A Train Ride to Raleigh

As I was writing before I was interrupted by a "THUD", my parents spent a wonderful week here.  While they were here we decided to go on the ultimate adventure and take the Amtrak train over to Raleigh to check out the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.  The boys were SOOOO excited about riding the train with their grandparents.  Evan wanted to take his favorite stuffed dragon in his backpack, so we grabbed the backpack and off we went.

The boys were giddy as we arrived at the train station and waited for the train.  Evan would go up to everyone he saw and tell them that he was going on the train.  Ben just wanted to run out onto the train tracks.  Finally, we heard the whistle off in the distance and up pulled the train.  We hopped on board and found some seats.  Evan spent the entire half an hour journey from Durham to Raleigh staring out the window.  Ben was a little twitchy, but he had a good time.

When we arrived, we hopped off the train and walked over to the museum.  Once we got there we had a fantastic time taking in all the the museum had to offer.  We went to a talk where we could pet animals (but we weren't quite brave enough to pet any except the bunny), we wandered over to the brand new wing and ate lunch, we watched a 3D dinosaur movie but it was a bit too real for Evan to leave his glasses on, and we wandered around the exhibits.

Finally, it was getting a bit late and we still had a bit of time to kill before our train ride home.  The adults and kids were all exhausted.  However, about that moment we found the "discovery room" at the museum where the adults could sit down and the kids could wander around and explore anything they wanted.  It was just what we needed.

After we were a bit refreshed we headed back to the train station.  Everyone had a great ride home, except for me because I was stewing over the fact that we had a preschool picnic to go to and the train was about an hour late.  It was a great day, and everyone had a wonderful adventure.  The grandparents were still standing, but don't worry because they still had a few days left in their visit.

(Everyone is excited waiting on the platform.)

(Wow, we're actually on a train!)

(Grandma and I sit with twitchy.)

(The boys study an exhibit with their grandparents.)

(What are they looking at?)

(These boys make these look good!)

(See what I mean!)

(A dino in the discovery room)

(Ben finds a bear to cuddle.)