Sun + Daddy having the day off = a perfect Saturday!

Two weekends ago we had the most beautiful Saturday and Daddy had the ENTIRE day off! What an amazing treat. So we decided that everyone would be able to choose one thing they'd like to do for the day.

Daddy choose a trip to the glacier for some bear viewing. Sadly, we didn't see any bears, but we had fun watching the salmon spawning.

Can you guess what Jaeger choose? (Okay, let's be honest -- Daddy suggested this and everyone gave an overwhelming YEA!!! All my boys have a definite soft spot for doughnuts.)

Mommy choose a walk on the Flume Trail downtown. As you can see in this picture, Jaeger is IN LOVE with his Daddy. It's so sweet. He gets so excited when Daddy comes home from work. He'll drop whatever he's doing and run to the door. :)

Can you guess what Dane choose?

Yep, another trip to the fire station. (Thankfully we were downtown so we didn't have to bother the Glacier Fire Station one more time. ;) )

Just like all the other trips to the fire station (except the one where the firefighter told Daddy & Dane that they could watch him scrub the toilet if they wanted - I think that firefighter may have woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning) this trip did not disappoint. Firefighter Jenkins was amazing. He actually let Dane try on his mask. Oh we had one little excited boy! Dane's been fascinated with the masks recently and the real thing was so much better than the cup he uses at home. Firefighter Jenkins also let Dane squirt a fire extinguisher!!! Don't worry it's filled with water, but Dane thought that was so cool. Here you can see Dane in action. Thankfully, we had Dane's airtank and helmet in the car so he was fully equipped!

We ended the day with dinner and a bonfire with our good friends, Dennis and Natasha. All of the kids ate their weight in S'more's and we all crashed hard once we got home.

What a perfect day!

Birthday Celebration - Part 2

**Disclaimer - This post is LONG! I really wanted to document the whole story. Feel free to skip ahead to the pictures and be forewarned - there are lots of those too!

Besides our small family party, we did have another birthday party for our little firefighter. When I asked Dane who he would like to have at his birthday party he said, "Kellen and the firefighters!" My first thought was how in the world am I going to get some firefighters to his birthday party and my second thought was it was going to be a tiny birthday party with just Kellen here. So I started down his list of friends and he quickly vetoed any other friends being at his party. He said, "I want a small birthday party and I just want Kellen, Natasha (Kellen's mom), Jenny (Kellen's sister) Mommy, Daddy and Jaeger to be there." I asked him for a few days and his answer was always the same. Our little firefighter knows what he wants! (Honestly, I think that Jaeger's birthday party was just too overwhelming for Dane and he knew that he wanted just a few people here. )

My first task in planning his party was to try to get some firefighters to come to his birthday party. And since Firefighter Unk Tim probably wouldn't be able to fly in from New Mexico, I decided to just call the Glacier Fire Station. The woman that answered said no, we don't do that type of thing. Strike 1. So then I had to start thinking about who I knew that was a firefighter and that might be able to make this happen. I had a first grade student a few years ago whose mom is a firefighter, so I emailed her this ridiculously long email with links to my blog showing just how dedicated of a firefighter we had on our hands and her response was it might be possible! Zip a Dee Doo Dah! And as you can see below, it was possible!!

So, now that I knew the firefighters might actually be coming to Dane's birthday party, I thought I should try again to get Dane to invite a few more friends. If the firefighters were making a special trip to our house, I didn't want them to be disappointed to see just 2 kids. So, I pulled out Dane's preschool composite and we looked through the kids in his class last year. I figured with school starting the next week that it might be a good idea to have a few friends come over to help ease Dane in to going back to school. Once he looked at their pictures he saw 2 friends that he wanted to come to his birthday party. Yea - now we had a party!

Thankfully, our guests arrived promptly because the firefighters arrived right as the party was starting. I was not expecting them to be here so quickly! All the kids jumped on the couch to see the fire truck pull up to our house and then we all ran outside. We got so lucky that the day of Dane's party was absolutely gorgeous! It was the first sunny day we'd had in probably a week and a half. Firefighters Keith and Marilyn were amazing. Firefighter Marilyn walked the boys around the truck and showed them everything and gave each of them a turn at holding something - an ax, a mask, an air tank..... Then, Firefighter Marilyn put on her turn out gear and the kids thought that was pretty awesome. Lastly, they let everyone have a turn sitting in the fire truck. They were here for probably 45 minutes - it was incredible!

Finally, you made it to the pictures!

Our signal to the firefighters to let them know they had the right house.

Checking out the fire engine.

Firefighter Marilyn talking to the kids.


Firefighter Marilyn in her turnout gear. (This was definitely a highlight!)


Oskar, Kellen and Johan taking it all in.

The birthday boy getting his turn in the fire truck.

After the firefighters left, we went inside to have pizza and play firefighter! So, of course, everyone needed their own fire equipment: fire helmet, mask, hose and, of course, a milk jug air tank!

And here's Jenny in action!

The fire truck cake and fire truck chocolates for the guests to take home.



We pulled out a few fire trucks and fire fighters for the kids to play with.


And here are a few signs we had around the house.


**If you read this entire blog post you deserve a gold star!!! Sorry it was so long.

Really?

Because we weren't obnoxious enough coming to the fire station once a week (sometimes 2 for the airport fire truck maintenance checks on Thursdays) we thought we'd step it up a notch and actually bring lawn chairs!


Yep, we're officially OBNOXIOUS!

It just keeps getting better!

As most of you know, Monday mornings are our fire station day (See here if you need a reminder.) We are official groupies and it can be somewhat embarrassing as we pull up once again to watch their weekly maintenance checks. Yet, somehow each week gets better and the amazing firefighters never seem to tire of seeing us (at least they're not showing it!)

Last week, Firefighter Cameron gave Firefighter Nigel the royal treatment!

He started by letting Dane pull out the aerial truck. If you look closely you can seeing Dane bending over to turn on the lights & siren.


Then he took him over to the pumper truck and let him turn on the hose to drain the excess water in the truck. It was pretty amazing.

Here's a video of what Dane did!



As we were leaving, Firefighter Cameron gave both the boys an OFFICIAL Juneau Fire/Rescue Badge. And we thought the stickers were cool.


To top off our extraordinary Monday we went to story time at the downtown library and MJ (the amazing story teller) had a book picked out especially for Dane. It was one that he's very familiar with and he loved the special reading at story time. Here's a picture I happened to take of him a few weeks ago with the very book MJ read.

Monday Madness!

Monday's are always pretty fun at our house.
First there's this...

And then there's THIS...

Monday's are maintence day at our local fire station and for Dane it's like going to Disneyland. We show up around 8am and watch the show. The fire fighters pull out all the fire engines and get to work checking all the equipment. The stabilizers go down, the chainsaws start up, the aerial ladder is raised, the sirens are blasting....it's a true field day for this future fire fighter!

The Hubert family is there so often that the chief said, "we are more regular than some of his firefighters!" Last week was especially awesome as Firefighter Paul let Dane on the aerial platform and Dane got to raise the ladder up and down.

And here's our new favorite firefighter song! (Thanks Unk Tim for introducing this song to us.)
*The funny thing is that we LOVE the Gwyneth Paltrow version from Glee and listen to it nearly everyday. But this one is definitely better!

Firestation Groupies

Mondays are pretty awesome at the Glacier Fire Station.
They take all the fire trucks out to do a weekly maintenance check which consists of
1. starting the fan (cool)
2. putting down the stabilizers (pretty cool)
3. starting the chainsaw (extremely cool)
4. raising the aerial ladder (awesomely cool)

Now all of that maintenance is quite a show for our dear Firefighter Nigel, but the cherry on top of this already awesome morning was this sight....

Here's Dane's response:
"I need to say "sumtin" to him."
So, after Firefighter Jamie came down the ladder the first thing Dane says to him was, "that was TOTALLY scary!"

So, if you need to get in touch with us on a Monday morning, now you know where we'll be!

Wee-oooo

Dane is in love with fire trucks these days, so we decided to take him by the fire station. At our local fire station you can just pop in and if they aren't busy they'll give you a tour. So with donuts in hand and a very eager 2 1/2 year old we were off. Our firefighter tour guide was awesome (and his name is completely escaping me right now!) and he did a great job explaining everything to Dane. Dane pretty much walked around with a stunned expression on his face - he was slightly overwhelmed as he got to see fire trucks, ambulances, two airport firetrucks, an ATV and all the gear (boot, hats, etc.) But he was definitely in Heaven!

Here's Dane before we went in showing off his ambulances.

Listening carefully.


It's a lot bigger than my play firetruck!

Getting to drive the firetruck!

Group shot!

And his favorite part - driving the ambulance. I think we have a future paramedic on our hands.