Excitement! Getting to know Neighbors!

So!  Earlier this week, we had a wee bit of excitement.  No fewer than SEVEN firetrucks in our neighborhood.  You would've thought it was a block party, there were so many people hanging out, milling around, chatting.  No one had any clue what was going on, but we were all chatting away anyway.  After about an hour, all the trucks left (waving at our little guy and making him sooooo happy).  Another hour later, I hopped on facebook to check the fire dept's fan page- and sure enough, they posted the event.  Thanks to an alert neighbor spotting smoke and calling 911... the FD had to bust in a door because no one answered... and it turned out to be a small kitchen fire and the chef asleep in the next room.  Excitement for the day!

That's not the only way we meet neighbors around here.  Besides the normal "hi" when we pass each other on the sidewalk, we sometimes have someone stopping by when I'm watering the garden.  It's a patio one, and they're all in boxes- more on that for another post- so it looks "interesting".  The best part is there's actually herbs FLOURISHING, so they get attention, and our watermelon vines are going *all over* now.  Here's a pic of our smallest one, less than 1/2 inch long.  The largest is probably a 5 inch diameter- I think they were sugar babies, so it probably wont' get any bigger.  There's another 3-4 in different sizes growing.  Much fun, and a good discussion piece!

Random October-ness

We once again bought an annual pass to a butterfly place (thanks, Groupon).

Here's hoping we use it more than once this time.

Kaden came home with the following 3 scratches/cuts on his face.  He told me that he was tickling a friend while they were getting a drink at the water fountain, and his friend fell and he fell and hit his face on the water fountain.  But it didn't hurt.  Later, he told my mom his friend pushed him at the water fountain and he hit his face on the step- but it didn't hurt.  Still later, when a lil' friend asked him :"hat happened to your face", Kaden said "I don't know."

This was on Wednesday, and the photo is from Friday. I took it after I called the daycare and asked 1) did anyone know what actually happened and 2) why didn't I get an incident report?    The woman in charge is new- she didn't actually remember/know who my son was, nor did she know what happened as she "wasn't on the day crew."  I used to work at a daycare, so I get this, but still:  would you be upset at this?  BTW, later I asked Kaden if he told the teacher about getting hurt and he said, no it was a secret.  So we had another chat about the importance of NOT keeping secrets from teachers or parents.  But I think 4 yr old boys who wear superhero shirts are starting to have more influence than I am.  Sigh.  It's almost enough for me to quit working right now.

And the pic above is a random fireman.  We were at a school gym one weekend, to see a friend in a karate tournament, when the fire alarm went off.  Someone checked and assured us it wasn't a real fire, but since I remembered the recent station visit (where we learned that it takes less than 5 minutes between "fire starting" and "house-consumed-and-everyone-dies", I talked our boys into a stroll outside to look for the fire trucks.  And then they showed up!  Very calm but quick, grabbing axes and shrugging into oxygen tanks.  The driver stayed near the truck, and let Kaden go in to explore a bit.

I love this philosopher pumpkin photo.  Not scripted (exactly).  I also love the avocado peeking out, just to the right of kaden's hat.  Well, that and the palm tree.  We've actually gone to this church "pumpkin patch" for many years-- but I can't find the other pics of Kaden as a wee one next to the orange globes right now :)



Yet Another Fire Station Visit

Our city had a special "visit the firehouse" kind of day recently.   The places were CLEAN (nice going, fireguys and gals) and they had all sorts of vehicles and equipment on display. 

Look closely below, and you'll see a junior firefighter driving the truck.

We had a "tour guide" for a little bit- first a volunteer and then a fireman nicknamed Scout.  But after the usual tour, with our boy still enthralled and interested, they just sorta let us roam around a bit (!).

Which is how Kaden figured out the built in truck steps on engine 9 below, and started climbing.  He was a little miffed we wouldn't let him go on the top of the engine.

They also had these awesome ATV type vehicles. Kaden jumped in, flipped the key and a switch and wa-la: lights and sirens went off. All in less than 20 seconds. No, I'm not kidding.   In another rescue pickup truck, he actually called someone on the CB- which Scout deftly turned into a siren test call (they were expecting those all day).

I think the firefolk were pretty lenient with him because he was decked out in full fireman gear. He had a fire truck shirt on (thanks Grandma), a firefighter jacket (thanks, Annette) and fireman boots (thanks Nana).  The volunteers and firefighters kept saying things like, "oh, he's ready to go if we get called" and "hey, we've got a new recruit"  

Kaden seemed to like spraying the water hose the best.  He did it three different times.  The first time, the Chief had visited and was driving away-- Scout and Kaden adjusted the water and hit the Chief's truck.  Niiiice.   The second time, Scout showed him how to change the water spray from a stream to a fan.  The third time, Kaden had picked up the hose and turned it on  before Scout was near him.  Basically, the firefighter was just holding the hose while Kaden worked the water.  Seriously.

Later, when we colored a page for a thank you, I asked Kaden what were we thanking them for (thank you fireguys for letting me in your house) and what he liked best (spraying the Chief's truck.  And driving the truck.).    Good times.

Happy Birthday, K-man!

What a weekend!  First, we saw a fire truck parked outside Publix.  So we snapped a pic.



Then, we saw firefighters inside, and they invited us back to the station.  We brought them chocolate cake, and got a grand tour.

 Then, this morning we had a party at our place.

And, of course there was the cake.  I forgot to snap a photo of the way cool #3 sparkler candle, or of the truck and fireman decorations before the kids grabbed 'em, but here's the base.

One of his presents was a nifty costume/uniform.

And what's a fireman without his truck?!

without modern conveniences

why, hullo! it HAS been a while, hasn't it? No, no, nothing untoward going on here, just a slip from the regular blog routine. THANK YOU for noticing!

You know that saying / song "you don't know what you got until it's gone?" We're really appreciating TWO modern conveniences these days... First, I wound up driving the truck around for a week or so. Which is normally a great thing, but the A/C decided to completely quit after weeks of limping around. Which wouldn't be too bad, if the drivers side window could roll down without getting stuck...

So, Florida summer (heat + thunderstorms) + no air conditioning + window stuck up (ha!). Suprisingly, I wasn't annoyed by this for the first few days. Perhaps I was sweating out the anger, but it was all pretty philosophical. I have always enjoyed the heat, and it reminded me of my childhood and teen years, when I would wear jeans in the summer. It didn't hurt that most of this time I needed the truck's bed to load up bamboo and other assortments for our VBS, which also meant I was usually in shorts and a tshirt instead of 'office' clothes. But seriously, I had thoughts of not fixing the AC for a while.

Then, somewhere around the 5th day, I was stuck driving around in the aforementioned thunderstorms. And I realized- again- why Florida was not widely settled until after AC had been invented.

****

The very next week, on the first day of Vacation Bible School, I had TWO adorable kids in the house and decided to make them popcorn. So into the microwave it went, and then my cell phone rang, and it was someone with a much needed donation for the very next morning, and... well, we all know what happened next, right? Certainly my college pals do- nothing brings back Tucker memories like the smell of burnt popcorn.

But to say this was a burnt offering in no way accurately describes the actual event. We were seriously lucky and sincerely blessed that the entire kitchen did not go up in flames. The 2 kids were either unfazed by the smoke, or too scared to move off the couch. I'm not sure which...

Here you can see the corn has popped, burnt, and then burned down into a one inch brick!

So, I did concede we needed to work on fire safety with the boy. Perhaps he was *hoping* the firefighters would come?! In any case, our efforts at clearing the air weren't so great, and Kaden wound up with bronchitis within 48 hours. Thank goodness my mom lives nearby, because we basically camped out there for the rest of the week to give him some clear air (and me, too- Jim has lungs of steel!).