Fire Station

It's Fire Prevention Week, so our town's fire station opened its doors once again  to let residents explore and meet the personnel.  For the fifth year in a row, we gladly attended:

"Driving" the fire truck:

Hanging out in the ambulance - Sean was the patient and Clare gave him giggle therapy to nurse him back to health:

I asked the kids to smile BIG!

Then I asked them to show me their brave faces:

And Seany, last night at age 5:

Last year at age 4:

Seany at 18 months:

Seany working the hose - he put out all the little fires in the windows of the playhouse - several times over.  Clare worked up the courage to do it, too but I had to stand right next to her instead of taking pictures :-)

After playing with a bunch of friends from school, the kids had hot dogs to finish off the night and Sean said he couldn't wait until next year's open house :-)

Touch a Truck

We took the kids to a touch-a-truck event at a nearby shopping center. The first truck we tried out was a Shoprite truck - the kids got to sit in the cab and beep the horns...

...and got to get lifted up and hang out in the storage part:

Then we explored some really neat old-fashioned army trucks:

Of course, there was a fire truck:

And even a stretch limo:

And then we ran into this group of Star Wars characters - Sean was thrilled!  I asked him how he felt about this photo and he said, "I felt like I was Yoda!"

Right after they took this photo, the Star Wars guys all climbed up (quite clumsily, really) into this giant truck - with Darth Vader driving, of course!

After we watched the Star Wars guys a little more, we explored a UPS truck and then saw the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man and this Ghostbusters car:

And then we stopped at the Wells Fargo stagecoach - 

...the kids sat in this two summers ago, too!  Flashback to summer 2012:

Firehouse visit

If there is one thing the Sooy Kids love, it's a visit to the firehouse! A local firehouse had an open house and we went to see what we could see - and touch!

Sitting in the chief's truck:

Getting strapped into a fire truck:

"Cheese!"

The main event - driving the big truck!

The kids of course loved all the fire trucks, but they were really drawn to the ambulance on this trip.  Sean asked the EMTs a lot of really thoughtful questions and came away with a new "Junior EMT" hat!  Next, the kids wanted to measure up to the fire truck's wheel:

Flashback to 2010:

The kids posed for one last photo before it was time to head home:

Good night fire trucks!

Fire Station!

For the third year in a row, we went to the open house at our town's fire station.  (See 2010 and 2011).  We went right after school today and met up with a bunch of Sean's friends and the boys ran around the station and climbed all over the trucks. Clare tried her darndest to keep up but kept getting distracted by the firemen setting up the dinner table.

The ladder truck was parked out front - Sean was so excited...

"Oooooh.... truck?"

In the ambulance, Sean hopped up on the gurney and direct Clare to drive him to the hospital - Sean's throat hurt!

Sean got to use a hose!

 After enjoying a hot dog dinner, I was able to get the kids to come home with me. On the way out, Sean asked a fireman if he could stay here all night and the fireman answered that this station is not the kind that firemen sleep at. Thankfully Sean accepted that as a pretty good answer.

When we got home, the kids were playing rough and Clare got upset - Sean quckly found a way to cheer her up: