Ok so I just had to blog this tonight. This evening Leilani and I set up our electric train around our Christmas tree. We then proceeded to walk Jesus, Marry, Joseph, The Three Wise Men, The Angel, Shepard and animals from our nearby nativity scene (also under out tree), into the various train cars (coach, freight, zoo, engine and caboose) and then took them all for a ride around the tree for numerous laps – of course intermittently stopping to check for tickets, appropriate paper work, to disembark, and re-embark. Leilani loves the nativity, Jesus and our train, and her combining them was so innocent and endearing. A great combination I might add, given it’s local and scale our Nativity scene does look a lot like a train depot and frankly I don’t think God didn’t minded the ride, in fact I got to say they all looked pretty happy to me. Leilani and I had a great time, thank you God.
Another incident that I found particularly touching this evening was that after we drove the train back to the station, washed up for bed, gone potty, read several stories in bed, done the nightly head rubbing, back scratching, butterfly-kisses, followed by Eskimo, on the lips and cheek kisses, and saying “I love you – will you please come in and snuggle with Mommy and me in the morning” with agreement confirmed, and giving Leilani the final tucking in with Grandma’s hand nit “rainbow blanket,” which she so dearly cherishes; I finally walked the 10 steps to door and almost had it shut when Leilani calls out to me, “Papa, you forget to tell me that you cant wait to see me in the morning,” which of course is true and was also an accurately noted closing statement oversight on my part. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see Leilani in the morning. How blessed we are.
Filmed the day after Christmas on the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. At right is a picture snapped by the coaster cam, revealing my filming technique, using my not-so-steady-cam. This done with my new Olympus 790SW.