Celebrating #61 with Mr. Jones!

Tomorrow (Sunday) is Mr. Jones' birthday. I've been a Jones now for 11+ years and I still don't know how to do the proper English possession of the name Jones. Is it Jones' or is it Joneses? I think it's the apostrophe because the "eses" should mean there is more than one Jones ... and let me tell you, there is only ONE Mr. Jones! Anyway, last night we were invited to ride the White Creek Railroad out in Cedar Springs ...
Look how happy Mr. Jones is to be on this train! Here is a close-up of that huge smile of his!
White Creek Railroad (established in 1994) is a 1:8 scale railroad on almost 120 acres of private property which includes a very nicely-kept trailer park ...
This was our train (the rear of it) ...

I've been trying to upload a nice map of the entire railroad that they have on their website, but I've been unsuccessful. If you go to www.whitecreekrr.com you can see it for yourself.
This was the engine that pulled our train ...
This very elaborate railroad winds in and out of the most beautiful places ...
alongside wide-open fields ...
... through deep and dense woods ...

... over rivers, swamps and bogs ...
... completely surrounds two small lakes (Reed Lake and Mirror Lake) ...
There are a couple of tunnels, very close and dark ~ this one was just a short one, but there was one that I got a little edgy inside of ...
I would have loved to have brought the grandchildren to ride a train out here, but it is by invitation only. I asked Mr. Jones about this before the children arrived and he told me it just wasn't allowed! Train club folk get special invites, and this weekend was one of those times when many people from train clubs were out here camping and riding the rails. It's not a short ride ~ ours was close to an hour ~ and there are no seat belts! You sit on wooden crates and hope you don't fall off on the curves!
This is inside the engine and car garage. The owner has about a dozen engines, all diesel. Other train folk come and bring their own steam engines and other cars to run on this railroad.

We met up with Mr. Jones' friend, Thom and wife (Barb) and two of their grandsons (ages 10 and 11). Other than those two boys, I was practically the next youngest person there! We all went out to dinner at Kelly's Family Restaurant in Cedar Springs after our train ride, ate way too much food, and enjoyed ourselves very much.

Tomorrow after church, my mom and Roy are taking Mr. Jones (and me!) out to eat at The Red Lobster ~ I wonder WHO decided we would eat at MY favorite restaurant?! :)

Happy birthday, dear Mr. Jones ... may your year be filled with multitudes of blessings and joy!