Space Center in Huntsville

Well, Friday night we drove up to Huntsville Alabama. It's about a four hour drive. The kids were really good on the drive. We had Kara in our car and Aaron rode with Nana and Papa. We stayed overnight at a hotel which was interesting. Kara is a flopper so I didn't get a lot of sleep but got a lot of smacks from her arms and legs flying all over the bed.

Saturday we woke up and arrived at the Space Center. It was really crowded because it was scout day.

At the entrance there was a upright rocket that you could walk under.

We paid and signed in and got a bag full of information and a neat Scout patch for Aaron. First we saw an Imax movie. This was Kara's first movie in a theater.

Our movie was Fly me to the Moon in 3D. She liked the first part of the movie, but then got scared. She thought the guys in the space suits were bad guys. So the second half of the movie I was reassuring her that the spacemen were good guys, but she didn't believe me. Then after the movie we saw some exhibits with the Saturn 5 rocket, the decontamination air stream trailer, a moon buggy and a host of other things. They had the rocket sectioned so you could see it clearer, but Kara thought it was broken. So for a while she kept telling us, "it's broken, the rocket is broken, oh no!"

We finally went to the outside, I couldn't take anymore "it's broken"! There were many displays outside and then there was another museum building that we went through. Very neat.

My favorite part was a section upstairs. It had a space shuttle tire that the kids sat in.

A computer with various games for kids, which Kara and Aaron enjoyed and a jet pack that you could sit in to take pictures.

It was the hands-on part of the museum. There was also a space shuttle landing simulator which Aaron tried, and a rock climbing wall which was too busy to get to.

There was also an unmanned rover that was searching the terrain for movement. It's camera turned and stopped at the kids. Then I moved up and down so it turned towards me and moved up and down. So then the kids were moving up and down and it was spotting them. Very neat. There was also a scale which would show your current weight, your weight on mars and your weight on the moon. Very neat.

It was a long day but very fun. I think Kara will enjoy these outings more when she is older but Aaron really enjoyed it. He was tired thought because he napped on the way home which is very unlike him.

Kara singing

We got a video of Kara singing and playing the piano the other night. I think she was making up a song because we didn't recognize it.

World's Fair

At Aaron's school today all of the first grade classes presented a country. Aaron's class researched Italy. It was cute. As we walked in a boy greeted us with Ciao! Then another group showed us some Venetian masks they had created. The next group had postcards from Italy. Then we were shown and Italian bistro. They handed us a menu with some Italian foods. They also had colored pastas on the table that Kara wanted to eat. We told her they were just for decoration. Then another group taught us some Italian words. Next was Aaron's table which showed us the history of pizza. He just told us his table was the history of pizza and then sat still. Apparently he was nervous.



Kara was excited to see her Bubba:



"No, I'm more Italian"


A picture with Daddy:



Then another little girl took us on a tour of Italy. She pointed out the names of the places. And lastly there was a slide show of Italy. Here is Aaron's angry Italian face:


It was a very cute world's fair. :)

Tyndall Air Show

Well, Last Sunday we drove down to Panama City to Tyndall Air Force Base to see an airshow. When we got there it was crowded in the parking lot. There was a line for the bus to the runway/tarmac so we waited for a bit. Here are the kids waiting:

Because of the wait we didn't get there in time to see the all of the cobra helicopter demonstration. The part we saw was neat. We looked around for a bit. I found an amusing sign on a static display.

Then we went to the front and watched the air show. Aaron thought the planes were loud and needed two sets of hands in addition to ear plugs.


We did remember to take some pictures of the planes.
They called this the heritage flight. It had an F-22, P-51, F-4 and an F-15, to represent different eras of the air force.

This one is an F-22 Raptor. It was quite fast as you can see I barely got a picture. Very cool!

Even Andy was impressed:



Mama & Kara:

Green Bean and Andy:

We didn't get a lot of pictures of the aircraft. Andy was too in awe and I was keeping Kara out of the flight path! She was not too impressed with everything since we couldn't get on it and fly it away so she and I walked around and looked at other things. When the blue angels started their show, they had the smoke on and made an arc in the sky. Kara told me they were making rainbows.

My favorite plane was the C-130. I love the sound of this plane. It's just neat.

After the airshow we had a tasty meal of Arby's and headed home. Apparently it was a long day for Kara because Andy took her out of the car and put her in the rocker, so he could help us unload and when I walked in this is what I found:

Too cute! Aaron's favorite plane was the F-15, which was starscream in the Transformers cartoon. The next day Kara got her little people buses and lined them up. Then she put the little people outside in a line, so apparently all she got out of the air show was waiting in line for the buses. Hm..