I wrote this for a homeschool list

Today, we had planned to go to the train museum. T had been asking to go for months but it's been so incredibly hot and most of the train stuff is outside, so we had been delaying it. The kids were so excited to find that we were going.

Early in the morning, the kids colored a cardboard egg carton that B rescued from the recycling bin. I cut it in half for them so they could both make 'volcanoes'. Later, while we got ready, T played with his train set and B listened to the conclusion of the audio book, "A Cricket in Times Square". While I was in the bathroom, I heard B sobbing. It didn't sound like he was hurt, but he was absolutely sobbing. I could hear dh talking to him. Bewildered, I stepped out of the bathroom to see what was going on. Dh was hugging B, with tears streaming down B's face. "It's the ending of 'A Cricket in Times Square'.", said dh, "It's very sad." "What happens??", I asked. "The cricket goes back to Connecticut.", said dh. Bewildered pause on my part. "It's a very long, drawn-out good-bye.", explained dh. Poor B. I had never seen him cry over a book before. I hugged him and told him that books made me cry sometimes too. "Which ones?", he asked. I remembered how incredibly affected I was by Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "100 Years of Solitude". As it involves murder and incest, I decide not to share that one.

Everyone picked up and got ready so we went on the long drive to the big Train Museum. It was 2.5 hours in one direction. We listened to Eric Idle narrate, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" on the drive. I enjoyed it as much as B did. Dh and I exchanged giggles a few times. We're such kids on the inside at times.

T started getting impatient and loud as we got very close to the end of our journey. In an effort to appease him, I asked him to help me find exit 60. I showed him where the numbers were and showed how we were at 55. Before doing this, he kept insisting that if he counted to 10, for example, that it would be 10 miles and we should be there already. This seemed to keep him busy while we finished our long journey.

The Train Museum was as good as we remembered it. We had a whirlwind tour full of energy and excitement. While walking by the tracks, I recalled a train episode of "Dirty Jobs" I recently saw. "Hey B.", I said, "Those stones are called 'ballast'." "What kind of stones are they? Igneous or sedimentary?", he asked. B likes geology and we've read a fantastic "Let's Read and Find Out Science" book about it. "Granite, I guess.", replied dh. "So it's igneous.", I added. "Oh.", he said, seeming satisfied. Then, "Rrrr! I'm an airplane!", he shouted and ran excitedly down the path. Both kids were so incredibly excited. We definitely have to come back again this winter.

On the drive back, T interrupted our audio book with his own personal rendition of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train". He was loud and refused to tone it down a bit so we could still hear the audio book. Then, he promptly passed out. We put him straight to bed when we got home, which is unusual. He didn't have a good night of sleep last night, however, so that affected him. B started listening to Beverly Cleary's "Henry and the Paper Route" while dh put T to bed. Having only recently discovered full-length audio books at the library, he's really into them right now. MIL is getting him all the Roald Dahl audio books with her teacher's discount. B is going to be so excited!