Ari in His Element

For the last few years we've been hearing trains come through Logan, we could just hear the faint "whoot whoot" in the distance, but Ari get's excited every time. We've never actually seen the train...well, until a few weeks ago.

See, my kids were crabby one day and both needed a nap really really bad. Ari is so above napping that I knew I would need to "take him for a little drive." I loaded the kids up in the van and headed for the west side where I knew I could drive out to Benson Marina, park the van, watch birds, read and let the kids sleep. Worked like a charm. Isaac was out in under 3 minutes and Ari's eyes were starting to droop. I watched them in the rear view mirror. Going, going, going, gone. He was asleep. I triumphantly set my gayze back on the road only to notice something off in the distance. No way! It was THE train! I hesitated. Do I wake Ari up to see the train, or do I make a sharp left and drive as far from it as possible to avoid the "whoot whoot." I knew what I had to do. "Ari" I whispered loudly. "Ari, look, the train." His first glimpse of the train was priceless. He immedietly jolted awake and the chase was on! I took a right onto the dirt where we sat about 20 feet from the train track and watched is pass. As soon as it went buy we flipped around and began following right along side it. I let Ari get out of his car seat and he would give orders while kneeling on the back seat "slow down," "speed up," "stop," "pull over," "heeereee it commmeesss!" His goal was to keep the train in our sight. We had a blast following the train, driving up ahead, finding the perfect place to pull over and watch it go by, getting to a spot where we could see the "ding ding" lights stop traffic to let the train cross. Ari was yelling out all his train verbiage like "where's the switch man shack," "is someone going to change the points," "can you see the pistons pumping," "is that what they use to shunt freight cars?" It was awesome. Of course Isaac sleeping didn't last long. Pretty sure he woke up when we rolled down all the windows so that we could hear the "whoot whoots" and the "ding dings" at full volume.

He was pretty upset when the train came to a stop. The "conductor" got out with his "lunch box" and went into the "station." We waited and waited but we had to face the fact that it had stopped for the night? Needless to say the kids didn't get the naps they needed, but it was worth it.

I love this photo of Ari. He likes to walk the train tracks; and while he does I can just see that imagination of his start to turn and he asks all sorts of questions I don't know the answers too.

Love that kid.