What a Day!

Whew! It's nice to sit down. I told Billy earlier that I have barely sat down all day other than when I have been driving...and my feet are letting me know! We hit the ground running early this morning, taking Billy to work at 7:30 and then heading to the Supercenter to do our big every two week grocery shopping trip. Today's was even bigger than usual due to our bulk cooking plan for next week (which I will actually start tomorrow:)). There were a couple of things I had planned to get at the SC that we weren't able to get there...so then we ran into the Neighborhood Market to pick up those things. From there we made stop at the chicken outlet, and then finally headed home. Not for long, though....just long enough to put most of the groceries away and do a few morning chores we didn't get to before we left. Then we were off to our field trip at the police station. We expected it to last about an hour, but it ended up being about twice that long! When we left there we ran back by the house for about 5 minutes, and then raced to Sam's. We had some serious shopping to do there, and less than an hour to get it done before we had to pick up Billy at work. Needless to say, we were a few minutes late getting him. *blush*

Highlights of our day:

This morning while we were at Wal-Mart, I decided to stop and get everyone a small drink at the in-store McDonalds. As we were waiting, a lady at a nearby table said, "I just love to see people having large families!" I smiled and said thank you, and we chatted with her for a minute. It was hard not to grin at the thought of us being a *large family*....while I know that to the rest of the world we have more than the average number of children, in some homeschooling circles our family of four children would be considered *medium-sized* at best. But it was certainly encouraging and delightful to encounter that type of reaction.The police department trip was *great*. Billy and I have known Det. Deason since before we knew each other, and she was one of the true friends from Fort Smith who made the trip to Conway for our wedding. We met her back when we were both working for child protective services and she was, as she is now, the juvenile detective. It's always good to see her, and she always seems to enjoy seeing how much the kids have grown. :)
I never got an exact count, but we had somewhere around 48 people there for the tour. We've been before, but this one seemed to focus on different areas than the last one. We all crowded into the outer evidence room as Kris explained that only one officer works the inner room, and only 2 others in the entire department are cross-trained. Those officers are the only ones with access to the inner room, to limit any possibility of contaminating evidence. Then we went to the SWAT Team room. The SWAT Team coordinator spent a *long* time answering questions, and I think that we could have stayed in there all day! He did a great job of explaining what the SWAT Team does, showing the weapons, and allowing the kids to touch the body armor and handle a bunch of spent ammo that had come out of a recent practice session with the body armor. (I have to add, here, that my son, about whom Kris kept saying, "He is his daddy all over again!", was right on the front row for this part. ;-))
I was really impressed with the SWAT Team coordinator. His father and younger brother both work for FSPD as well, and his grandfather is retired from the department. His dedication and love for his work was evident. When he was telling the kids about the body armor, he explained that the vest alone weighs 40 lbs. Someone asked it it was hard to run with all that extra weight, and his reply was, "yes, it is...and that's why, when a lot of people are eating burgers and fries for lunch, I'm in the workout room working out." What a great example of discipline and commitment to excellence. The most interesting part of his presentation to me was when he was explaining what happens when the SWAT team arrives at a house in a dangerous situation. One of the kids asked how long it takes to secure a house once the SWAT team arrives on the scene. His reply? "From the time we stop the truck at the scene, it takes us about 10 seconds, and that house is mine." 10 seconds?! Wow. For most houses, it takes the team 10 seconds to "take down all the bad guys" and secure the house. If it is an especially large house, he said it might take 15 seconds. That's impressive!
The Communications Center was also really neat. At one point one of the dispatchers was showing us the computer map where they track the approximate location of 911 calls from cell phones. After she showed us the address it had located on the most recent call, Peter asked if she could find his house with it. She put in our address and we watched as it zeroed in on our house (seen as a blue square around a pink dot.) Peter was quite impressed. :-D

It's been a great day, but I am really glad to be home in my PJs!! Btw...speaking of highlights of the day...I discovered a new chocolate treat today. Have you tried the new New York Cheesecake Hershey's Kisses?? Yummmm.