Firefighter Mommy

Our local fire station had an open house today.   Alex saw the sign out by the road a few days ago as we drove to swimming lessons, and he asked me to read it to him.  He was SUPER excited by the idea of an open house, and he also liked that they were serving hot dogs for lunch.

Later that same day he said, “Mom, I’m *SO* excited to have lunch with the firefighters on Saturday!” 

I explained to him that we probably wouldn’t sit down at a table and eat WITH the firefighters, but that’s the image he had in his head.  It turns out he wasn’t disappointed.  We have several friends who are volunteer firefighters, and we did sit down with Chris and his family for lunch today! :)

After lunch, Chris gave us the “guided tour” of some things around the station.  He offered to have Keith put on all his gear.  Keith didn’t want to do that on a 90 degree day, but I decided to give it a try. 

 

That gear is HEAVY!  I felt like the little brother in the movie “A Christmas Story”!  He was kind enough to leave the oxygen tank off, but he did have me pick it up later to see how heavy it is.  I have even more respect for the men (and women…) who do this now, as I could barely walk, let alone run into a fire with all that gear!

The kids got to sit in the fire engines, check out a Life Flight helicopter (very interesting to our whole family, as the boys’ little friend was airlifted a few months back…and, thank the Lord, all turned out well), play in the bounce houses, and dunk a firefighter in the dunk tank.

Neither boy aimed well enough to dunk him, but another firefighter pushed the button for both boys.  Alex’s face LIT UP with joy when he watched the firefighter splash into the water!  I missed the shot, but OH what a face :)  Max grinned, too.

A few more pictures…

                

Psst…Jensyn came, too.  She just watched it all…and threw hot dog chunks all over the floor of the fire station, leaving her mama & daddy a big mess to pick up.  Here she is, wishing mama would hold her instead of taking a picture. :)