What to do?-Guest post

I had the wonderful opportunity to write a guest post for a blog that I started to follow named Charmingly Chandler by Alena. She has an adorable little girl and asked me to write a post about what I'm doing with the boys this summer to keep ourselves busy.  It was so exciting having "an assignment" and writing to some more moms. Thank you for allowing me to write on your blog! It was too much fun!

Here's my guest post below.


In the life of a teacher, as May arrives and school wraps up, I have visions of summer dancing in my head. Summer has never looked so cute. I have grand plans with my boys. We'll go to the museum, go swimming, do crafts, make s'mores, and organize closets by seasons and colors. It's going to be GREAT!

Cue the record scratching.

Then June comes and summer's here and next thing I know I'm wondering when school will start. My dreams didn't include being a referee over toys, sitting at swim lessons in 100 degree heat with knee pit sweat running down my legs, and cleaning the dirty house ALL DAY LONG, because we're home and actually living in it!

I learned really quickly that this was going to be a loooong summer if I didn't think of things to do and fast. There's tons to do, but there's that tricky thing called money that you have to use to do most of it. So I got thinking…

I threw together a batch of chocolate chip cookies and headed for our fire station just down the street. Nolan, my oldest, wanted to get all decked out with his fireman costume but he settled for just the helmet…and of course he had to share with little bro.

I would say give them a call just to make sure that they're there, but I didn't, and seriously how you could turn this away? Unless you're a cold-hearted, uncompassionate hermit, and to date I haven't found one firefighter who was.



My oldest is four and youngest is two so you could do more with this like make them cards or bring them dinner. If they're anything like me, I'd give you a grand tour of my house if you brought me free food!

The boys just lit up getting to see the truck inside and out. They ate up every minute of it.

I wish I could attribute this to my overflowing creativity, but the truth is, I totally stole the idea from my father-in-law. He took my niece to a fire station in Kentucky, and got the VIP tour of the entire place. Case in point, it doesn't matter where you live, you can always find a fire station willing to give you and your kiddos a tour.

The best part of this besides my boys talking about it for days and teaching them the art of showing appreciation to others? It was free…well, minus a batch of cookies.