On Trevor's birthday this year, we had a great activity planned! We had been waiting for it since it was announced earlier in the year and it had been on our calendar ever since. It was the Wings Over Whiteman Air Show at the Whiteman Air Force Base which is located about 1 hour from our house. This air force base is an active base and is the home to all B2 Bombers and many of the A-10 Thunderbolt fighter jets among other things. We have the privilege of seeing the jets and B2 fly over our home quite often and all of us run outside to see if we can find them in the sky. So to see them all up close was awesome for all four of us!
The gates of the base opened at 9am on Sunday and we were there promptly at 9:15am. (and just to jump ahead a bit, we didn't leave there until 5:30pm.) It was a long, but very fun day for all of us.
We saw many different jets and cargo planes; we saw new and old airplanes; we saw helicopters; we saw the Golden Knight parachute jumpers and we saw the B2 and Thunderbirds. The boys did a-a-amazing the entire day! There were a lot of static displays to look at, tons of people to watch, and they even got little foam basketballs from one of the vendors there. That made their day because if you know them, a day is not complete if we don't get to play some sort of sport. And those little basketballs kept them occupied during some down time that we had... so thank you to the man that rolled them the balls as we were walking by!
Now, I say that we had an amazing time, and we did, and we will definitely go next year if they have it; however, there was one downside to it. And that would be that Ethan had a rough time with some of the bigger/faster jets as they would fly by and then turn in such a way that their engines were facing us, making the noise even louder. We had ear plugs for all of us, but that just wasn't enough for him. And when the Thunderbirds did their demonstration at the end of the show, Ethan was ready to go about three-quarters of the way through. It wasn't until they did some fly by with 5 of the jets -- a really cool trick so everyone was watching them as they went by and then low and behold the 6th jet came by at top speed and scared the living daylights out of everyone in the crowd! That one even made Trevor cry - and it shook Ethan's insides so much that he was ready to go right then and there. We didn't leave right then and there, but when the Thunderbirds were done, Ethan was breathing a sigh of relief.
Thank you boys for being so well behaved and we can't wait to go again next year! Trevor, we hope you remember your 4th birthday for a very long time. And if you happen to forget some of it, here are some pictures to remind you of what you did on that special day when you became a 4 year old.
This is one of the craziest aircrafts... the B2. They had the various versions of it at the show and it was just amazing to see how it has evolved from what it was in the 50's to what it is today...
We had lots of time for smiles, giggles, and some not so happy faces as well throughout the day, but looking back at all these faces makes me remember what fun we had. (And the one with Ethan doubled over in the chair looking at the ground was after that dreaded Thunderbird flyby that scared us all!)
What the pilots of these planes can do is so fun to see! Just makes you sit in awe when you see them doing what they do best!
And then there were the impressive Thunderbirds. If you wanted to see them perform you had to wait through the entire show, but it was well worth the wait!
And you'll see some pictures that are of something other than the planes... these were taken jokingly after I mentioned to Rick, "Well, isn't that just every girl's dream man... tall, dark, handsome AND a uniformed fighter jet pilot!" And being that they were setting stuff up for the show only about 10 feet from where we were sitting, I had ample time and opportunity to see these nice, uniformed men (oh, and there were a few women as well. It was a tough job, but I'm glad I got a couple pictures for all of you to see.
Rick writing here -- And just so everyone knows...While Angie was taking the photos of the, as she puts it, "men in uniform", I had to keep her from singing, "You've lost that loving feeling...Ohhh, that loving feeling..." I'm surprised she didn't start calling me Maverick or Goose.
And these were just some of the other random pictures from the day....
These last two are two of my favorite plane pictures from the day
And I can't forget to tell you about when we got home. Trevor was just beat by the end of the day... both boys fell asleep soon after we started the drive home, but one difference was that Ethan eventually woke up. Trevor on the other hand, slept and slept and slept. We arrived home and since Trevor didn't have a Pull-up on I took him out of the van and went straight to the bathroom with him. He sat on the toilet, went potty, but never woke up. I laid him on the couch while we unpacked the rest of the van... he never woke up. After we were all in the house, Kelty was excited to see all of us and even gave Trevor kisses on his cheek. He never woke up. Being that it was 6:30pm I decided I was going to put his pjs on and see if he wanted some birthday cake. I laid him on his bed, took off his shorts and undies, put on a pull-up and his pj pants and the poor kid never woke up. At that point, I said, you can just sleep in your tank top tonight, and I put him on his pillow. He never moved. Until 6:30am the next morning...
The Athletic Stance
The Run & Tackle
