Last weekend, when my parents were in town for my dad's 40-year high school reunion (oooooold! ;)), we decided to take an outing to the Hill Airforce Base Air Show. My mom was excited about it, Stephen was excited about it, and I was just along for the ride. haha. But it was actually a lot of fun and I'm glad we went! 

After deciding we would go, and sitting around doing basically nothing for an hour, there was a 10-minute scramble to get out the door in order to make it to the 11:12 train, in which the stroller was forgotten, no lunches were packed, and a frantic effort to find Lydia's little white hat was to no avail. My dad did have time, however, to run to a nearby garage sale and purchase a tween-sized Monster Energy hat for $1 to cover up his bald spot. haha! Thankfully, my much-more-detail-oriented husband (who often pulls through and saves us both from my procrastinating ways) at least managed to get sunscreen into the diaper bag, as well as fill up a few waterbottles before the mad dash to the car!

Once aboard the Frontrunner (which was standing room only) we were informed by an airshow-frequenter that the show was expected to draw a crowd of 300,000 people! (!!!) I attended a few airshows when I was little, and I distinctly remember them having a lot of people, but I never would have guessed 300,000 people! (Stephen, having never been to an airshow and not knowing much about them, was shocked at the popularity.)

We spent a few hours at the show (which my dad and I agreed was the perfect amount of time. Mom could have stayed all day haha) and watched the Breitling Jet team while standing in line at security for about 45 minutes!

In addition to the entertainment provided by the base, it was also quite entertaining to try and keep Lydia out of the sun. The poor girl is as pale as parchment and I knew that even a little bit of sun would be detrimental. Since her hat had performed a disappearing act just minutes before we jumped in the car, we had to get a bit creative with keeping her shaded. Stephen wore her in a little carrier (one I had picked up at a garage sale earlier that morning for about fifty cents!) and with a combination of the monster energy hat, my nursing cover, and our height, we did a pretty decent job! She had a bit of pink on her cheeks for a few days, but it's mostly faded now. 

At some point (after finding a measly spot of shade to eat our seven-dollar cheeseburgers) whilst watching a man parachute with an american flag strapped to his back and the song "Proud to be An American" blaring through the sound system, my mom turned to me and said, "Does this kind of thing make you emotional? Because it makes me emotional and I've always hoped to pass that on to my children." I (reluctantly) admitted that it does. 

What I didn't admit at the time was my embarrassment during 5th grade patriotic assembly when I basically bawled my eyes out (they had a video of soldiers surprising their families with patriotic music playing in the background and those always get me). 

So thanks, Mom, for making me the blubbering patriotic mess at the 5th grade assembly...when I was student teaching...two and a half years ago...

_ _ _

han.

PS My dad only wore the Monster Energy hat for about 10 minutes before I made Stephen give Dad his hat, because I just couldn't take my dad seriously while he was wearing such a ridiculous hat.