Dinner in the diner, nothin' could be finer~

While in KC, we wanted to be sure to take Nova to Fritz's Railroad Resaurant. We had heard great things and it sounded like fun for all.

A train runs around a track above the tables and delivers your order. Too cool. It drops your tray as it goes on by, and your food comes down on a hydraulic system.

The original restaurant was started by Fritz and Virginia Kropf in 1954. Fritz invented the food delivery system in his basement, mainly because of the shortage of help at the time.

Call in your order... a waitress will bring your drinks.

Wooo-Wooo~ there goes an order!

This is our food comin' down! It was less than 5 minutes, unbelievable!

Paper engineer hats were given out. I couldn't get Nova to wear his fabric hat for his birthday party, but he wouldn't take this paper one off! Kids?!

I think that's one customer who will be back!

He would not let go of that hat for anything. It's not like he thought the wind would blow it off, we had parked in a garage. I know he was tired, but he looked so uncomfortable holding it... forEVER....

Here's a little video to see the train in motion! (You may want to scroll all the way down and pause the background music.)

Party train, continued!

Here's the birthday boy the night before the party~ showing us how old he's going to be!

I didn't want a "Thomas" party, but I had to get *some* stuff since Nova loves it all so much.

Cousin Kolby inspecting the cake~I got engineer hats and bandanas for the kids. Nova really didn't want to wear the hat. Party pooper.


Aunt Joyce's birthday artwork...

PIZZA!

We got the take and bakes from Sam's and I thought they were awesome!

Let the opening begin!

I told him he couldn't open presents unless he wore the hat... mean ol' mommy...

Here he is with Kolby, Aunt Joyce and Grandma Lucille~

Lots of great loot~ mostly train related of course!

The boys had a lot of fun. Here they are playing with Ramone's paint shop from Cars.

Can you hear them spray painting? Pshhh, pshhhhhhh! LOL~

One more look at the cake... I thought Nova would want the engine but he requested the caboose.

Make a wish!!

Ugh, black icing!

The destruction, I can't bare to look!

Ok. I had to post this. This was not planned. My dad asked for a piece with a tree. I cracked up when I saw it tho, and had to rotate the pic for ya...

(got wood?)

And guess who's feeling better? Yes, Miss Melly.... and she's giving me hugs.

Still more to come!! Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments on the cake, : )

All Aboard the Party Train!

WHEW! What a busy week!

If you read my last post, you'll see that 4 years ago on April Fool's Day I was due with my baby boy. Alas, he did not make his debut until April 6th~ which also happens to be my MIL's birthday as well! We have 5 family birthdays in April, (including mine and not cousins!)

So I had been going non stop preparing for Nova's party. Here is what the invites looked like~

Thursday I baked cakes all day. I had a *vision* in my head for the birthday boy's confection.

I would need one huge 11X3" round base= 4 cake mixes.

One "Barbie dress" pan= 2 to 3 cake mixes

And these miniature train cakes =three different cake mixes for more color~

Friday I decorated~

Now I know what you're thinking.... after I had my nervous breakdown over the porcupines how could I possibly attempt to decorate another cake? Well, mom came over to supervise and step in when needed!

Here we have the slope cut, going up the side of the mountain~ also trying to decide where the actual mountain should go. I baked two because the first one wasn't tall enough to suit me!

This is the chocolate "mountain" being added to the base, and I had cut the "peaks" in waiting to be iced. Grey icing with coarse sugar on top for gravel, and graham stix for railroad ties...

You can click on the photos for detail~ I used chocolate for the mountain cake to give a tunnel illusion so I wouldn't have to cut the tunnel all the way through and weaken it.

I thought the track and tunnel turned out so cute I almost didn't want to put the train on it. But those little buggers gave me fits and they WERE GOING ON!

I started shaking like a leaf while piping the leaves on the trees (hmm, blood sugar bottomed out from not eating all day) so mumsie took over. But you know, that LARGE grass tip is the bomb! MUCH better that that hellacious tiny one that gave me so much grief with the porcupines. I was finished with the grass in seconds flat.

I've watched my mom decorate cakes for over 30 years, but being that this is only about the 5th cake I've ever tackled I'm pretty darned pleased with myself!

And it *only* took 6 hours to decorate! LOL!
Kevin came home from work and helped clean up the kitchen, what a man!!

Nova was super excited while watching. I'm surprised I got him down for a nap during the process!

I must plug Cake Wrecks since this is another cake decorating post. With Easter approaching, this post especially cracked me up.

Stay tuned for more party details!

All aboard!

Come along with us on Branson's Scenic Railways!

Nova's ready to hop on!

Tickets please! Nova isn't so sure about this guy...

Nova's ticket was punched with his initial "N". Pretty cool, eh?

And we're off! Look, a bridge! We get to go over it...this is Lake Taneycomo.

Let's go to the observation car!

Boy, you can see everything from up here!

Whew! It's bright up here! Very tight seating too. There wasn't room for all of us! Kevin's on the other end of the car~

There's Kevin in the hat! A few cars down you can see another observation dome.

Whoa, we're going around a curve!

We're way up high~ look at the pretty country side...

On the way back, we had a whole car to ourselves. If I remember right, it was from 1954. It was relaxing here, and we could hear the music better. Traveling songs such as Sentimental Journey, Pennsylvania 65000, Chattanooga ChooChoo, ect.

We went through long dark tunnels and saw a winding stream along the way.

Cut shoes, eh? Both from Walmart.

Time to get off~ here's a shot of that dining car we were on,

A nice passenger took this family photo. Rue, anything look familiar? I have a great "off" white, lol... I bought it at Liz Claiborne for $10 when they were going out of business in February. I really need something smaller, I carry everything but the kitchen sink in here and it kills me!

Thank you for riding along with us. We had fun! Nova was so good on the entire Branson trip so I bought him a battery powerd James engine for the ride home. Toot-toot!