Houston Air Show

The Saturday before Halloween we were able to go to the Houston Air Show as a family.  I think I was just as excited to see the planes as I was to have the boys see them.  The reason being is that my Grandpa Madsen (my Dad's father) was in the air force.  He was never in a combat position, but he did train on a T-33/shooting star.  After serving for a while, he decided that he wanted to begin working on his parent's farm.  However, before he officially retired, he would sometimes help out with training exercises at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.  During one of those training sessions, the plane he was riding in crashed and he was killed when my dad was four years old.  Since I never knew my grandpa in this life, I feel like planes are my connection with him now (although I firmly believe I knew him very well in heaven; love you, Grandpa :).  So, here are some pictures of some of the fun things we got to see.

 

One of the military personnel had this remote controlled robot that they would use to sneak up on people.  It was fun to watch.

 Rigby and Peter got to sit inside the back seat of a helicopter. 

I think Rigby would have cried the entire time if we had not let him jump in this bounce house.  His two-year old tantrums are in full force these days (gotta give in sometimes though).  The boys spent probably 30 minutes in here and loved it.  It was worth all $4 for both the boys and the parents. 

 This guy was crazy!  Mid-air, he cut the engine and started it again.  Insane, but everybody seemed to love watching the crazy stunts.

We waited a whole hour for this ride!  There was a navy promotional video inside that correlated with the movements of the ride.  Good thing the boys loved it.  Peter kept saying, "This is the funnest ride ever!" 

I thought this hurricane plane with a satellite on top was fascinating.  Wouldn't it be fun-and crazy-to ride into a storm in this thing!?

During much of the day, there were older, retired planes that were flying overhead.  I will have to learn more about identifying planes before I go to another air show.

Before the main show, we found a place to sit and eat a snack while the boys played with their little metal airplanes.  Side note:  Metal toys may be durable, but I prefer stepping on plastic toys--ouch!

Here are one of the Blue Angels planes before take off.  The show was so much fun to watch and Scottie got some great pictures.  He was practicing his photography skills with the zoom lens and took over 550 photos!

 And last but certainly not least, my sweet boys with a fire truck.

(Rigby, Scott, Peter)