Cache and Carry

What? That last post had not a single gratuitous pic of L? Just a Facebook link? Okay, rectified here, with a shot of her at the boys' new favorite indoor rainy day activity, jumping on large trampolines until they get sweaty and exhausted. She obviously enjoys going and watching the activities as well. You're welcome.

I've talked at length about O's obsession with "treasure" (perhaps encouraged a little too much by that trove he unearthed at the beach?); every time we go to a park, he's looking on the ground for treasures that he can keep. More often than not he spies litter (wrappers, bottle caps, etc.), but occasionally there's actually a penny or something interesting and non-gross enough to take home. Over the past few weeks, Meh reminded me of the sport of letterboxing, where people around the country hide a small artifact and then post clues online for others to find the item (and then rehide it for others to discover as well). Many of these are hidden in parks and woods, and sure enough, when I checked, the boys' favorite park was indeed a spot with a buried letterbox. Alas, the sport (or at least this trove) appears to have been aged out of fashion, as the boys and I followed the precise instructions but there was no letterbox to be found (the box had been hidden nearly 10 years ago, and the website was feeling a bit long in the tooth as well).

But never fear, in actuality it appears the pastime has rather just morphed in our connected mobile world to something called geocaching, where in addition to (or sometimes in place of) clues are provided GPS coordinates, and of course apps on every phone (yes, even mine) that let you kind of sort of orienteer to the prize. We returned to the same park, which claimed to have a geocache, and after the prerequisite 'exercise' (me pushing them on the swings), O and I intently followed the instructions while L snoozed and Z played with mommy. We looked very carefully at the hiding place, and lifted a seemingly innocuous rock to uncover a tiny black canister filled with a scroll of paper that you sign indicating you've discovered it. O was in awe and super excited, but also concerned when I indicated it was time to re-hide the cache for the next, um, geocacher? Afterwards, he talked about how cool it was, but how it wasn't treasure because you couldn't take it home with you. I asked if he wanted to do it again, and he said he'd rather find treasure. We'll just have to see if Z gets interested as well.

Seats and tray tables

On the drive up to Whidbey last week, we noticed a big sign announcing that this weekend was the return of the wildly popular-with-the-boys Vintage Aircraft Weekend. We invited friends B, J, and their kids J and M along this time, and preceded the event by sampling mima and papa's favorite New York-style pizza place - a new favorite for us and the other family, though our boys couldn't be bothered to try the pizza (even though we got plain cheese), breadsticks, or caprese salad. Anyway, from there it was onward to the show; after dashing inside and instantly exclaiming about all of the planes (and other vehicles -- though alas, not the huge collection go-carts, army vehicles, fire trucks, or bounce houses we saw last year), O climbed up to check out a dogfighter before asking nobody in particular what other planes he could get in. A friendly passing staff member answered anyway, pointing at an impressive World War II B25-D bomber that we learned had actually just done a demonstration flight an hour earlier. The queue was long, but O impressively and patiently persisted (Z and the others opted out, continuing onward to look at other planes) and eventually got to climb the ladder to check out first the cockpit and then crawl through the tunnel to the forward gunner seat.

We got to see a number of other planes, both stationary and flying in formations low across the runway. Both O and J were pretty smitten (and calling pretty much every single-propeller plane Dusty Crophopper) and Z had a great time as well. And the weather turned out to be surprisingly sunny after the morning rains. All in all a lovely and successful family outing! Full album here.

Tonight another milestone for L - while she's been sampling an increasing number of foods, Meh was inspired by M at lunch, who at one month older than L was already gumming carrots and such. So we reattached the tray table that goes with her high chair and tried a big cube of watermelon. L mostly squished it, but did manage to consume a little bit of it -- go L!

Life's a beach -- again

Less than a week after our lovely family holiday trip to the Oregon coast, we were off again -- this time heading the other direction to Whidbey Island with mima and papa (and with Uncle J and his girlfriend joining up later in the trip as well!). The boys were super excited, even though I had to explain to Z that there weren't going to be bumper cars or L's beach house. I won't say the trip was strictly "relaxing", but we did have a lovely time and had all sorts of adventures.

We arrived on the ferry and headed straight to one of the large farmers markets to meet up with mima and papa for a tasty lunch (well, the boys had snacks -- and then O and I played oversized outdoor chess for a bit), then beat the heat at one of many local beaches with some rocket popsicles from a well-timed ice cream truck. Then it was time to check out our digs! We arrived to a very cozy and very beach-themed house that mima had secured for us; the boys had an excellent pair of upstairs window seat beds, while L, mommy, and I were in a downstairs room (ideally to allow everyone more sleep -- and it kind of sort of worked, at least for L and mommy!). My favorite touch was the railing to the upstairs, which was made of a long wooden oar. L's new de facto play area was a chair with a long cushion that could comfortably hold her (and occasionally one of her brothers as well).

O has been obsessed with "fishing" (which he takes to mean hunting for treasure underwater) for some time, and we had two special surprises for him. First, I'd picked up a kids fishing rod (Spider-Man themed, naturally) and at one of the parks where they'd had such a fun time last year, we gave it a try. Alas, the very first time that I cast off with the practice fish-shaped rubber lure attached, the lure made a lovely arc out into Puget Sound and the line snapped. O was very concerned, but I let him know it was totally fine and that the lure was "swimming with the fish". (I crack myself up.) The rest of that afternoon he was asking about the fish, concerned that it would be okay, and asking me to go out into the sound and find it. Ah well. The second treasure-themed activity went far better -- mima snuck a wooden box full of coins down to the beach by the beach house, and then Meh sketched a map and rolled it up. When O and Z "discovered" it, we helped them read the map and explore the beach, where they found an X of shells that indeed marked the spot. Shovel in hand, O unearthed the chest and both boys were delighted with the results; Z has since taken a liking to drawing maps, while O wants me to draw paths to treasure hidden elsewhere in the house.

Besides park trips and much yummy cooking for each other (including dinner one evening up on a rooftop patio), we took the kids to check out a cool lighthouse. Little did I know it had an increasingly narrow spiral staircase around its interior to get up to the actual lantern room -- I was mildly concerned the boys were going to get stuck up there, but we did in the end get up and down safely, and also explored bunkers and cannons in between snack time. We even had brief houseguests, as our friends who'd been at the Oregon house were also on the island for the day and came to visit. And the last night we had family smores on the beach.

Far too many of the pictures of our excellent holiday here - it's going to be hard to get back into the swing of life at home tomorrow!

Air cover

Grandma and J are visiting for the weekend! In addition to Z's impending epic birthday party (which has been in preparation for weeks if not months - Meh is making it pretty spectacular), this is Seafair weekend, so we decided to try to go see the Blue Angels perform. The boys, sporting their spiffy new favorite MLB franchise muscle shirts, selected O's favorite Mercer Island park for viewing. We got there a bit before the main show, so there was time for playground climbing and a snack, while we watched hundreds of people streaming past for closer waterfront views. Nonetheless, our choice of location worked out well, as there was a sudden downpour and we were conveniently adjacent to a covered picnic area to duck under for continued dry snack time. The Patriots Jets Team zoomed over the park multiple times, and the boys even occasionally paid attention in between playing on the equipment and enjoying their food. Alas, they got a bit too tired out to stick around for the main event, so we headed back to the car, catching a glimpse first of some marine helicopters and then the Blue Angels zooming by as we got in and headed back home to catch up with L and mommy.

Double Play

The boys continue to have a fun if exhausting time while mommy and L traverse Bulgaria (and appear live on national morning TV and even a cooking show airing in another month or two apparently?!). O's early afternoon park tour has continued this week, even despite the weather finally backing off from the unusually warm; on Tuesday, O was insistent that we find a park with a water feature even though it was overcast and in the 60s; here's a shot of him enjoying the spray hoses for, oh, about five seconds before asking for his towel. From there we reverted to a more standard park, where he and I had a delightful time (re-)discovering the joys of whirlybird maple seeds.

Thursday was O's teacher M's last day of class before moving to Arizona - she's been a fabulous teacher and the two of them have been so close, we'll miss her! She left a very cute goodbye note for all of the parents at the sign-out sheet, and she also made a custom card for each of the kids featuring a picture of them with her and a very sweet and child-specific note. We wish her the very best in her next advenutre! After school (and before camp was over), the rain was coming down, so O and I headed over to the trendy Seattle combination indoor play area/restaurant. While he was a bit shy and made me climb around in tubes and tunnels clearly meant for 4-6 year olds, we had a great time and then a very civilized nice snack together before looping back to Mercer Island to pick up Z.

Z for his part has been continuing to love camp and has really developed a solid friendship with his counselor E; as so many of his teachers are women, it's great to see him having a guy role model and talking about both E and camp, having big smiles as he's dropped off (and picked up), and overall clearly enjoying every minute of his days at Camp Kef! Z even shares at bath time some of the songs he's been learning ("boker tov" means good morning in Hebrew):

Four months a lady

Happy four month birthday to L! The time has flown, though perhaps not quite as fast as we thought; I accidentally took her to today's four month appointment last week. The receptionist shook her head sympathetically and said to come back, but no worries - we were back there today, and L was happy and cooing the whole ride over. Once she was down to the diaper, she got a little more angry, and an oral and two injected vaccines didn't help things. But all's well that ends well; she has two cute band-aids and a clean bill of health for her big international trip in (eek) 11 days! By the numbers:

• 14 lbs 3 oz (50th percentile)
• 24" length (25-50th percentile)
• Head circumference: 15.6 (25th percentile)

The weather has emphatically flipped to summer; we hit 100 earlier this week, which is pretty unusual overall for the area, let alone in early July. We've been trying to keep everyone cool through fans, blinds, open windows, and juggling our two portable room air conditioning units among three bedrooms, but it may be time to pick up a third so everyone can sleep comfortably. In the meantime, sunscreen and hats for both boys as they spend so much of their days outdoors at camp and pre-school!

Frozen

While the east coast, Midwest, and southeast probably think Seattle's second approximately 1 inch snowfall of the season is adorable, it's a perfect amount for the boys -- we rolled out another even bigger snowman, and gave this one a scarf and (fireman?) hat, in addition to nose, mouth, and eyes, and then had some more fun backyard sledding yesterday. O's boots were at school and Z has outgrown his, so I pulled the knotted plastic bags trick from my childhood (though I feel like at the time they were usually worn inside of boots rather than outside).


Again, the snow was already melting by the afternoon, and was mostly gone by today.

Sometimes a carrot is just a carrot

Snow day! Just in time for the holiday break, the last day of school was at first delayed (for O) and then outright cancelled (for both boys), with a covering of maybe an inch or two of perfectly snowball-packable white stuff. We all headed outside bright and early (the boys got to try out their new snowpants, which O indicated were "warm and cozy"), and set about making a snow man. O helped me roll out the three body segments, Z stuck in the arms, and both of them helped with rock eyes -- Meh contributed a carrot nose from our CSA box, which O positioned on the face.

Then it was time for sledding! No need to hike all the way to the school; Meh pulled out the disc and the boys took turns dragging each other up our little hill and then pulling each other down (with parental supervision of course) -- they didn't get tired of this for a good half hour, and it was interspersed with snowy time on the swing and a snowball "fight" (where O would ask for a snowball and then refuse to actually apply it until people turned around so he could smoosh it into their backs). Hooray for early exercise, and all in the comfort of our yard and away from the not-yet-plowed streets.

Soon enough it warmed up and started moving on to freezing rain, so we went back inside and got ready to greet our guests -- friends (and fellow bloggers) M, K, N, and J are visiting from Texas for a few days, yay! We all met up at the boys' favorite local sushi joint, though I neglected to confirm that N would share the boys' appetite for cucumber rolls. But it all worked out okay, and we then headed back to our place for an afternoon of kids playing, napping (well, J at least), and just getting to catch up. After some early O/N disagreements, the two of them became fast friends -- the costume trunk and little play theater hadn't gotten such a workout in quite some time, and there was quite the show by Buzz, the Princess, and, um, a horse. Oh, and there was also pizza.

By this time, things had warmed up substantially and all that was left of the snow in the yard was a rapidly melting snowman. As the snowman's head melted, the carrot nose fell out and somehow pivoted as it fell down into the snowman's bottom segment to become, er, something possibly indecent. O just kept asking why, of course. Because! Anyway, it was so good to see our friends for the afternoon, and hopefully we'll get to catch up again before they head back out after the long weekend. Have a great time in Seattle, S family!

Cold play

Today we had a very nice brunch with mima and papa; O was particularly excited to taste some of their yummy Keurig hot chocolate, which was supercharged by adding both whipped cream and sprinkles. Then Meh and we parted ways, with her heading to work and the boys and I off to run a brief errand to pick up groceries. Of course it's never a "brief" errand with the boys, and they were wild enough (thankfully at least sitting still long enough to accept and devour free chocolate chip cookies from the grocery store's bakery) that we clearly needed to find someplace to go burn off energy afterwards. Lately I've been walking them up to Z's elementary school -- the dual benefits of them actually walking (exercise) and going to a playground without swings (more exercise; they're guaranteed to be doing more than just sitting there while I push them) has made it an attractive option. I've also mentioned O's renewed interest in his tricycle, so off the three of us went.

It was, shall we say, an adventure. O continued to want full independence on the tricycle (except when he didn't), and Z wasn't always interested in holding my hand. Somehow we arrived at the park at roughly the same time, at which point the boys ran around like wild men before it was time for snack. I miscalculated just how cold it's gotten; while the boys were fine with their heavy shirts and (somewhat light) jackets, I was freezing. Of course this meant it was time for an extra-leisurely snack. The boys found it super funny when I huddled way down in my jacket -- hah hah. Anyway, some more play time warmed us up, though it was finally time to head back home. Again, getting both boys to head the same direction and rate of speed was a bit of a challenge.

Friday night was the Seattle opening of my friend J's film, and I was excited to be able to take Meh on a date to see it while the boys had a fun evening with their favorite sitter S (seriously -- Z just smiled and said "byyyyye mommy and daddy" when he saw her). I was rooting for a full audience, and was texting live attendance numbers to J as we counted down to showtime; in the end, the theater was at about 90% capacity, hooray! Meh was a big fan of the film itself, even though the theater had to do a restart after accidentally showing the first few minutes with a bunch of the frame clipped. As the end credits rolled, a huge cheer went up from behind us for the assistant editor credit; apparently he's got family and friends in Seattle. It was fun to see the film again on a big screen in my own town, and encouraging to see people flowing into the theater for the next showing as we headed out afterwards. Congrats again to J!

Play Date

With the weather beginning to turn cold and wet, it's important to be consistently expanding the repertoire of kid-friendly entertainment options. Meh had work today, so it was time to find a choice that involved an at least mildly constrained/enclosed play space. Enter this epic indoor playground with attached hipster-friendly food service (something seems inherently wrong about a playground serving craft beers, but who am I to complain?) and big screen TVs broadcasting college football, and we had a winner.

The source of the recommendation was even able to join us, as O's class friend J came out for play time with his dad M. (J had been talking about bringing O here for some time.) Needless to say, big win; the boys could hardly be bothered to sit for food, preferring to run, climb, hop, nest (Z found a particularly isolated corner of a giant tunnel; it took me a few minutes to relocate him, though when he spotted me he smiled and talked about daddy in the tunnel), and pneumatically launch foam balls at each other and other crazy kids. Here's a video I grabbed; somehow the audio didn't make it onto Flickr, but I'm sure you can imagine the placid quiet that would accompany this scene: I'm off to Los Angeles this evening for two (no, make that three) conferences. The boys were a bit concerned to hear that I'd be gone (Meh perhaps more so?), though O was quick to add that I should bring them back presents of chocolate. Time will tell.

Working for peanuts

A blissfully empty day in the family schedule, and we tried to take full advantage of it. O really wanted to "go to the mall", so we decided to take the boys to at least a different mall with a new play area. Foiled again -- the play area was torn up for remodeling (though hey, at least there was an indoor crane there to look at). On the plus side, opposite the play area was the Lego store, so we went in there and browsed. The boys were super excited by all of the Lego vehicles (Meh made me promise not to look at one particular section, where I suspect a potential Chanukah present lives), and there were several tables/stations for making your own inventions as well.

Mommy had some clothes to return/exchange, and it was still a few minutes before the restaurants would open for lunch (at 11 am mind you), so we wandered outdoors to some of the fun fountains -- the boys enjoyed watching the water sprays, but were clearly very focused on mommy coming back. We had a very nice lunch at an old standard. Then O and Z clearly still needed to burn off some energy, so we headed up to a favorite park for some exercise time. Granted, park activities generally end in more parent than kid exercise (pushing on swings, holding them up on zip lines, spinning the boys as they sit on merry go rounds, etc.) -- but still, somehow they usually seem more tired afterwards; go figure.

O has recently rediscovered our big wheels style tricycle, and has been asking us to clear the garage of vehicles so he can drive it around a bit. Since the weather was actually decent if still a bit wet, and the boys clearly had even more energy, we opted to walk up to Z's elementary school playground when we got home. O rode the tricycle, and alternated between peddling like a mad man and "letting" me help push him. He was very concerned that I not even touch the push handle if he could make forward progress solo. Anyway, when we got to the playground, the boys had a fabulous time -- Z kept talking about "recess", and really enjoyed pushing his brother around on the tricycle. Plus there weren't any spectacular crashes or wipeouts, so I'll call it a win.

The day wrapped up with dinner at another of the boys' newer favorite restaurants. Z continues to improve his reading, and at this restaurant it's particularly challenging to identify which of the many signs he might be sounding out at a given time (the walls are covered with large font reviews of the restaurant). Today he was working his way through announcing that "burgers are boss" -- while happily munching on a giant hot dog. In the meantime, O was having a wonderful time and making a spectacular mess shelling and eating peanuts. I still haven't gotten him to actually try the restaurant's tasty-looking grilled cheese sandwich, but it's a bit alarming just how many of their tasty french fries he can consume. Hooray for full family days!

How do you like them apples?

Friends J and S and their kids L and E invited us to go apple-picking this weekend, at the same place where Z took his first bite of an actual non-sliced-up fruit about three years ago. Meh unfortunately had to work, but I got the kids into the car with snacks and road trip music (it's about an 80-minute drive to the U-Pick apple orchard) in hand. O promptly conked out, so Z and I chatted about all of the fun things that we saw -- there was a parked classic steam locomotive, a building that looked like a crane (it was, appropriately enough, a crane supply/rental shop -- a ton of them were parked behind it), a car repair shop with a tiny old Fiat up on the room, the largest telephone pole either of us had ever seen, and an alarmingly large collection of drydocked boats spanning several miles of the highway.

O had perfect nap timing, waking up as we pulled into the farm. It was much the way we remembered it -- the boys even played on the same pink toy tractor that Z had on our last visit. (Despite the suggestion from the picture, O was not particularly unhappy about Z's turn; he was just waking up.) Then it was time to pick some apples!

The weather was glorious -- 75 degrees in October? The kids got a ride in the cart (which we promptly dumped at the first row of the orchard), and Z helped push. It's a bit later in the season this time, so some of the apple trees were already bare. Others had dropped *lots* of fruit, and what I thought might be a couple of flies turned out to be giant swarms of very happy bees. We gingerly stepped through and found apples to eat and to bring home for snacks and lunches (I put one in the boys' lunch today). Z found one particular apple that he was sampling for the better part of an hour. Then there was a hay ride. Well, the hay wagon part anyway; I think they do rides around Halloween. The boys had a great time; it took forever to coax them back out to help us pick out a pumpkin to bring home.

To wrap things up, they were pouring glasses of fresh apple cider; O was thrilled to sip one ("It's like apple juice. Only warmer.") on the walk back to the car. As we got into the car and buckled up, I told O about all of the fun stuff Z and I had seen on the drive up. He didn't believe me that he'd fallen asleep and taken a nap through it all, so I had to basically call out all of the landmarks in reverse as we drove home. He'd excitedly say "Oh! I *do* see that!", then immediately demanded I let him know what the next thing was that we'd see. Tourist.

More pics here.

Pedestrian effort

On weekends that mommy works, my goal is generally to find us at least one major activity a day - sometimes it's errands, when the weather cooperates we'll try to go to the park, when it's pouring rain (more often than not in the last few days, though today was thankfully beautiful) we'll find some kind of indoor play area. Yesterday was fairly typical -- the always energy-burning fun of the local mall play area followed by distracting O from the evil/brilliantly positioned cupcake shop right across from it, and completed with a sushi lunch (the waiter there knows us so well that he always concludes the meal with "See you again [insert arbitrary day of the week]!"

With the weather back to sunny for today, after dropping off mommy, I decided it was time to get back outdoors while we could (and O agreed, he wanted to "go to a park we haven't been to before"). So we drove over to the rarely visited Kelsey Creek park and farm. After playing on their playground for a few minutes, we hiked up to the farm proper and got to visit with some sheep, chickens, roosters, bunnies (all grazing and/or drinking water, but ignoring us), and a couple of sleeping pigs. Then Z was hiking away from us and I saw some goats and a horse down the path, so I figured sure, we'll follow him and visit with those animals. Then he kept hiking and suddenly we were on a trail. Again, I figured it was probably some kind of loop through the park (I'd checked a few maps beforehand and saw a pair of less-than-one-mile loops), and Z did an awesome job of sounding out the trail signs to see where we should go next. Alas, O wasn't quite as into the hike as Z, frequently panting dramatically and saying he was getting too tired -- so there was a fair amount of piggy backing. Anyway, we were gradually ascending alongside the creek, and eventually Z read a sign that put us .1 miles from the road that bounds the park. I figured there would be a bench or something there and we'd just stop for a snack then walk back along the road until we could cut back in on another path. Nope -- no benches, and no more trails as we proceeded to walk the southern circumference of the park back to the entrance. I've roughly estimated that we did a 2.5 mile hike -- not bad for Z, and even O was down and walking a fair bit. What I'd forgotten was that this road is pretty much a high speed divided highway; thankfully there was a wide sidewalk for most of it, which provided immense entertainment for Z as he kept turning around to catch vehicles whizzing past. We eventually did just camp out in a shady spot on the sidewalk, where the boys proceeded to devour the entire stock of snacks contained by the backpack. Hiking is hard work! Anyway, an unexpected but all in all successful adventure; we returned to the park where the boys insisted on playing on the playground once more before we finally headed back to the car and then home for some chill time before mommy was done with work. Hooray for positive outdoor experiences, even accidental ones!

School lunch

First day of school! This year, both boys were off to class this morning. Kind of a stuttering start to the school year since Thursday and Friday are Rosh Hashana, but at least there are a few days to start to get acclimated to the classroom, meet teachers and new friends, and in general start to get back into the fall swing of things. For Z, we were mildly unprepared by the bus actually being early (same driver as last year; her voicemail had even said "hooray!", as Z is one of her favorite kids to pick up), since driver V had warned us she'd probably be pretty late on the first day. Still, we managed to throw on Z's clothes and new raincoat (as if on cue, the weather flipped to rain today) and get him out the door and onto the bus in time to head out. He brought home a nicely colored first day picture, signed with his name -- and he'd then continuing on around the perimeter of the paper to count the numbers up to 20 - now he's just showing off!

O in the meantime had an excellent first day at preschool. He comes in knowing two friends (and actually one of the teachers was a counselor at Z's camp this summer), and in the picture they e-mailed back after day 1, he was happily chowing down on apples and honey and then sitting with friend A watching one of the teachers read a book. But when we asked him what his favorite part of his first day was, it was his "special lunch"; mommy made him a sandwich shaped like a school bus, and he was apparently exclaiming about it for the rest of the day. He at the whole thing "but not the crusts", as he told us later in the day. Z's similar school bus sandwich didn't get nearly the ecstatic verbal reception, but his lunch container similarly came home nearly empty. Happy first day to everyone!

Plane Fun

On our drive up to Whidbey last week, we passed some signage for both a Future of Flight museum and, oddly enough, a nearby Historic Flight museum. I hadn't recognized the names (I later figured out that the former is the rebranded Boeing Tour), but knowing the boys' interest in "visiting the Museum of Flight another time", I figured I better store these away. Sure enough, this week Meh stumbled upon an announcement for Vintage Aircraft Weekend, where they would be flying a number of classic World War II planes. The pictures alone were enough to convince me that I had to take the boys; there were images of fields and runways filled with planes that you could walk right up to. Meh was off to a choir retreat, which was going to pose a challenge if this show was anything like the don't-touch-a-vehicle experience of the recent car show. Thankfully Mima was up for the adventure, and the four of us headed out early this afternoon.

The drive was shockingly short (I really need to try to explore to the north more often), and we were parking in a grass field in no time. O was initially conked out (fighting a cough and cold), but when I transferred him to the stroller, he woke up to ask me why, then waited for me to stroll him up the bumpy steep hill before bailing out and declaring he didn't want to use it anymore. Mima and the boys waited in line while I took the stroller back to the car.

Once we got inside, I knew this was going to be a winner with the boys: there were planes right inside of the door to look at (along with a bunch of aircraft artifacts and a video lecture going on at the other end of the building), and the hangar doors wide open to the outdoors, where there were all of the boys' favorites: classic cars, a giant classic red fire truck, go carts, a whole row of military vehicles, and yes, planes! We must've walked up to more than forty planes in all, and the boys got to sit in a little one themselves. And did I mention the two bounce houses, both of which were nearly unoccupied when we got there? And the announcement that the air exhibition would be beginning 15 minutes later? Suffice it to say the boys had an excellent time, as did we; snack time up on a hill watching planes taking off and making passes of the runway, bagpipers marching around, multiple trips to the bounce house, and walking down amongst the planes and along the runways to watch the big bombers and fighter planes take off and land. More pictures here; alas, looks like at some point during the visit (or perhaps under Z's watch during his photo shoot last week?) the lens developed a scratch.