Ride choo choo with MiMi

The weekend of July 6-8 was planned as a family trip to Snowshoe Mountain Ski Resort during the Homegrown Arts and Music Festival.  My parents were there for the festival last year and loved it so much that they wanted to bring the whole family back this year.  However, the trip according to Cohen was all about going to "ride choo choo with MiMi" which is all he talked about for the two weeks before the trip and is still talking about three weeks later!

Because my parents power had still not been restored from the huge storms that we had on June 29, my dad decided to stay home and keep the generators running to save all the food in their refrigerator and freezers.  So my mom, Cohen and I left for the long four hour trip to Snowshoe on Friday.  (It felt like it took more hours to pack and get out of town than it did to actually drive there.  This is especially after we had to make an emergency stop at Advance Auto Parts to have a fuse replaced in my mom's car to be able to operate Cohen's DVD player which is a top priority!)  When Cohen started to get especially restless during the trip, we were lucky to find the perfect place to stop in Elkins, WV.

He can find them anywhere!!

This is not THE train, but from the look on his face I think  he would have been okay if it was!

After another two hours in the car, we made it to the four bedroom townhouse that my mom had rented for all of us for the weekend, and by 9 or 10:00 Jeff and Howie, and my sister, Justin, Jackson and Boomer had found there way their way there too (despite the lack of cell phone service on the mountain).  Since I've never been into skiing, I'm not sure what other ski resorts may be like, but I imagine that Snowshoe resort calls itself the "Top of the World" for a reason...it takes at least 20 minutes to get to the top of the mountain from the highway!  Here's an aerial picture that I found of the resort (I was happy to find one without snow in the picture since I'm not a fan!):

And here's some pictures that we actually took as we were leaving our trip that will just give you an idea of the view.  It was pretty warm even on top of the mountain so all the haze and humidity makes it a little bit hard to see the mountains in the background...they are there though!

Try to ignore my hair...the wind blows really hard on the top of the mountain!

There were so many activities going on during the festival and so many other fun things to do in the area, that it was hard to decide what to do first on Saturday.  Since Cohen and Jackson's top priority seemed to be riding the choo choo, we decided to try to make in in time for the 11:00 am train ride.  The "choo choo" is Cass Scenic Railroad which is about 20 minutes away from where we were staying on Snowshoe Mountain. The train is a stream-driven locomotive that was once used for hauling lumber, but is now used for making kids like Cohen and Jackson very happy!  My sister and I took several trips to Cass with our parents when we were little, and although Jeff didn't remember it, we found out when we got home from our trip that he also rode the train with his parents.  

Despite our best efforts, we pulled into the parking lot at Cass just as the 11 am train was leaving.  Although we knew there would be another train coming in at 1:00, there were some sad faces in the backseat...until we saw the playground!

Jackson and "Manta" doing work!

And the river....

Yeah...we are THOSE people!!

Cohen got a little distraught when the four-hour train came into the station while we were playing...he was so upset that we were missing another train.  (We were waiting on the 2-hour train coming back at 1:00.)

MiMi always makes it better though!

Since it was so hot out and we still had an hour and a half to kill, we were happy to find the company store and it's AC!  Cohen and Jackson both got a choo choo sucker to take on the train ride and MiMi bought them both a toy train.  We also had some serious snack time.  The "big kids" were very excited about the old-fashioned ice cream counter in the company store and we had pleanty of time to enjoy some milkshakes and floats.

Headed to the company store and on the lookout for choo choos!

I felt that black and white was appropriate for a picture of the old-fashioned ice cream counter.

Justin , Jeff and I making some hard decisions

Jackson and MiMi sharing a milkshake...I think someone is jealous in the background!!

While I am usually partial to cones, at an old-fashioned ice cream counter you have to pick a milkshake!

A satisfied customer!

Preparing for the choo choo ride by watching game film!!

Unfortunately, by the time the train made it back, Cohen was ready for a nap.  Although we had played multiple videos of the Cass train for Cohen to prepare him for the loud noise and he had also seen the "smoke" (steam) from the parking lot, when he saw it up close he said he wanted to "go bye-bye."  This picture gives you an idea of the kind of mood the kid who had talked about this train ride for two weeks was in by the time we were boarding the choo choo:

At least Jackson was still excited!

And everyone got happier once we were on the train and the choo choo suckers came out!

The train climbs up the mountain and after about an hour, makes a stop at another train station before heading back down.  The boys were excited to find another train to play on while we waited and MiMi thought it was the perfect time to break out the hats she had bought for them.

It is nearly impossible to get more than one  two-year old to look at a camera at one time!

The boys got a cool ride on there way back to the train too!

This was our second attempt at a family train picture...by the look on Cohen's face in this picture and the next two, I think we all know what is coming...

Yep...after all the excitement, the poor baby fell asleep on the last ten minutes of the train ride!

Apparently mouth-open sleeping gives you so much energy after only ten minutes of napping, because Cohen didn't feel that he needed a real nap when we got back to the townhouse.  While Jax was napping, Jeff and I took Cohen to the resort pool that had a waterslide!  Cohen did go down by himself once, but the other 25 times he preferred for mommy or daddy to go down with him!!

All of the excitement finally caught up to Cohen later when we were getting ready to go to dinner!  I can confirm that Jeff was actually awake in both of these pictures!

After both boys had had pool time and nap time, we all went out to dinner.  Here's some pictures of MiMi with her two dates!

These boys know how to treat a lady and also took her out for some dancing!

Now it's a little bit harder to get the video, since they will usually stop the cuteness when the know they are being filmed...as Cohen likes to say these days "I'm so shy"...right!

My mom and dad were really impressed with the festival's fireworks last year and so everyone was looking forward to seeing them...except for Cohen.  Given Cohen's fear of thunder, Jeff and I didn't plan on staying for the fireworks but because he said he wanted to see them, we hung around until they started.  After the first one, though, Cohen said "I go bye-bye!"  When everyone got back to the townhouse, Justin let off some small fireworks that he had brought for the boys.  I think they turned out to be a little bigger than he expected and everyone ended up on MiMi's bed downstairs, including the dogs!

The weekend went by way too fast and there were lots of things that we had planned but just ran out of time to do!  Everything was right in Cohen's world, though, since he got to make a second stop at the park in Elkins and also got to enjoy some "goofs" (cheese puffs or "cheesy poofs" as Jeff and I like to call them) on the way home!