SEQUIM – The final day of the 2007 Legislature – which wrapped up around 9:30 p.m. April 22 – was much like election night in November for Rep. Kevin Van De Wege.

After both events, he went directly to work at his day-and-night job.

“I got elected, and went back to work,” he said.

“And on Sunday, I drove back here and finished a shift at the fire station.”

Van De Wege, the freshman Democrat who represents the 24th District, is a firefighter-paramedic in Clallam County Fire District No. 3 and the father of two children, ages 3 and 5.

So he knows all about being up for long hours and at wee ones.

Ask him and his wife Jennifer, a Sequim High School biology teacher, how hard it was to juggle work, family and more work, and they neither grimace nor moan.

Both seem to get energy from Jack and Allie, the kids who climb onto them when they come home from work.

Their jobs, for that matter, also seem to invigorate them.