Friday, January 02, 2009

A Quiet, Relaxing Beginning to 2009

A Railroad Town!


It has been a nice, quiet, and relaxing week after the crazy, busy holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas! Terry has been home much of the week. He worked Monday and has had the rest of the week at home. He took some vacation time this week. We spent New Year's Eve with friends and had dinner with Shelley and Bob and the kids on New Year's night. Other than that, we have been home. 

After Thanksgiving, Terry bought an "N" gage train and decided to build a set for it. Our grandson, Matthew, has LOVED trains almost from the day he was born! Who knows what makes people have a passion for certain things! But trains have been a passion with him for his three years. That got Terry interested in owning a train so that he could play with Matthew with it and someday it could be Matthew's. Someday he will be old enough to be responsible with it. So...Terry began planning our train set. By the way, notice what is being used to hold the track down! :)

These pictures are backwards (you would think I could get pictures in the right order by now after blogging for a year, but no!) Terry bought several train magazines to learn how to build mountains and lakes and roads, etc. It is far from finished, but he has made good progress on it this week. I think it is relaxing for him, and that it good. I have been able to do some of it with him, but for the most part, he has done it on his own.

It has pretty much taken up our kitchen table for the past week. :(  If it isn't one thing, it's another! I haven't minded so far, though, because it has been fun seeing it come together.

This was the very beginning of a mountain with a tunnel going through it. 

We have bought several buildings for the set. Most of them had to be put together like a model car. All of the pieces had to be punched out and glued together. We worked together on these and now they probably will need to be painted, which I may end up doing.

Everything had to be laid out and layers of styrofoam glued on ready to be carved. I will add more pictures to show our progress. I have no idea where we will put this whole setup!! The only room we have is in our small basement which is now a disaster area. That is a bit of an incentive to clean it up, so that will be our next project!  :)

2 comments:

Mom Jones said...

You cannot believe how impressed we are with your beautiful beginning to your train layout. Mr. Jones wants to know what plan you are using and from which magazine. N gauge is very nice ~ how wonderful for Matthew to have such cool grandparents! Actually, ALL of your grandkiddos will end up loving it with you guys. We don't have one single grandchild who isn't very much in love with trains ... although at this point, I think Jackson is the biggest fan. I have fun getting Mr. Jones Christmas presents with train themes and then all of the grandchildren can play along with him too. Very fun. :)

Anonymous said...

Quite impressive! Can't wait to see it in person one of these days...
~Shelley