I seriously debated doing a massive blog post that incorporated Thursday to Saturday just so you all would feel as exhausted by the end of the post as I did by the end of those 3 days! I decided to be nice instead. Friday morning we needed to be at the station by 8am to get lined up for the parade. The parade is one of Kennedys favorite things. She loves getting to ride on the fire truck. This time she braved the hose bed. Uncle Taylor helped her climb up.
Ry was set she was going to ride with Grandpa
Then she saw Kennedy up top and had to be with Kennnndy. Bailey was sweet enough to ride up top and hold on to Ry and keep an eye on Kennedy.
We lined up and were ready to go. The kids were loaded down with popsicles to hand out.
This is Box Elder Countys new fire/medical ranger. Its sweet. Chris got to drive it for the parade
We were in the squad right behind Ladder 51. Van kept spraying us with the water.
Miss K and Ry were right behind us on Engine 51
After the parade Kennedys dad was supposed to come get her and when he got there he told her he had to go to work so she stayed with us and played. She was super excited about that because she wanted to go on rides and play on the water slide.
The girls rode on the train ride
Ash took them around for a while and I sat in the shade with Derek and Briggs. I had to wear my wildland pants and it was freaking hot. I was dripping sweat. We had the grills going with burgers, dogs, corn dogs, nachos etc. Chris rocked the grill most the afternoon.
Jana and Tammy ran the order line like champs!
Briggs woke up from his nap during lunch time. I think he was jealous Kennedy was eating a corn dog!
From there I was not planning on having Kennedy and had been assigned to be at the muzzleloader/archery shoot at 1pm with a brush truck on stand by just in case there was a fire. Ash was nice enough to take Miss K. They went home and took a nap under the air conditioning while I went to stand in the blazing sun.
The shoot started at 1 pm on the east bench of Willard. We had a canopy set up for the sun but the ground was so hot. There are 6 targets to shoot at 20 yards. This was one of the targets. You had to hit each piece. Its a lot tougher than youd think!
Archers on one end of the line and muzz shooters on the other
Wynn.. aka Bears Butt is so awesome to do this every year. ALL the proceeds from the shoot go right back to the fire dept. I couldnt just watch I had to shoot to support my department too.
Right after we took this dad got paged to a fire in Thatcher.
Theres one shoot called the Johnny 2 hole. You shoot a piece of paper thats folded in half. Then you unfold it so there are 2 holes in the paper and the goal is to shoot exactly in the holes. My first shot I was a few inches low. My 2nd shot was perfectly in the hole winning me 3rd place in that shoot.
Another shoot you had to hit the center hole in a mini clay pigeon with out breaking it. Wayne and Weasel did great!
So did Fred
He also placed in the card splitting shoot! The archers placed in every event
The last shot was hitting a string with a broad head which caused a bucket of water to drop on those sitting on those in the chair. The archers did really well at soaking people
The muzzle loaders didnt soak a single person. This guy was trick shooting upside down and actually was doing really well
We used the line to refill their buckets for them
We finished that at 4:30. I had time to go home and drop my clothes at the door. I turned my pants inside out to hurry and dry and sit in the cold for a minute. We had to be back at the fire station at 5 to load fireworks. We got all the cannons set out, boards screwed together, fire works dropped, and started wiring them. It takes about 4 plus hours to get the whole display set up.
We were just about half way through when Chris and Todd were paged on a grass fire in Honeyville. I was almost done wiring fireworks when we heard a page go off and the address was ours! I though oh no what happened because they said "utility problem" So Taylor, Russell and I hopped in the brush truck and headed to the house. When we got there Theron and Jean (the police) had the road blocked off. I saw thankfully it was just a branch down instead of the whole tree. It fell RIGHT between the camper and house and missed my car by inches. It fell on the garage but only dented it a little bit which really isnt a big deal. It pulled on the power lines to the house and knocked down the neighbors to the norths Comcasts line. She was outside and pissed because her internet was out for a minute.
While we were wiring fireworks in the 'hot zone' no electronics are allowed. So I didnt have my phone or radio. Chris and Todd were a few minutes away still so Jean let me call him on her cell to let him know it wasnt that awful. Van brought me down my cell phone too.
The perfectly healthy tree branch just snapped. No wind. Nothing. We shut the power off to the house and waited for Rocky Mountain Power to show up.
Chris and Todd made it by then. Jana, Ash, Derek and the kids showed up too. I grabbed lawn chairs for everyone and we just hung out front until the power company got there. We were able to cut the branch off the line once it was no longer live.
Luckily it didnt ruin the pole to the house and he had to fix the ground wire on the pole. That was it
I pulled lawn chairs out front for us to wait in. Were classy like that!
He had it fixed in like 10 minutes
From there we left and headed back up to finish the fireworks. We had everything ready to go about 9:30. We were given assignments and Russell and I's was to take the Ranger and go on the east hillside to watch fallout zones and be first on scene of any hot spot flare ups. We had the best view! The baseball diamond to the right is where they light them off from.
Russell and I keeping the town safe
See its a pretty good view! Fireworks started at 10pm
Our Ranger for the night
We had to move to another section where there was a lot more fall out so our view wasnt as great but it was still pretty good!
The show was over with NO fires! We cleaned up everything we spent hours laying out. Loaded the trailer full and headed to the station. It was after 11 pm by this point. I was EXHAUSTED. My feet hurt, my body hurt and I had to be up for work at 4:30 am for a 12 hour shift. Everyone was going back to the station to cook burgers and hang out for a minute and I headed home. I pulled into the backyard, walked in the house and ALMOST sat down when we were paged to a grass fire threatening structure.
Thankfully we got it out fast. My handheld radio was dead. My pager was dead. I was dead! I headed home again.. instead of going for burgers and made it to bed just after midnight.
So many people put so much hard work into making the 3rd and 4th so awesome! Thank you to everyone!
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