Hobby day

The Flaherty clan had some fun with their hobbies today - separately. Lynn loves to scrapbook and today she went down to Middleboro to essentially scrapbook all day at a function hall with a scrapbooking club or something. One of her sisters lives in Middleboro so she'll spend the day with her. They did the same thing last fall and it goes all day and into the evening (9pm or so).

As for me and Kevin, we headed out to West Springfield for a MEGA toy train show at the Big E. The Big E is huge - I've never been there before and was blown away by all the buildings and land they have. The train show was held in four buildings (we only got to two) and there must have been thousands upon thousands of people there (making it hard to get around with a 2 year old).

Kevin, as many know, loves trains and he was in heaven today, so much so that he got overwhelmed and within 2 hours he was asking to go home. There were hundreds of stores selling things, toy train exhibits, train tour companies, etc. I was wondering how long it took to get everything set up as there was so much stuff packed in there. Kevin of course wanted to play with the trains and thankfully they had an area with Thomas the Tank trains for kids to play with. It was as chaotic as you can imagine and I worried about Kevin getting out of there to move on. Thankfully he left without any meltdowns. I was a little perplexed when he walked up to a little girl and roared in her face like a dinosauer. He was doing it to the cat this morning and he continued to haunt this little girl until I told him to stop!

We happened to run into our friends Jay and Pam who help out at Berkshire Scenic Railroad Museum in Lenox (I went to college with Jay). Kevin was itching to go play so I didn't get to talk to them much but it was nice to see them.

I didn't buy much as it cost $5 to park and $10 to get in which left me with $1. Kevin wanted to take a ride on a Thomas the Tank train and it broke my heart to tell him I didn't have enough money. But, something distracted him and he was over it quick. One display that was selling Thomas stuff did take credit cards so I bought him a Thomas toy named Kevin. I don't think I've ever seen that one so I had to buy it. "Kevin" isn't a train but is rather a crane.

The only downside was the people. I don't know if you've ever been to a train show but they're full of middle age men who are paranoid beyond belief about kids touching their stuff. Kevin was looking at one display and the guys looked back at him real quick when they heard something drop (it was a toy from the toy area). Also, the people there were really pushy and kept on cutting lines and pushing through the lines.

But, it was a great time and Kevin slept like a baby both ways. He's now happily playing with his new toy and I think we're going to grab some pizza from this place I just heard about in Lowell. A good Saturday with the boy!