One More Diversion and Then Back Home

My cousin, Carl, whose family we visited the other night, happens to be a firefighter in Scottsdale. And I happen to have a son obsessed with trucks. It worked out very well that Carl invited us to visit his fire station one morning after work. He works 24 hours on-24 hours off so when he got off in the morning, we arranged to meet him. His night had been fairly uneventful, so he was more awake than I am after a night of work.

One of the trucks was out on a call but we got to explore the other one. Carl was able to show him where he sits and what he does when they have emergencies. Thankfully their station is in a fairly residential area, so we could not play with the siren. Carl recounted the story of another child being allowed to pull the cord of the siren and he would not let go, so they had to lift him up to get him to release his strangle hold on the cord!

Carl gave us junior firefighters hats, badges, and even some pencils (not sharpened, thank goodness!)

Travis got to sit in the captain's chair and watch the computer.

Carl let him wear the headphones and hear how they talk with each other when the siren is blaring. This fascinated Travis!

Of course we had to check out some of the firehoses.

And Justin even got into some of the action.

And a few pictures of the boys with cousin Carl. Even Mommy got in a picture!

It was great to see where Carl works, and I think Travis will be willing to go back whenever we want. We did get to see the other truck come through quickly between assignments. His station has two trucks assigned to it right now, but they are building a new station which will house three trucks when it is completed. They were also doing a Soles for Souls shoe drive (I think that's what it was called) and they had about 50 large garbage bags full of shoes. Plus several large boxes. It was impressive!

And then it was time to make the trek back home. I was ready to be home, but I was also sorry to leave my mom with so much left to do. The boys needed to be home too. So we headed back to Texas, to collect one of the shipments that we had sent from Phoenix. Fortunately our plane was late, and someone else was able to pick up the very heavy boxes so I didn't have to!

We got home late Tuesday and the boys didn't get to bed until about 9:30. I was prepared for another early morning, but YEAH! I love changing times this direction! I had unwittingly made a chiropractic appointment for that morning (wise, considering the shape I was after all that lifting and moving!) but it was for 8 am. I woke up at 6:30 and drank a cup of coffee Randy had left for me (something I rarely do because there is no amount of cream and sugar that can make it more than barely palatable). Travis stumbled out of his room at 7 am and we had to wake Justin at 7:30 to leave for the appointment. It took a couple of days for them to get back to normal (sigh...) But those were some good mornings!

So that's what we've been doing. Now it's back to work and therapy. I'll have another Justin update soon.