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My layout for the NSBD challenge, now finished. This is a layout about trains in my life as a child and now as a parent.

I used Magic Mesh for the railroad tracks. I just snipped a long piece two rungs wide. To get it to turn the corner I snipped every other inside rung so it could lay flat.

The train engine and title are on a pull-out card with journaling underneath. The journaling reads:
Trains, Trains, Trains! I can’t seem to get away from them..!
I guess trains have been a running theme in my life. You see, both my parents are train buffs. Nearly every year we made the six hour trek to hot and dusty Bishop, CA to visit the Laws Railroad Museum there. When I was a little kid (as my parents still remind me) I liked it there. They had an old locomotive you could climb into and ring the bell. I also remember, for some reason, the really old Coke machine in the gift shop. Anyway, as we kids got older we started to complain of boredom more and more, and the main highlight was the motel we always stayed in – it had a pool with a sun motif on the floor of the pool. My parents (who still visit the Laws Museum from time to time) say that motel isn’t there anymore. Anyway, I think in my later teen years I refused to go and stayed home instead.
I also remember my parents stopping here, there, and anywhere to look for date nails on old, historic railroad tracks. Date nails are nails with the last two digits of the year stamped on the head. They were pounded into the railroad ties to indicate the date that the track was built. Now historic railroad buffs collect them. We found lots of date nails on our treks.
I also remember HO scale trains around the Christmas tree nearly every year except when Jennie or Mark were little. (Now Dad has built an apparatus to hang a N scale railroad from the mid-section of their Christmas tree.)
Then, of course there is the notorious train trip to Mexico. That one is going to have to wait for its own scrapbook page, it’s too good of a story. Suffice it to say that trains have always been there in my life. But I had no great love of trains.
But guess what, I fell in love with and married a train buff.
So trains are still in my life. I remember Eric and I visiting the Rio Vista Railroad Museum before we were married, and again afterwards, before we had kids. Then having two boys, well that seals it right there. Trains will be in my life forever.
But that’s not so bad. I wonder which of these train outings will become special memories for Connor and Nicholas? Hmm, maybe Eric and I should take them to the Laws Railroad Museum?
prepared on National Scrapbooking Day – May 3, 2008

The journaling underneath the caboose is all about the pictures on these two pages, and our train adventurs with our kids. Journaling reads:

Starting at the engine, in chronological order:
1. Connor’s first train ride at the Christmas Tree Farm at Grant and Covington in Mountain View . This is the same place, and indeed the same train as the Pumpkin Patch below at #8. Notice the Pumpkin on the front of the train; usually they put a Christmas wreath over it at Christmas. (Dec. ‘99)
2. Miniature train in XX Park in San Diego . (July ’01)
3. We go to Hawaii and what do we do, ride on the Hawaiian Railway, of course! (Aug. ’01)
4. Me and Connor on the Niles Canyon Train of Lights in Fremont . My Dad is a sponsor of the Niles Canyon Railway so he gets to buy these hard-to-get tickets before they go on sale to the public. The train is decorated in lights from engine to caboose and goes on pleasure rides through Niles Canyon before Christmas. We do this almost every year. (Dec. ’01)
5. Connor with his favorite Thomas the Tank Engine trains. These are so popular that Nana keeps a set at her house, where this photo was taken. (Jan. ’02)
6. Bonfonte Gardens in Gilroy. (Aug. ‘02)
7. Connor playing with the Thomas the Tank Engine display at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento . (Aug. ’02)
8. The Pumpkin Train at the Pumpkin Patch in Mountain View . This Pumpkin Patch was very popular locally but the owners sold the land and it is just sitting empty now. I wonder what happened to the Pumpkin Train? (Oct ’02)
9. The entire family, including Dana and both sets of Grandparents, go to Roaring Camp in Felton for a Day Out with Thomas. This is actually our second trip to see Thomas the Tank Engine. Our first trip, the year before, was on the Skunk Train out of Fort Bragg . For some reason I didn’t get any photos that time. All I remember was that it was unbelievably windy. (June ’03)
10. Connor mesmerized by Thomas. (Nov. ’03)
11. Connor riding a small train ride at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO, just outside of Denver . (Dec. ’03)
12. Connor inside a steam engine at the Colorado Railroad Museum (Dec. ’03)
13. Connor checking out the model railroad layout at the Colorado Railroad Museum . (Dec. 03)
14. Eric’s first steps towards building a model railroad layout in our garage. (Jan. ’05)
15. This one might not look like a train picture, but it is. Connor arranged the chairs in the backyard like a train and directed us to sit and pretended he was a train conductor. (June ’05)
16. Train Town in Sonoma (Nov. ’05)
17. Niles Canyon Train of Lights (Dec. ’05)
18. Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista (May ’06)
19. Connor enjoys the model trains at the South Bay Historical Railroad Society in Santa Clara . (Sept. ’06)
20. Lego Train Exhibit (Dec. ’06)
21. Nicholas enjoying Thomas at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito (May ’07)
22. Another Day out with Thomas, this time on the Sacramento River Train in Sacramento . (May ’07)
23. Close-up of Thomas the Tank Engine. Even though Thomas gets all the credit for pulling the train, what you see here is actually a dummy car. There is a regular diesel locomotive at the other end of the train, doing all the work! (May ’07)
24. Connor and Nicholas riding a different Pumpkin Train to the Pumpkin Patch at the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista. They set up a pumpkin patch with a hay bale play structure, hay rides, crafts, and music a few miles away from the museum, and you ride the train there and back. (Oct. ’07)
25. Nicholas watches the outdoor G scale model train exhibit in the Germany pavilion at Epcot in Disney World, Florida . (Apr. ’08)
26. We all got to become “co-pilots” and ride in the front cabin of the Disney World monorail. (Apr. ’08)
27. Nicholas and Connor got to be “guest conductors” on the Walt Disney World Railroad and say words all train fans adore, “All Aboard!” (Apr. ’08)


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