Blue Angels

The daddy to one of the little girls in Anna's dance class this year works on Avionics for the Blue Angels. Well, his wife told us about the practice shows and autograph sessions that the Blue Angels do when they are home and not doing shows. Since it has been so long since Will and I have seen them, we talked about going with the girls this summer and last night we realized that we wouldn't be able to go again until after Luke was born and I didn't want to take a newborn; so we decided to go today. That meant me getting up 4:45 am to pack lunches and get the water bottles ready and us leaving the house by 6:15 am. It was crowded (over 1,000, maybe 2,000 people), but nowhere near the crowds that come out for their full blown big shows.

You forget how amazing they are and what incredible skill it takes to do the things that they do. From the minute the engines turn on, you get chills. Surprisingly, Isabelle loved it and asked if she could come back tomorrow. Anna could have cared less, but didn't like being hot and sweaty, so she proceeded to sit in my lap (on aluminum bleachers) and make me hotter and sweatier and make Luke fight back for his room. I was pretty miserable. Fortunately, the practice started at 8:30 am and it was still pretty cooled off from yesterdays rain storm. But once the sun started blaring, it got hot fast.

We had a little old man in front of each section that told us what was going on and what to expect. Since it was practice, one of the planes had to land in the middle and get in a different plane, sometimes they repeated some maneuvers until the head pilot was satisfied. Even during practice though, they pulled the SURPRISE fly by. The little old man told us to look to the left and cover our ears... once that plane was barely past us, another one snuck up from behind and shook us to our bones.

Afterward, we went to the museum where the pilots were signing autographs. Isabelle was dead set on meeting one of the pilots so we stood in line until they told us they had to leave and wouldn't sign anymore autographs. I'll rant about the museum in a little while. We were only two people away when they told us no more. You would think that if they do this every Wednesday, they would have learned by now to sit the pilots at a table and line people up. We would have gotten the autograph if people hadn't kept cutting in front of us.

We walked around the mueseum and looked at some planes. It was very very crowded because of everyone coming to see the show and sticking around. We need to go back when it isn't as crowded. When waiting in line for some of the cockpits for the girls to get in, I realized how idiotic parents can be. After the third or fourth kid cut us off and climbed in from another side instead of waiting in the line, I began to be quite rude myself. Why would parents just let their children run wild in a museum? Because they are idiots! In fact, while standing in line in the bathrooms, we had two different little girls skip about six people at a time. They are old enough to know better!

We took advantage of a few more photo ops and then ate our picnic lunch in the car on the way home because I couldn't stand to hear Anna whine about being too sweaty one more time. Before we left, we swung by the cemetery to visit Granddad's grave site. It was a long, tiring morning, but something we can say we did. Enjoy the pictures.