My children have been helping me pick and preserve produce for the last week. I felt like we needed a break. This morning we joined a group of home-schooling families at a local heritage site, the Kettle Valley Steam Railway.

When we left home this morning there was only sunshine and clear skies. As I drove towards the heritage site all I could see were menacing clouds ahead. I was far too optimistic about the weather and I left all our coats at home. When we arrived and I noticed everyone else dressed in snow suits (a slight exaggeration). I huddled my barely dressed shivering children close and had a “I’m such a bad mom” moment. I looked around my car and came up with one baby blanket. Not good! We walked into the station to purchased our tickets…. I noticed a gift shop nearby. They sold clothes and I almost ran over there to buy us all sweaters. But, the nice ladies at the desk reassured me that there were blankets inside the train that we could use.

All Aboard! Monkey was very curious about the steam train. Sweetpea cried when she saw it, or rather she cried when she saw the steam. She has a thing with smoke these days. I’m not sure why. We climbed aboard and huddled under layers of blankets. Brrrrr…. it was chilly.

As the train started moving and my children defrosted, I could see their hesitation melt away into pure delight. Monkey stared out the window the whole trip (90 minutes long) and pointed out things he saw. It helped that the children were all given a train bingo sheet.

We even had entertainment on board. An older man, with the same name as Monkey, played some tunes on his banjo. Sweetpea loves music and this made her very happy. Everyone got a train stamp on their arm, including Teddy. We got to see many trampolines in peoples’ backyards, and orchards and vineyards but the view from the trout creek bridge was stunning.

As we got close to the end the children started getting restless and Sweetpea managed to fall off her chair and scrape her elbow. A lady nearby took pity on me and helped us get off the train and back into our van. Thank you kind lady you were a lifesaver!

It was a fun trip!