U. S. Thanksgiving 2008

On Nov. 25Th. in the evening we left Winnipeg for the long drive to Exton, PA where our future daughter-in-law's family live. After about 28 hours of driving and riding with tired minds and bottoms we finally arrived near midnight on the 26Th.

The Shorts welcomed us and after a brief time of getting acquainted we all turned in for the night. The long ride had not been very kind to my legs so I had many cramps during the night and didn't sleep very much.

We had a leisurely morning with a late breakfast. Laura and Will had the dinner preparations in hand and their three girls helped a lot. (one of their daughters was away visiting her boy friend in Florida) There were so many items to be cooked in the oven that they had borrowed space in the neighbor's oven so they were running back and forth.

Top picture: Andrew, Barbie, Susanna with the dog Paris, Mom-Laura, Jackie and Jean.
Second picture: Dad-Will, cleaning the patio of leaves.
Third picture: Most of the Short Klan. Will has seven siblings, four of them not in the picture - the youngest sister and her family came later and didn't eat with us. One of the adult men in this picture is a nephew. Laura's Father is also at the table.
Bottom picture: Two "visitors" that passed through the back yard while we were at dinner.

Thanksgiving with the Shorts is like this every year they say but it is their main family get together of the year.

Andrew, Barbie & Ruth went to a football game in the evening while Will, Laura, Helmut & I had a good visit.

Day Out With Thomas The Engine

On June 27Th. we took T. to "A Day Out With Thomas the Engine". This was very exciting for our T. and he was already to go when we arrived at his house before eight in the morning - had to be there before his Mom & Dad had to go to work.

Getting to the location of the event was a little special in itself. the event took place at the Heritage railway station a way out on the far northwest corner of the city. The parking was a long ways from the station so there was a special bus provided as part of the package to shuttle everyone to the station. I'm not quite sure if this was a first bus ride for T.

On arrival at the station we had T.'s picture taken with Thomas the Engine but I have yet to figure out how to scan it into the computer. We had about an hour to look around at all of the things to do before our train ride.

The "Big Boy's" train was the first display we saw - "NO TOUCHING" was the rule at this place. I think Opa was more interested than T.

Then we came to the various size toy trains of the Thomas series. The littlest one was T.'s favorite. He was fascinated to play with it for quite a long time. All the children were playing alone side by side with one another and not fighting over any of the parts.

Then came the 45 minute train ride on the heritage coach behind Thomas the engine. ( Thomas the engine is mostly a mascot) Prairie Dog Central locomotive provided the pulling /pushing power. So we went backwards one way and frontwards on the return trip.

Also part of the activities provided were inflatables for the youngsters to play in. The train one had such a strong wind at the entry way that we couldn't convince T. to enter it and it was too small for adults to go in it. T. really enjoyed the Tiger and was able to get up in it and jump to his heart's content.

































































It was almost as much fun bouncing in and out on the tongue of the Tiger as jumpin inside of its belly.

Around about 11:30 we had to find some hot dogs for our lunch because Oma was so hungry.