[Weekending] Hot Wheels, the Christmas Train, and Hanukkah!

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

What do all of these things have in common? Essentially nothing, except for the fact that they happened to be all the things we did this weekend! Well, I should re-phrase... this LONG weekend!

The weekend started for me on Friday when I took the day off work (have I ever told you how amazing it is to be able to take days off when I want? I have. Oh yeah. Well it's still THAT amazing!) to meet Desiree and Marcus at the Discovery Cube for the Hot Wheels exhibit. They had been once before and told us how awesome it was and they sure were right! We actually ended up buying a membership when we went on Friday (it was Seth's Grandma's gift to Mason for Hanukkah) and I'm so excited to be able to use it more in the coming year. But for this trip, we planned to see the Hot Wheels exhibit.

I didn't know how "into it" Mason would be as museums haven't really been his strong suit in the past. He more prefers to run around rather than actually play with the exhibit. But this? HE LOVED.

regular car tire vs a race car tire
the actual Hot Wheels race car
so many fun tracks set up to play with!
the boys favorite thing! they loved setting up the cars and then letting them race down the track
my favorite thing! you got to be a pit crew member and change the tires

Seriously the boys played for almost TWO hours just in this exhibit alone. We had to convince them to leave when it started to get busy so we could go explore the rest of the museum. We ended up exploring for about an hour more and then we left to come home, have lunch, and take a nap. I LOVE how well the boys get along and how much they love playing with each other. Mason and I seriously had the BEST afternoon with Desiree and Marcus and I'm so glad we were able to meet up with them!

Saturday morning, we dropped Mason off at school and ran a ton of errands. Since we had to work the weekend before we had trips to Costco and Target planned as well as some last minute Christmas shopping. We picked Mason up at 2pm, put him down for a quick nap, and then met Desiree, Scott, Marcus and Julia for dinner at Lazy Dog Cafe. I love that we met through blogging last year and we get along so well, our kids get along, and so do our husbands! The only thing that would be more perfect would be if we lived slightly closer, but hey, I'm not complaining, we got to hang out two times in one weekend!

After dinner, we went to the Christmas train. This is one of my very favorite things about Christmas. We went with the Macke's last year and I'm so glad we got to go again! Also, we picked the perfect day because even though it was SO COLD (for California standards), it rained on Friday night and Sunday night so we were glad it was only cold!


We walked up, checked out some of the lights on the exterior, picked up our train tickets at will call, and got in line for the train. The line was a little longer than last year since we didn't arrive right at our designated time of 6pm, but the boys did really great waiting for the train.

And as you can tell, someone was super excited when it was finally our turn to get on!


We hopped on the train, enjoyed the lights, and were on our way to Santa where Mason... rocked it again! I don't know what happened, but this is the year for Santa!


After meeting Santa, we waited for the train to come back and we headed back to the train depot and the area where the games were. But not before traveling through the tunnel of lights!




After we got dropped off by the train, we entered Santa's Village to play some games and check out the rest of the lights.

ice fishing
picture coloring
Mason thought it was one of those cardboard cut outs to put his head through!

                     

We had the very best night with the Macke's and can't wait to do it again next year!

Sunday morning we slept in, ran some errands, and were lazy around the house until Sunday night when we went over to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house to celebrate Hanukkah. The food was delicious. The company was great. And the kids were SO spoiled!! There were also some AMAZING dance parties which I was able to capture on video. Let's just say, Mason has some moves!


Thankfully it's already Wednesday of this week and we are halfway to another fun filled weekend! December has been crazy busy, but so, so fun!






12 comments:

  1. OMG that hot wheels exhibit looks amazing! Noah would love it too! And I totally get why you are still such a fan of being able to take random days off... It's a total game changer! Let's you do fun things without the crazy crowds! And I'd love to know what was really cold on Saturday ;)

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  2. Omg!! The hot wheels exhibit looks amazing. Cam would flip over it! Glad you guys had so much fun!!

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  3. You guys have so much fun! Love that car exhibit!

    Becky
    bybmg

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  4. How fun, you know I didn't know you lived so close to me, Baby Fox has been wanting to go to the discovery cube everytime we drive by and he sees it...and then will randomly ask to go. We went to the Lego one last year and wasn't totally impressed with The Cube...maybe we'll have to give it another try with Hot Wheels.

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  5. Awesome! I want to do ALL of these fun things especially the working on the racecar & the "ice fishing". Very cool! :)

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  6. You guys had a jam packed and very fun weekend! I always love following along on your snapchat. Also, how cool is that giant menorah!!

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  7. This makes me happy, it is such a blessing to make strong connections from blogging and then having that translate in person, pure gold. Im jealous your hubbys get along, Brian would be a wet blanket lol. He is so weirded out by all my Christmas cards, he says they're like the inserts of photo frames and not real people ;) But I digress. Glad you had a great l-o-n-g weekend!!!

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  8. We had SO much fun with you last weekend! Marcus periodically asks when he can play with Mason. So, clearly we need another day date!

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  9. So much fun! I love that you two get to hang out all the time. That Hot Wheels exhibit is SO cool!

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  10. So much fun! I love that you two get to hang out all the time. That Hot Wheels exhibit is SO cool!

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  11. WOW!! It all looks so much fun!! Those boys had to be in heaven at the hot wheels place. I love the sequence of pictures of Mason getting excited for the train. And with Santa. And your selfies!! :)

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  12. We're going on the Santa train this weekend and I'm so excited. I'll try to be a good blogger and get lots of photos...but no promises!! Ha

    That hot wheels exhibit looks sweet!! I want to go check it out.

    And lastly I think it's so fun you celebrate hannuka too!! I would love to read more about how your family celebrates and other traditions!!

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