A Day Out With The Boys

My oldest son is an adventurer, to say the least, he gets this from his mommy (me). Recently there was a Fire Department BBQ in our community to help raise funds; we were proud to contribute! And boy did we contribute. The outing began after I got off work and arrived home at around 11:00am. My mom and I loaded to excited little boys into their car seats and drove the arduous distance to the Fire Department, one mile with two stop signs. I dropped my mom near the crowed mixing and mingling outside of the Fire Department, since she and sun do not get along. The entire town must have shown up! The parking was spread out for blocks, which in our town really isn't that far but the area was extremely congested. I parked the car back near the second stop sign we'd past, a 'block' back. The two energy balls and I climbed from the car and made our way to the start of the crowed. Four shiny white, blue and chrome fire trucks were all lined up for viewing outside. We particularly liked the large search and rescue truck, it's all decked out to cruise the desert and provide any help needed, anywhere needed. We met up with mom and made our way back to the food. I had bought three adult tickets ahead of time but since my husband couldn't make it we filled up three 'to go' containers and made our way back out, past the raffle of every donation the fire department had received for who-knows-how-long. They had everything you could ever want or not need! At that point my mom went to put the food in the car and come back for my 1 year old, he was not capable of staying close to me with so much excitement around him, we opted for all of us to make the ride home so that my oldest and I could change into shorts and sport some sunscreen and hats. After we dropped them off and came back, better dressed for the hot day, I bought lots of tickets to use for the exciting games. This is were things got expensive, my son LOVED the rock wall. Mostly he enjoyed repelling (being slowly lowered by the rope and pulley system attached to his harness) but he did do better then some of the older kids in climbing up too. I went up with him once and helped him to find his footing to go higher but he still only went up 3/4 of the way and enthusiastically proclaimed that he was ready to go down. He was never scared just excited. He must have gone up that thing ten or more times! We only paid for five or six but he only went half way most of the time so the older kids in line were generous enough to let him go up twice each time. There was also one of those air filled jumping thing that everyone loves and he enjoyed doing that at least twice. There were only a couple young teenagers in charge of making sure certain age groups went in each turn (about 6 minutes to a turn) so I did throw my "mother" voice around a bit to help the young man get the older boys out so the younger kids could get in. I realized how old I was at that moment because they all listened without much effort. Yup, I'm not the kid anymore, I'm the Responsible Adult... who knew that could happen? My boy also got a very manly truck painted on his arm for a small price and then we had to go. If you have children you know how much they like leaving a fun area, NOT! Screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth began as I dragged my darling son to the car and threatened his life to get him in his seat. For a couple hours we had played and laughed and he had been a sweet little angel, but all good things must come to an end. So away home we went to eat dinner. (And for one of us time-out, you guess.)