Police Station Field Trip

I decided to take the kiddos on a few educational field trips this summer.  This morning we went on a tour of the city Police station with a group of our friends.

Spencer and Josh were pretty excited to go on the tour.

Cole was not.  He was pretty naughty, and I had to carry him for the first little while.  In fact, the officer saw his "Thing 3" shirt as I was wrestling Cole and said "Maybe you should have stopped at Thing 2."  Okay, now that I read it, it sounds like he was being all snarky and rude.  But he wasn't - in fact, I thought it was pretty dang funny.  And true.

Since Cole was being a Cole and Tess was fussing, Cole got strapped into the stroller, which he was not happy about.  (Even if he was able to play with my phone.)

Tess was quite pleased with the turn of events, however, because she loves being carried around, hither and yon.

We got to see an office where they write their reports (a little boring) and the 911 call center (very interesting).  The desks have hydrolic legs and can go up and down and they have different levels for their different screens; very cool.  We also got to see the images coming in from the 80 security cameras they have around town.  There are apparently a ton of them at Columbian Park, which makes me feel safer and a bit worried at the same time.  (Not in a Big Brother kind of way, but in a "How much crime occurs at that park to require so many cameras?" kind of way.)  The kids also learned about how, why, and when to call 911.

Officer Hughes took us outside to see his car.  He works from 6am to 6pm and spends the majority of his time in there.  It's a pretty sweet ride, with all sorts of electronics and such. 

The kiddos were fairly impressed.

I tried to get Josh to look at the camera.  No luck.  At all.

The three amigos.  Oh boy, do these boys love each other.  It's really quite sweet.  And funny.  (Sorry about the funny look I caught on your face, Ethan!)

Joshie looks weird because I told him to smile and instead he went to hug Spencer.  I think it's because he kept seeing Spencer and Logan and Ethan hug.  I'm also a big fan of Spencer's hands in his pants.  Where did he pick that up?

Officer Hughes explaining how a taser works and feels.  I don't know if the kids were impressed, but I sure was. 

He also said that most of the calls he deals with concern theft from unlocked vehicles.  Lock your doors, people!!

Cole was still being a punk at this point.  Not as big of a punk, but I think that's only because the heat had slowed him down a little.

We tried to get a picture of all the kids with the officer, but that was pretty much impossible.  So I snapped a few like this and declared it good enough!