Puts a Spring in your step

Funny how a little extra daylight puts a spring in your step. We are loving the extra daylight that grows a little each day. But that little bit puts a huge spring back on your step. No more snow tires and puffy winter jackets for these Alaskans.

Back to the *Friendly* Skies

I am back to flying, and gosh I have soooo missed it! I have been home raising the little ones, letting my hubby focus on getting hired at his dream job. So now that his face are firmly planted in his new career and my "babies" are now "the littles", I can be back to work. I will forever be grateful for the timing for the leave my employer offered. I am refreshed, craving adult conversations. After being home with kids who don't talk or talk ALL the time, it is a treat to be back at work, with people who acknowledge the effort I put in. The atta-boys or emails customers send in about me making their flight enjoyable, make my week! I feel like I am walking on cloud nine. 

I am enjoying my layover time, getting to sleep in or workout (or shop or lay out in Maui, but don't tell my hubby that *grin*.) It is a struggle and a juggle with 3 young kids at home, a husband who works 24-hour shifts, but I am fortunate enough to have the best sister-in-law ever (she is also a fire wife) to step in to my shoes and watch my kids with a happy & generous heart. I couldn't do my job without her!  

So come join me as I blog about my trips, my life as a fire wife and mom of three. I love to cook and bake so I hope to share some of those recipes with you all too. In my spare time (haha) I also play hockey (love defense), sell Willow House, and try to stay on track with healthy eating and exercise. I am happy to answer any questions you have about flying, flying with kids, what to make to bring for dinner to the station, kids, cooking, whatever, just don't ask me about geometry! Ha-Ha!

Until the next flight...

First Day of School! First Day Of School!!

We were having so much fun on our vacation, finally soaking up the sun that had been neglecting Alaska all summer, we flew home stand-by two days before school started. I knew all of the school supplies would be out by then, so I bought everything down in California and flew it home with us. I must say it is the least prepared I have ever been for school for my kids. But we had the essentials and I could always shop on-line this week. Everything worked out, I still need to buy a few more things like a box of kleenex and ziplock baggies, but when don't you find out you need to buy something for school after they start? I took one for the team and stayed home with the sleeping babies and left hubby up to taking the important first day of school pictures...and he did better than expected and better than I would have. I was a very happy mama!

Just a side note; I took this photo. Not as good as hubbys!

A trip to Legoland!!

One our favorite trips is our annual family summer trip to California. Each year we try to visit a different theme park. This year it was Legoland and Legoland's newest addition, it's water park! I found a smoking deal on Ares Travel. Since the new water park is at the back of Legoland's park and they don't sell separate tickets to it yet, you have to purchase a day ticket to Legoland and add on the water park ticket. At Ares travel they had the best deal I found anywhere, 2 days to Legoland with one day access to the Water Park for only $67 for an adult/$57 for a child. On Legoland's website is it $87/adult & $77/child. So with our crew (one is still under 3) we saved $80!! Which we were able to spend in the park. If I had figured it out quicker, instead of at the end of the last day. I would have bought a refillable cup sooner. It was around $6.95 with around $1 refills, don't quote me on that, as I am going off my memory and we all know the airplane and babies have sucked all my brain cells away.

With the deal you have to use your water park ticket within 48 hours of using your 1st Legoland ticket. Otherwise you have 9 days to use both of your tickets once you make your 1st visit. So we decided to use the water park ticket on the 1st day and then we had 9 days to come back to visit Legoland.

The day we went to the water park was a little overcast and in the low 70°. 

The actual pool water was chilly in the Build-A-Raft lazy river, 

but we had still had fun and prompted my middle son to repeat over and over 

"I wooove wegowavnd!" 

Even though it was mid-week, the lines were long for the big kid slides. :-(

The DUPLO^® Splash Safari was pretty cool. They shut down the area from time to time on a schedule to probably check the area for floaters and to give the kids a break to use the restrooms. A must have is a locker rental. The price is around $9 for a family size locker and it opens and lock on a wrist band scanning system (pretty high tech!!) Also the large changing rooms are a huge plus!!!

It was so cold that day we ended up changing out of our swimsuits and going to the actual Legoland park. We ate in Fun Town at the Fun Town Market, which was a nice change from normal park food. They had a fresh soup and salad bar, Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, fresh cookies, and Asian Stir Fry and the best homemade churros I have EVER had!!! I think I ate close to 3. We went to The Big Test show all about  a volunteer fire department. My oldest even got chosen as a volunteer to help them in the show! My boys LOVED it and giggled the whole time. Even my big firefighter laughed and enjoyed the show too! 

Afterwards we went to DUPLO^® Playtown and let the kids run around for about an hour, since the sun wasn't beating down on us. My kids LOVED it! It really was the most incredible play area I have ever seen. A big fun firehouse, a school, a vet clinic, etc. and it wasn't too crowded. We then went on a search for a Lego Batman set. 

We looked in every store, including THE BIG STORE and came up empty handed. I was really surprised as the have a Xbox 360 game out called Lego Batman, but no toys?? We called it a day, much to the sadness of the kiddos.

The next day, Thursday we took a break for a  pool day! 

And Friday we went back for more! I was thrilled when our printed passes actually worked on the 2nd day, like they were supposed to! We headed to the back of the park immediately and started wondering through. My kids loved Fun Town Fire Academy (who doesn't love driving fire trucks and spraying water??!!), Miniland, Hideaways (worth sending an adult to stand nearby in the long line to get Granny's Apple Fries as the other one watches the kids play), Dune Raiders, Pharaoh's Revenge (no wonder it was hard to pull my kids out of here, as I could have played in there a long time too!), Xbox Family Game Space, Dig Those Dinos (where they provided free buckets and shovels to uncover dinosaur bones!) 

We had a great day and were amazed how all the staff was so nice! The youngest fell asleep before we even got off park property. The oldest stayed awake so he could build his latest lego set!