Choo choo! Here comes the sugar train!

The day after the five hour tour, we took the kids and went to a Lumberjack camp/Steam train attraction about 40 minutes northeast of our cottage. Colby is huge into trains and we knew it would be a hit with him. We got to ride in the caboose (and in the top of the caboose at that!) and he was THRILLED! When we had to get off, however, he was NOT thrilled. NOT. We got past it and had a great time - we took a little pontoon ride down the Rat River, got to pet a slew of baby farm animals and then got to ride the train back to the station. It was a fun day and another memory from my childhood that I got to share with my kids. Fun times! What was NOT fun was that it took the kids 2.5 hours to fall asleep that evening after having been run ragged all day and having had only 6.5 hours of sleep the previous night.

The next morning we had a bit of a slow start to things and then decided to head on out and try some geocaching. The kids were not into listening and we were planning on searching on a somewhat busy atv/hiking trail that turned out to be located adjacent to a busy highway. Although we did manage a car picnic for lunch, it was clear that we were not going to have a safe situation with the busy roads and the not listening and the kids just weren't into it. We packed it in and decided to try the fantastic (and LARGE) candy store in nearby Lakewood for a shift in activity. Do I need to even bother saying that the kids were VERY into that activity? Ha ha. They loved it. We had some ice cream, the kids played a game of giant checkers with Steve, we bought a few treats, and we spent nearly an hour and a half wandering around looking at the offerings and deciding that the candy store in Lakewood will be a family tradition when we visit. It was a great lesson in choosing to shift to an activity the kids ARE into rather than trying to force the one we want to share with them with the result of everyone being stressed and in a bad mood. Yes, the kids ended up "rewarded" for their bad attitudes, but as I pointed out to Steve - they had no idea we were even considering the candy store and we hadn't promised it for good behavior, nor had we threatened to take it away for bad behavior. So all we did was change the plan. Besides, once they were good and sugared up we had a great time for a good long while. It's all about perspective!