A Day Of Fire Trucks

On Saturday we headed to Fire and Ice Day at Old Sturbridge Village. We had never attended this event before, but since the pictures on their Facebook page looked awesome, and we have some dear friends of ours who are a firefighting family, we decided to head over and check it out. We arrived to discover two gorgeous trucks in the parking lot. 

We loved getting to climb inside and check them out. 

Everything runs on Dunkin' in New England. 

On our way in we passed the Field of Flags. 

We made a donation in my Dad's name on Father's Day in honor of his service in the Navy. 

You can see his name in the first column last one at the bottom. 

A better view (second from the top in this picture). 

This fire truck is 85 years old and hails all the way from Woodstock CT. The owner said he had to strip the whole thing down and completely restore it. He did a great job!

It was funny to see the current trucks parked in the Village. 

The crews sure keep these trucks shiny and gorgeous!

Carding wool. 'Cause why not?!

Watching the bucket brigade. 

This was the "ice" part of Fire and Ice Day. 

The girls love helping with all sorts of stuff at the village. 

Afterward the girls joined in the kids bucket brigade. 

Which really was just lots and lots of water play. 

Totally perfect on a hot summer day!

"Push!"

"Yay!"

It such a fun day! The only thing that could have made it any better would have been to have our friends Rob and Jen there with us (they live in Virginia, otherwise they surely would have been there). Thankfully this is one of those events that's an annual thing so hopefully we can coordinate a visit with them sometime and have it include Fire and Ice day while they're here!

"From Thankful Us To Helpful You!"

One of our most favorite books to read this time of year is The Firefighters' Thanksgiving by Maribeth Boelts.  It's a sweet story about some firefighters who are trying to make their Thanksgiving meal but have to answer several calls during the meal preparation.  At the end they are surprised by a feast left for them by their very grateful community (with a sweet note that reads "From thankful us to helpful you!  Happy Thanksgiving!").  Even though the girls have heard this story many, many times over their lives this is the first year that they asked to "bring treats to people who helps us."  We decided that we would bring treats to their fabulous doctor, the librarians, the police and (of course) the firefighters.  Yesterday we began our baking and delivering.  We made yummy cranberry bread to bring to Dr. Rugo and her staff, as well as the librarians.  

We had such fun baking and delivering these goodies!  Everyone that we visited was super surprised and very appreciative.  It seems that more and more each year poor Thanksgiving is being overlooked  and Christmas is taking over.  I have always loved Thanksgiving.  And I love that the girls have inherited my love of it as well. I love that they just don't understand why people are decorating for Christmas starting in October (no matter how many times they ask why this is).  I love that they want people to focus on this holiday instead of rushing right to Christmas.  And I love that even for how young they are they are already starting to look for ways to give back and make the world a better place.  This mama could not be more proud.  

Today we shall bake and deliver chocolate chip cookies to the Police and Fire Departments.  After all, something about chocolate chip cookies just seemed to make total sense for those two groups!