Fire Station Private Tour

Hello family and friends! How was your week? Ours was pretty good. The obvious highlight in our lives was the fire station. Julie, mother of John John, set up a Private Tour for us. (Does that sound exciting? Oh yes, it WAS exciting. And Gretchen was doing a lot of flirting. What can I say, she likes a man in uniform. Especially a super friendly man who can cook her mac&cheese in his Fire Station Kitchen.)

I took over 150 photos, but edited it down to about 80. One thing you may know about me, I am EXTREMELY picture happy. But I can't help it. Cause look at how cute they were. Awwwwwwww! (Aren't Gretchen & John John the sweetest thing ever when she's not trying to sever one of his fingers with her teeth? I know! His fireman outfit is classic.) (Don't worry, I'm only going to make you look at 4/80 fire station pictures.)



Oh yeah. She liked driving that engine.



The firemen were so great with our loud, rambunctious children. They let each one "drive" an engine, put the headphones on them and talked to them through the mouthpiece (until Gretchen & Cora thought it'd be fun to scream in it. That game didn't last long...), dressed up in all their gear and had the kids hug them. So sweet. (Did you know that we're supposed to tell our kids to give fire men hugs if they see them in a fire? Kids get scared of the firemen when they're decked out in all their gear & will hide in a burning house to get away from them. That makes me want to cry just thinking about it. That's why they do so many tours and school visits, to teach kids that they're not Darth-Vader-Breathing-Monsters when they have their masks on.) Turns out that TWO of the firemen were single. We're totally sending Auntie Krista over there with a plate of Thank-You-Cookies from us. (You can thank Becky for finding that tidbit out. She casually asked, "Y'all are so great with kids! Do you have kids of your own?" That sneaky, clever Becky... Krista, get on it.)

Here's the whole group getting cute with the fire fighters. Gretchen was really into making that awesome face.



See? She did it in every group picture I took of her.



It's not that she doesn't want me to see her face...



It's that she thinks she's hilarious.



Lest you think we ignored our other child this week, I will share that Ella had a sleepover with her BFF while her parents went to something called "Fantasies In Chocolate". I don't know what exactly that is, but I want to go to there. We didn't go to there, but we still had fun. But we were too busy painting nails and watching movies to take any pictures.

Colby and I finally sat down and made some decisions on local issues so we could vote on Tuesday. It made me so proud when we left the junior high with our "I Voted" stickers. I've been reading "Little Bee" for my online book club and that's put some things into perspective. We are really lucky to live in a democratic country. What a blessing. Even if things aren't overwhelmingly great right now, and by no means is our country perfect, it's still pretty much amazing. And no matter how crazy I think my life is sometimes, it could be SO MUCH WORSE! (I'm not sure if I can recommend Little Bee to you yet or not. I have to finish it first. It's given me two nightmares already. It is intense. Beautifully written, but intense.)

Can you believe Thanksgiving is in a few weeks? Did you remember to change your clocks this morning? Share with us! We want to hear!

xoxo