trains, planes and automobiles

after a lot of calendar coordinating and a couple of reschedules, the bean and i were happy to join lilcee, mini cee, dailygluttony and mini DG for a fun playdate at travel town near griffith park.  i knew that the hub and brother wan had been here many times when they were little, but i'd never been and i was excited to take the bean to hang out with our friends.

travel town is a park and museum dedicated to preserving the railroad history in the l.a. area, and there are lots of trains to play in and around.  even better?  it's free!  well, there's a cute little train ride available that loops around the park twice, with tickets a whopping $2.50 per person.  sweet! 

it was fun to watch the kids greet each other, as we moms whipped out our phones and snapped away.

although the bean came prepared and turned it around on me at least once.

but i ended up packing it away into my backpack as they got down to the business of exploring the trains.

here, she's pretending that the train is a plane and she's the pilot, giving the announcements over the loudspeaker.  kids, man.

mini DG is an old pro at travel town and led us into the children's corner.

we'd gotten there right as the park opened, so it wasn't too crowded - yet.

we all peeked into a room where a local model train club was working on setting up a new display.

as they lost interest and ran outside, the bean found something to check out.

except that that wasn't really meant for anyone to ride - some park employee had probably gone to answer nature's call or something and i ushered the bean off of the thing before we were discovered.  after taking that picture first, of course.  come on now.

we chased after them around the trains one more time before deciding it was time to take that spin around the park.

this face is hilarious.

"look!  it's the pink train again, mommy - your favorite color!" indeed.

we watched families set up for fun birthday parties in the reserved areas.

and after the ride we made one last stop in the children's corner, where we found quite a few more people crowded around the train table.

after tossing around a few different ideas for lunch, the thought of delicious grub from porto's bakery lured us to glendale.

medianoche sandwich for me, turkey croissant for the bean (who was rather tired of taking pictures by then).

a fantastic time, as always.  we'd joked as we watched them race around that it would make for a pretty great afternoon nap, and sure enough...the bean passed out cold on the way home. 

most excellent.