Outside Of The Box Family

Click here to keep updated ! Welcome to the World Champion Firefighter Challenge 2024 held in Nashville, TN at The Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway! Firefighters from all over the world came to this event!  We met firefighters all the way from New Zealand, Poland, Germany and more!  These amazing firefighters compete in this skills-based challenge course known as the LION® Arena of the Brave to complete Five Essential Functions – High-Rise Pack Carry, Hose Hoist, Forcible entry, Hose Advance, Victim Rescue – and the competitor with the best time within each division wins. But it's more than just a competition.  It's a community of like-minded people.  These firefighters from around the world (Raresh from Germany with Eli on his shoulders) are the ones who run into the burning building while the rest of the world runs out.  There is no doubt these firefighters are "ALL IN" with their chosen careers as they continue to display their passion throughout the World Cham...

  Click here to keep updated!   Who knew counting coins could be so stinking fun!?!?  How in the world did we get to this point?  Well, here's the story.... We have a friend who was about to take her jar of coins to a change counting machine.  As far as I knew, some change machines charge a processing fee of anywhere from 10% to almost 13%!   Naturally I also knew how fun and challenging it would be to count all of her coins, so I volunteered to count her coins for her!  Eli loves a challenge and he was all in! The absolute look of concentration on Eli's face confirmed we made the right decision to count the coins and that the challenge was ON!   It took us a some time but we started with the big and obvious quarters before we tackled the rest of the coins as they appeared.  It was a lot.  We all guessed there was somewhere between $30-$45 dollars in her jar.  In the end, she had over $70 of coins in the jar! The neat part...

 Click here to keep receiving these posts! Eli loves everything to do with nature and he has discovered yet another way to explore.  It's called whittling!  Thanks to Grandpa Tito and Grandma Roberta, Eli now has the tools to learn all about whittling! With his safety gloves on, Eli steps out into the porch and begins whittling away.  His imagination makes way for creative creations.   Surprisingly enough I have yet to take a picture of what he has created.  Oops.  But he has created his own little sword, a gun and he is currently working on a little boat! Grandpa Brock has also contributed some things to help with his whittling, like his old file and dremel tool!  How cool! Meanwhile, I am sure you've heard that we had a couple of storms come our way.  The first, Helene came after almost 2 weeks of rain.  The ground was soaked and the heavy trees came down.  Fortunately our vehicle (behind Eli) was not touched nor was anyone h...