Save Your Money and Go to the Firestation

As I was waiting for my turn at Parent Teacher Conferences last week, I was sitting next to my neighbor who was telling me about his family's upcoming trip to Disney World. This trip was going to cost his family more than six thousand dollars! Now, don't get me wrong, I love Disney fun as much as the next person, maybe more, but the last time took our boys there, it seemed like it was almost a complete waste of money, at least the money we spent on them. They cried through every ride, even Winnie the Poo, and were scared spit less of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the Little Mermaid. As of this week I've decided that until they grow up a little I'm going to save my hard earned cash and just take my boys to free fire safety day at the city fire department.

We went as a field trip with the boy's preschool class and it was fabulous! The boys had been anticipating this trip since last spring when they learned they would be going, and I'll tell you, they were not disappointed. I've literally never seen them have so much fun.

It was educational too. I wanted to kiss the feet of all the firemen who made the kids promise three different times that they wouldn't play with matches, telling them horrific tales about everything that would happen if they did. Talk about being scared spit less. It was great.



Jeffrey could not stop staring at all the controls, switches, hook-ups, nozzles, dials, gages and buttons on the side of the fire-trucks. He wanted to know what each and everyone was for. It was all he could do to refrain from touching them all. He was also insanely fascinated with the switches that opened the huge garage doors of the fire station. Thank goodness I caught him before he flipped that switch!



The firemen gave the kids a little lesson on what to do if your house is on fire. Get low, stay below the smoke, crawl out on your hands and knees. The kids even got to practice crawling through a dry-ice smoke filled trailer as the sound of smoke detectors added to the confusion. Take that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.



Talk about hands on interaction too. I thought Jeffrey would explode with excitement and joy when he got to shoot real water out of a real fire hose with a real fireman. Best day of his life so far!



If that wasn't enough, how about exploring around inside a real helicopter and then watching it take off! I just hope this will be the only time my boys ever experience the inside of a life flight helicopter, as a patient at least.



The real excitement for Jonathan was when he got to go inside the ambulance and touch everything. He's always been obsessed with ambulances and being inside one was just too cool.



Jonathan was also one of only two kids from his class who had the guts to touch the emergency training dummy and give its chest a few compressions. The rest of the kids were too disturbed by the plastic human laying there with his mouth ajar. I'm with them, but Jonathan was fascinated.

I love the Fantasia show at Disneyland with all the fireworks and lights, but it couldn't hold a candle to the fire show we got here on fire safety day, at least in the boys book. The firemen started a gigantic fire, dressed in all their gear and then put out the fire for all the kids to witness. They did this not one, but three times!





Jeffrey was completely blown away by this (and a little scared too). It was pretty un-nerving. I couldn't believe how much heat a gigantic fire put out. It felt like the hair was going to melt off your head, and we were quite a ways away.



I became extremely cool and popular with the preschool class after I got to dress up in fire gear and put out a bucket of flames with an extinguisher. One kid in the class practically asked me for my autograph and followed me around for the rest of the afternoon. I felt like Mickey Mouse must feel walking around Disneyland. So loved and admired.





And to top off the whole trip, we all got FREE fire hats, popcorn, and cotton candy. Do you know how much that kind of stuff costs at Disneyland? I think Mickey Mouse ears are like 30 bucks!

My boys are still talking about their fire station visit and have fond memories to last them a life time. And maybe, just maybe, they will keep their promise not to play with matches and we won't have our house burn down someday.

Just as a side note, after attending this fabulous fire safety day that the city puts on for free for anyone who wants to attend, and after attending traffic school this morning (yes I got a speeding ticket last month), I just want to express my gratitude for the men and women who serve our communities as fire fighters, emergency medical responders, and police officers. They do a fabulous job keeping us safe a protected.