of them were actually weeds.)

Stephen tried his hand at hurdles. Even though he approached it more like a pommel horse, he wasn't too bad. He didn't fall once!

Stephen took some time to contemplate the meaning of life and....

then shoot me one his best flirty looks. Boy oh boy, are we in trouble!

Meanwhile, Matthew amused himself by jumping in the puddles that were left behind by the early afternoon rain shower. Did I forget to mention that during our wait, it rained? Big fun I'm telling you!!!!!!!

Finally....a low whistle and a burst of steam broke through the trees. Stephen nearly peed his pants due to his excitement!

All in all, we waited 6 hours to watch a train speed by us in about 30 seconds. Do I regret losing an entire Sunday afternoon with so much to do at home? Absolutely not!!!! The smile on Stephen's beautiful face made it all worth it! As we walked to our car, Stephen held my hand and said, "I'll never forget this for the rest of my life". Be still my heart!