More snow adventures and a trip on the Polar Express

  
   We had a busy weekend last weekend! It started out by Ian inviting us to come up to Ouray to see where he's working. "come see some snow" he says, "they're having a helicopter fly in some poles" he says. Sounded like cheap fun to me. So we made our way to Ouray on Saturday around noon. It was a long drive, he told me to drive slow because the roads were slippery and there is no guard rail on most of it. There are some crazy hair pin turns as you zig zag up the mountain. Well , I forgot that Wrex gets motion sickness because it doesn't happen all the time. So when his stomach hurt, he looked at the clock and said "Mom it's past lunchtime." Being, oh so prepared I tossed him back a sandwich. It wasn't long after that,  I saw him slump to the side, when I asked him if he was okay, his reply "No mom, I just threw up." EWWWW. I pulled over, thankfully there was a snow bank to pull over in. Sure enough he had spewd all over his shoes and pants and on my floor mat. I know that people think when you turn into a mom that you don't mind picking up your kids puke, but I do. I think of those parts in the movies where someone says" If I smell it, I'm going to do it too!" And this is the attitude that had me throwing the floor mat and his shoes in the snow, I stomped on them , hoping they would self clean. I was so grateful that I had packed Wrex snow pants and snow boots. I had him change into that and then we were faced with a dilemma. Drive another 45 minutes to Ouray or an hour and 15 minutes back home. I just kept thinking "play in the snow, see a helicopter" I asked the kids and they wanted to continue. Either way we were staying in the puke mobile, there are NO little towns on this trek into the mountains to stop and get a car wash. So we continued. and Wrex was in a much better mood. I let him sit in the front seat for the rest of the way and he DJ'd with my iphone. His famous words to me "mom, I should've warned you, I thought it was just going to be a puke burp." Yes Wrex a warning would've been good. It wasn't long before we made it, Houston spotted the lineman on the side of a mountain. So we pulled over, the kids got the half packed snow gear they grabbed, Wrex had pants but no jacket or sweatshirt. Houston had a jacket and snow boots but no snow pants and socks. At this point I'd like to point out that Waylon was snow ready!

So we got out of the car and hiked up to where Ian was. We had missed the helicopter by hours! I thought it was an all day thing, it turns out Helicopters are expensive and they work as quickly as possible, where is my common sense these days? Well at least we got to see Ian working, I got some cool pictures of him and his crew working. My favorite is a picture of Wrex smiling and Ian working in the background. I love pictures of kids on jobsites, it warms my heart, like were back in the 80s.  Anyways, it wasn't long before Houston's sock less feet felt like they were going to fall off. I have never heard him howl like that. I think he believed his feet were going to fall off. So after 20 mins we got back in the car. I had him heat up his feet in front of the heater and I had to give him my socks and drive barefoot home. It was quite the day. Can you tell? Not all my adventures turn out great.

    The next night made up for it. We went on another train ride in Durango, this ride was on the Polar express. I will say in McCay fashion we showed up 5 minutes before it left and almost missed the train, so we stumbled upon our car, bumping the "chef" in the back just as she was asking "who wants hot cocoa?" In comes the McCay family. The way our seats turned out, Wrex and Houston sat single facing each other, and Ian and I were behind them facing each other, holding Waylon.
It was a really cool experience, they served hot cocoa and cookies, they punched our golden tickets, the hobo went through the train, some nerdy kid with glasses came around asking me questions about the model of train we rode, it was very exciting. Waylon thought so too, until it got dark . As we went through town, they read us the story and we were able to see all of the town and houses lit up with Christmas lights. They took us by the "North Pole" and we waved to Santa. After we sang Christmas carols. Some of my favorite parts were Houston turning to Ian saying "I really like this dad" later when Santa came through our train, Ian said he didn't see him, Wrex answered very quickly "that's because you're naughty dad" Those kids don't miss a beat! haha. I'm so glad we were together to share that experience. It may seem silly now, Wrex is almost too old for this type of thing, but he fully enjoyed it and we were together which was the most important thing.

   The kids and I are headed to Grandma's house tomorrow, it will be a nice change to have a little more space to stretch in. Ian will hopefully be joining us at Christmas. I hope when we get back we will still be in the Durango/Bayfield area but wherever our adventure takes us at least we're together.