Riding the Sunrail

The morning after Christmas, Anthony and I got up at 6am to get ready to take James on his real train ride from Santa. The closest train to us is a commuter train for the Orlando area that takes about 45 minutes to get to. It runs early in the morning and late in the afternoon for the working crowd, so our goal was to make the 8am train. We woke James up around 6:30am and he didn't even fight getting out of his pajamas and into his regular clothes (which is always a battle), so that tells you how excited he was. We left the house around 6:45 (Rett stayed home with my mom) and got to the train stop at 7:30. We still had to buy our tickets (Santa's tickets were just symbolic), so we just missed the 7:30 train and had to wait for the 8am train. It was colder than we expected, so we had to bundle up as best we could while we waited. James was so excited!

 Once we got on the train, you can choose seats on the bottom floor, a mid level floor, or all the way to the top of the train. James chose the very top because he wanted to be able to "see everything" out the window. They have groups of four seats facing each other with a table in between them, so I sat across from James and Anthony. James had a peanut M&M that he had been holding in his hand since we left the house and he wanted to put it on the table. He didn't want to eat it, but he didn't want anyone else to touch it or hold it.

Waiting for the train to start:

 We finally got moving! It wasn't as fast as I expected it to be, there were a lot of times where the cars in the street next to us were passing us. That suited James though because it gave him time to look at everything out the window.

We rode the train south for two stops and then got off and crossed the tracks to wait for the northbound train back. It was about a 15 minute wait and James really didn't like the very loud announcements on the speakers. He had his blanket and his hands over his ears!

 Checking to see if the noise had stopped:

When we got back on the train and the worker checked our tickets, he came back and gave James a foam train toy that they give out to kids. He asked me why it was soft and I said so that it wouldn't break anything in the train. Then he asked me where we were sitting (since it is a replica of the train we were on) and I showed him which window on the  toy train.

 When we got off to walk back to our car, the worker that helped us buy our tickets stopped to ask James how he liked his train ride. Then she offered to take our picture for us! James was worried that the train was going to make a loud noise so he wouldn't take his hands off of his ears, but he still smiled!

It was a fun adventure, I'm glad that Santa had such a good idea ;)