Train Ride in Campo, California

In our house, Messy Boy's fascination with trains was as natural as Dancing Girl's obsession with everything pink, purple, and princess. So, when we read about the opportunity to do a real live train ride, we loaded up the kids and headed to Campo, CA.

The Pacific Southwest Railway Museum is about an hour southeast of San Diego, practically in Mexico.  In fact, the train ride takes you from the station six miles into a tunnel to the border and then turns around. Train rides are available on Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. and 2:30 pm. Tickets can be purchased online or at the station, and children under the age of 6 ride free.  Woohoo!  It's so nice when the little people are free.

We arrived at the museum about 30 minutes prior to the 2:30 departure. There's a sandbox and swing set outside the depot so the kids and I waited there while Bruce went to get our tickets (Side note for our military buddies...they do have a military discount so be sure to ask!). Messy Boy is always thrilled to play in the dirt and had fun digging in the sand box while we waited on the train.

The conductor was a sweet older gentleman who volunteers with the railroad.  He gave some background information before boarding, which to be honest, I didn't hear much of because I was busy keeping up with my two crazies.  The boarding starts about 5-10 minutes prior to the ride. Be sure to make a potty stop before you get on the train because there are no bathrooms on board.

The kids were so excited to take their seat on the train. They enjoyed looking out the windows and eating fishy crackers for about the first 15 minutes. It was nice and peaceful. Bruce and I were able to sit beside each other and hold hands while our adorable off spring sat across from us smiling. But, when the snacks ran out, Messy Boy was done sitting. We spent the last 45 minutes of the ride taking turns walking around the open air cargo car with the aforementioned adorable offspring or having Messy Boy wiggle all over us in the seat.

This was during the calm and peaceful part of the ride.

After the ride, the train lets you out just a few hundred yards away from the depot at the museum with the static display trains.  I think this was Messy Boy's favorite part.  There were trains everywhere outside to look at and a few cars inside the museum to explore.  Dancing Girl thought it was absolutely hilarious that there was a toilet in the passenger car.

Down by the station...

There was a sign on the desk inside the museum that said there was a teddy bear hidden somewhere in the museum, and if you could spot him, the clerk at the gift shop would give you a prize. We looked all over the museum twice, but we couldn't find him.  I even tried to ask a few of the volunteers about it, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. I don't know if it was something new that they didn't know about yet, but if you go and find that sneaky bear, please let me know. It drove me crazy for hours after we left.

Checking out the mail car for the bear.

There was also a model train set up in the middle of the museum. Messy Boy found the magic button that made the train go around the track. I think he could have stood there all day pressing the button and then chasing the train around the table.

He found the button!

We had so much fun. I think we were the last people to leave the museum heading back to the parking lot.  We grabbed an old fashioned cream soda from the gift shop and headed back home.  We won't talk about the car ride home. Bruce took the scenic route and almost made me carsick from the curvy roads. Next time, we'll stick with the interstate.

Have you ever been on a train ride with your kids? How did it go? Where did it take you?

Things Messy Boy Broke, Volume 1

As Messy Boy's superhero name would suggest, he is messy.  Messes follow him wherever he goes.  He is also quite destructive.  The boy breaks everything.  The words, "If you keep breaking things, we will never be able to have anything nice" have actually slipped out of my mouth on more than one occasion, making me feel very old.

Someone please tell me, is this a boy thing or just a Messy Boy thing?  There are some things I just expect to get broken like all the cheap, plastic toys that somehow creep into my house. I expect those to be broken.  It's the supposedly good quality wooden toys that he's broken that just completely baffles me.  

So, with all the stuff being broken in my house, I have decided to document it. I hope that it makes you feel better about all the things in your house that are NOT broken and that I can one day use this as evidence against Messy Boy when he's a teenager.

Here are a list of things that Messy Boy has broken over the past few days weeks:

•  Arrows from Dancing Girl's Merida bow and arrow set (followed quickly by the replacement arrows for the aforementioned Medida arrows)

This is actually the fifth arrow he broke.

• Starfish bracelet

All that remains of Dancing Girl's starfish bracelet.

• Wooden snowman that he painted himself

I had intended to save this with the box of handmade Christmas decorations.

• Wooden butcher knife from a Melissa & Doug sushi set
• Wooden pot from Dancing Girl's play kitchen

Do you have a destructive little toddler demolishing your house?  What got broken in your house this week?

Out to Eat with Dancing Girl and Messy Boy: The Corvette Diner

We always get stuck in a rut when we decide to go to a restaurant because we're choosing at the last minute and end up going to the same places again and again.  But, we live in San Diego. There are so many delicious restaurants to explore.  Tonight we went to one that we had heard had awesome burgers and that the kids would enjoy.

The Corvette Diner is located in the NTC (the old Naval Training Center) area of San Diego.  It's modeled after a 50's diner, complete with fun music, girls in poodle skirts and beehive hair, and of course an old corvette!  There was a DJ playing oldies music, and the servers would sporadically  break into song and dance.  The kids were both perplexed and amazed by the balloon artist who quickly sculpted a sword for Messy Boy and an adorable pink and purple (her favorites!) butterfly for Dancing Girl. The restaurant also has an arcade that older kids I'm sure would enjoy, but we didn't check that out tonight.

Aren't the eyes on the butterfly adorable? 

Dancing Girl and Messy Boy loved all the entertainment of the diner, and the food didn't disappoint either.  I had the Brenda Burger (pretty much a bacon cheeseburger...how can you go wrong with that?), Bruce had some sort of spicy burger (which he claimed wasn't spicy enough), and the kids shared a hot dog plate.  My burger was awesome, and the bun for it was ahhhh-mazing.  It was soft and fluffy and tasted so fresh.  Oh...and the upgrade to waffles fries is totally worth it. Dancing Girl even gave them a thumbs up.

I didn't taste the hot dog, but between the two munchkins, it all got eaten.  I wish I had a picture of HOW they eat their hot dogs though. Instead of eating it from the side like every other person you've ever seen eat a hot dog, they both eat theirs from the top.  So strange.  Anyway, the hot dog was consumed, and they were even serenaded with a hot dog song and dance from some waitresses.  Bruce and I laughed while they just tried to hide during the song, and Messy Boy even looked quite angry. To be fair though, he had just woken up from a car nap (don't you hate those?) when we got to the restaurant.

We finished off our evening with a peanut butter and chocolate malt shake.  Anything with peanut butter and chocolate is a favorite of our household so those were polished off pretty quickly.  

Messy Boy drank practically the whole thing. Help! Someone come get him to sleep for me?

At the end of the night, Dancing Girl proclaimed The Corvette Diner her new favorite and begged to go back every single day.  And, while we won't be going that often (I don't think I could ever run enough to support those kind of calories), I'm sure we will return.

Joshua Tree National Park (with Kids)

My kids love to jump and climb. On everything. That means I spend a large portion of my days telling them to stop climbing up my walls.  It was so nice to take a weekend trip to a place where they were free to climb to their hearts content.

This is a Joshua Tree. I think it looks like it's straight out of Dr. Seuss.

Last week we took a little family getaway to Joshua Tree National Park. It's only 2 1/2 hours away from our home in SoCal.  We drove down on Friday, and settled into our hotel. If you happen to be military, definitely check out the Sleepy Tortoise Lodge on base in Twentynine Palms. It looked to have been recently renovated and had big rooms with a kitchen.  As an added bonus for the kids, the front desk had kids' movies to borrow, and there was a playground right outside our room!

We woke Saturday morning, had breakfast (courtesy of the Sleepy Tortoise) and then headed into the park via the North entrance gate (FYI...If you're military, you can get in for free via the Military Annual Pass available at the gate.). Our first stop was Skull Rock.  We climbed out of the car, and the kids immediately started scrambling (Bruce says that's the official term) over the rocks.  Mind you, they're 2 and 4, and we were still able to make it over some decent sized boulders without getting ourselves in any precarious situations.

Apparently this is what is known as "scrambling" in the rock climbing world.

From Skull Rock, we went to Keys View to check out (obviously) the view.  That was just a short walk around a paved sidewalk to see the sights.  Supposedly on a clear day, you can see San Andreas fault in the valley.

Keys View

The next stop was Hidden Valley to do a 1 mile nature trail around, as the name suggests, a Hidden Valley.  Dancing Girl hiked it on her own, and (much to his dismay) Messy Boy got to ride on Daddy's back in the baby backpack.  It was an easy little hike, but that didn't stop Dancing Girl from stopping to whine every few minutes. Luckily, there were more rocks to climb around every corner so that would get her going again.  There were also rock climbers dangling from rocks and crazy people doing insane yoga poses on big boulders, so obviously there was plenty to see.  

The Hidden Valley

 The Cholla Cactus Garden was about a 1/4 mile walk through the cacti.  It was very neat to see and easy enough for the kids to walk through themselves. We just had to make sure that Messy Boy didn't trip and fall into a cactus.  There were signs cautioning you of how painful the needles of the cactus are to remove. Thankfully, we all made it through unscathed.

Cholla Cactus Garden

We had also heard good things about the 1.1 mile Barker Dam hike, so we talked Dancing Girl into one more hike and strapped Messy Boy into the backpack again.  There were some more rocks to climb along the way, but Dancing Girl was very disappointed that the dam was dried up.  We gave her a Larabar, and she let that slide.

This is how we do it in our family. 

We spotted some hieroglyphics near the end of the trail .  That started a lively discussion between Bruce and I about how hieroglyphics are really just ancient graffiti. Seriously, how do we know the ancients were trying to record their history and not just doodling to pass the time? In a few hundred years, people will probably will be marveling at the huge rock we signed our senior year of high school.  

Really old graffiti

We headed back on Park Boulevard towards the West entrance of the park.  Our last stop was for a picnic lunch before driving home. That was an awesome spot that would be great if you have an avid climber like Bruce who's itching to do some sport climbing but need a place for littles to hang out while they wait on Daddy.  There were picnic tables right there by the rock, and the really smart people set up canopies for shade.  Just take some snacks and a shovel, and your little ones could be entertained for hours while the grown-ups do some climbing.

We would definitely recommend Joshua Tree for a nice family weekend!  We came away with a few scrapes, but a lot of fun family memories!

Have you been to Joshua Tree? What were your favorite spots? Planning a trip? Let me know how it goes!

Meet The Family

Dancing Girl thinks I should refer to myself as Crazy Little Mommy, but I'll stick with my real name, Alicia.  I'm mommy to two crazy wonderful little kids (you'll learn more about them in a minute) and wife to my handsome Marine (We'll call him Bruce).  I was born and raised in a small town in the South Carolina foothills, but we are now living in Southern California, thanks to the Marine Corps.  I love Jesus, baking, attempting to sew, and hate running. Anyway, you don't want to know about me. More about the interesting people in our family.

Ignore that Messy Boy isn't smiling. He really does like us.

Life is a musical with  Dancing Girl in our lives. She is learning to roller skate and breaks into a motivational little ditty about how she can do it if she only believes in herself. Then, all the stuffed animals pull on their skates and start doing triple jumps while a disco ball drops down from the kitchen ceiling.  Okay, so the stuffed animals don't skate, but Dancing Girl really does make up a song and dance about everything she does.

Dancing Girl will be five soon, and is our sweet but shy, intelligent, witty, and loving little perfectionist.  She's the one that makes us look like we're good parents who have it all figured out.

Dancing Girl with her best friend, Hyena.

Then, there's Messy Boy. He made us realize we don't have a clue what we're doing.  We decided a few months ago Messy Boy would be his superhero persona. Villains would be so busy cleaning up his messes that they wouldn't have time to commit any crimes. It's a standing joke in our family that we have to run behind him catching toys, books, and china plates as he throws them backwards.  Except that it's not a funny joke because it's the truth.  Seriously, this kid may only be two, but he can tear up the house like a group of frat boys.

Although there are times (a lot of times) when it seems he walks around just looking to get into trouble, Messy Boy is also the most loving little guy around. He's adventurous (Stop climbing the bookshelf!), funny,  smart, and he gives the best hugs.

Don't let this cute face fool you...he's trouble.

So, there you go.  That's our crazy family.  I can't wait to start sharing more of our crazy adventures with you.