Bella's Reward!

Bella has a good behavior flower. When she does something that we think should be rewarded, she gets petal on her flower. When she gets a time-out, she loses a petal. She has to earn 10 petals to get a reward. We have been doing this for a while and always have let her choose some little trinket from a surprise box. Recently, we have seen that this really stopped working. We decided now when she gets her flower filled she gets to choose somewhere special to go. She has been working really hard to fill her flower and has just finished!!!

She chose to go to chipmunks play land which we went to today! she had the best time! We ran around, went on slides, in tunnels, told stories, went on a merry-go-round....just had the BEST time!

And Charlie got to come along for the ride!

GOOD JOB BELLA!

Train Ride

The second most photographed building on the southern hemisphere is the Railway Station in Dunedin. (The first is the Sydney Opera House in Australia) We drive by the railway station almost everyday and even go there for the Farmer's Market almost every Saturday. It still is a working railway station and has a train that goes to the Teori Gorge everyday. It is said that this is an amazing train ride. I have wanted to go on it but it is a 4 hour trip and I was always afraid that my kids wouldn't hang. So, while my mom was here we decided to give it a go.
The other reason I never did it before was because the only trip is from 12:30-4:30pm and Charlie naps from 1:00-3:00pm and I was afraid...
We made it to the stations with not a lot of time to spare and armed with books and toys and tons of snacks.We boarded the train, found our seats and waited to leave. Charlie has been into Thomas and trains lately so we have been reading a lot about trains and learning all the terminology. So, every time Bella heard someone talk over the speaker or a train employee walked by she would say"Is that the conductor?" I never wanted to disappoint her so I said "yes!" every time. She never caught on which was good! She was so proud when she handed her ticket to the man who may or may not be the conductor!

The kids did really, really well on the train. Bella loved looking out the window and seeing all of the bridges and scenery.
Charlie also loved looking out the train window but he loved spotting all of the diggers and water!
Our tour took us over 12 bridges and 9 tunnels. Everytime the train was about to go through a tunnel the whistle would blow. Charlie's eyes would get really big, he would put his hands on his cheeks and say "Here that? Whistle?" It was the cutest thing!
At one point, the train stopped and everyone was able to get off and stretch our legs. My mom and Bella hopped off the train but Charlie and I stayed on because he was snoozing. Bella and my mom and all the other passengers walked across a big bridge and then waited for the train to cross and pick them up again. Bella really enjoyed that.

We took one more stop to get off and check out the scenery. This time Charlie was awake so we all got off of the train. We saw some sheep grazing but didn't stay off for too long because as you can see in the picture of the kids, it was really windy!



There were open air platforms between each train car where you could stand and look at scenery or take pictures. My mom took Bella out there and after she got over her initial scared she really enjoyed being out there and kept asking my mom to take her.
we had an amazing train trip!