Jude pulls out his second tooth and proudly shows off his new grin

Well, Jude actually wants more for Christmas than just two teeth but I couldn’t resist titling the post this way given the season and what happened last night. Marcy and I had just settled in to watch a movie when we heard Jude moving around upstairs. Marcy went up to see what was happening. Next thing I know, Marcy and Jude come downstairs and he was so very excited to have lost his second front tooth. That is two front teeth lost in two weeks.

But the highlight of this past week was our trip to Canon City to ride the Santa Express again. We did this last year and the kids loved it so much we decided to do it again. Canon City is about a two hour drive from Denver and we left Friday afternoon.

We were about a half hour out from Denver when Anna started complaining of a sore tummy. She kept complaining and we eventually stopped so she could go to the bathroom. But that didn’t help and soon Anna announced she was going to throw up. Thankfully, she gave us some warning and a mess was avoided.

Anna feeling very crappy and comforted by Jude

Anyway, we got to our hotel without further incident but Anna still felt lousy and started throwing up again. She was a real trooper, though, always giving us a few seconds warning so Marcy would rush a bucket to her. But so began a long night with Anna being sick probably every half hour or 45 minutes until well past midnight.

We think the cause was food poisoning. Friday was the last day of school before Christmas break and a classmate’s mom brought a bag of cookies for each child. Anna had finished her bag off by the time Marcy arrived. The cookies were not gluten free and Anna’s body just couldn’t handle that much. None of the rest of us has shown any flu-like symptoms, strengthening our case.

Anna recovered enough to take the Santa Express train

Thankfully, in the morning she awoke feeling much better and surprisingly with enough energy to swim in the hotel pool before we headed out for the train. She was so excited to see Santa and ride the train that it gave her the energy she needed. She was great the whole ride although her appetite was way down naturally.

Riding the Santa Express train through the Royal Gorge

Jude enjoyed himself as well. And he loved seeing Santa as much as Anna did. We don’t know how many more years we have with the excitement and wonder of Santa with Christmas so we were glad we made the effort again this year to ride the train. But next year we will probably go back to doing a night ride – it is just a bit more magical in the night.

Jude and me on the Santa Express train