At Least it Was Free, Right?

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I got to watch my nephews Roderic (age 5) and Hyrum (age 2), so my sister Malauna could take her daughter Sabrina (age 10) to Suzuki violin camp. I think it is great that Sabrina has this opportunity to improve her violin playing skills and I want my children to know their cousins, so I was happy to have Roderic and Hyrum come visit. It was great for many reasons:

1. Because Janica is now old enough to attend a city summer recreation in the program with Tegan, Kierra is really bored. With Roderic and Hyrum here, she had playmates.

2. Roderic and Hyrum love playing with our toy trains. There is a rule in our house that the trains can't come out unless the family room is clean. Keeping the boys entertained was fantastic incentive for us to clean the family room so they could play with the trains.

3. Going to Disney's A Christmas Carol train tour. It was a free tour at the Ogden Union Station. Since Roderic and Hyrum love trains, we decided to take them to the tour so they could see the train and get really excited.

So the rest of this post is about the train tour. I didn't think it was very publicized and didn't think there would be many people there. Ha! Boy was I wrong!

We were in this line for 2 1/2 hours! Fortunately, it was at the train station and there were trains to entertain the kids.

My brother Carson was kind enough to come with me and help me with the five kids. Jason met us there after he got off work, which was after we had already been in line for an hour.



Children sure are good at entertaining themselves if given a chance, wouldn't you say?

Why is Kierra poking her head around the sign? I have no idea.

For all concerned parties, Janica is tickling Hyrum (the child on the ground) and he is laughing, NOT crying.

I just thought this picture of Janica and Roderic was cute.

We finally made it onto the train and learned a bit about how the movie was made. It was definitely more interesting to me than to the children.

I was wondering what Hyrum and Kierra found so fascinating here...



until I saw they were looking at their own reflections.




I sure was glad when Jason showed up!



And here we are at the conclusion of the tour.



Was it worth the 2 1/2 hour wait? I'd really rather not answer that, if you don't mind. I was reading an article about the tour in the newspaper today and one of the Disney employees on the tour was quoted as saying that they were bringing a taste of Disneyland with them. Hmm, the only taste I got was of the long line - and there was no fast pass! However, all five of the kids were exhausted by the time we got back and my three fell right into bed. That can't be bad!