Ice Cream Station 2012

For those devoted Finding Finley followers, you may recall a post from last August about Finley getting ice cream and watching trains.

http://findingfinley.blogspot.com/2011/08/wonderful-combination.html

Well, nearly ten months later, we returned to the scene of that crime.  What a difference a year makes, but Finley's love of trains was still there and while his ice cream habits have changed a bit (it was eerily similar to be there again so many months later).

I ordered him a soft serve vanilla cone in a kiddie size...but much to my surprise, this gigantic swirled tower appeared!!  I decided not to order myself anything and figured we'd share :)

Here are a serious of short videos that I shot as we waited for the train and then watched it come in:

Once the train was safely on its way, Finley pointed to a ramp across the way and asked if we could go up it.  With his now manageable cone (I knocked off 90% of the ice cream that was left) in hand, off we trotted.

 

Checking the train schedule on my phone, I knew we had at least twenty-five minutes until the next train and was curious if we would make it that long.  However, Finley kept himself occupied by finishing his ice cream, climbing the handrails, and following ants around on his hands and knees (saying, "Hi Ant! Where you going?").  When we had about five minutes left to wait, Finley said he wanted to go home.  I tried to explain the train was coming soon, but he said he was ready to go so we began to walk back down the ramp towards the car.  We did not get far because he came across the big parking "meter" box and had a ball pretending to put his money in and then use the stuffer "key" to shove it in.

 His pretend play was in full effect as he went from parking his car and paying for his space to taking the train to his office (where he would email and call Aunt Ellie and Uncle Donny) to being the engineer on the train and picking me up at the station. So entertaining to watch :)

Then, to his complete surprise (it appeared), the next commuter train pulled into the station!! He was thrilled and enjoyed waving to the engineer (who waved back) and all the conductors who were on the train.  Lots of commuters got off the train and then the conductors gave the signals to each other and the engineer to head out and Finley seemed to understand all of what was going on (we read enough train books after all!).  Of course, he asked to see one more train before we left but I knew we wouldn't be able to wait so I convinced him we needed to go home and he obliged.  Though he did ask for more ice cream as we passed the ice cream window en route back to the car...