.:Saturday, October 10, 2009:.
McEntire ANG Air and Ground Expo
| It's a drill weekend, which means that Jeff is working all weekend. This always sucks, but there were some HUGE bonuses and fallbacks to this particular weekend. Downfall? He had to be at work by 6:20am which meant leaving by 5:45am. Bonus? He only had to work until about 10am both days! YAY! So, we took sweet advantage of the air show drill weekend and joined him at McEntire at noon. Zoe was in Columbia watching the cross country meet and cheering on her team. She said that she didn't want to go to the air show unless Jeff was flying in it. Since he wasn't, we opted to go today while she was gone. Kolby immediately ran in to see all of the Army helicopters and tanks. I asked him which one he wanted to see first and he absolutely insisted on the Cobra! He thought those were the coolest things ever but was disappointed that he couldn't crawl up and into them! He also said that he was really, really thinking about becoming a Cobra pilot. I think dad was impressed with the whole pilot thing, but not so much the Cobra copter part! Tehehehe.  Jeff and Kolby both thought getting to see the real Friendship 7 was totally awesome! Kolby of course thinks that he could fly it easily!    Next came the tanks. Oh my goodness. Jeff and Kolby both climbed up on top of this one and I didn't think that they were ever going to come back down! Tehehehe.     While they were up there, a contractor did a demo in the F-16. Holy schmokes it was an awesome demo!     Behind the guns!   And then here are a few shots from a few of the other demos.     There was tons of food, but all Kolby could think about really was ice cream!  Here Kolby is trying on the G-Suit that dad has to wear everyday! The lady helping him was more than impressed that Kolby could take all of the pressure from the air pumping up and filling the suit. Natural pilot she said and told dad to bring Kolby into the shop so that he could try out more stuff! Needless to say, there was a little bit of flirting going on here!        Here we are waiting to go into one of Jeff's favorite (as a child of course) airplanes (the DC-3) and then once inside! He said that when he was a kid, he thought the plane looked oh so complicated with all of the switches and levers. Now he looks at it and thinks it looks really simple! Tehehe.    Then standing under the KC-135 to show how big the tires really are!  Kolby and Jeff were both really excited to try out the flying simulator.  Uh oh, I know this look!  HAHAHAHA! There it is! Jeff couldn't take it anymore, he just had to "help" Kolby out!  And yet another sim. This one was actually super cool AND it was for the close combat tanks! Kolby said it was like real life Halo! Tehehehe. And dad was super impressed too!     The F-22 Raptor had it's own HUGE trailor and a really cool little photo opp for the kiddos. I tried to talk Jeff into climbing in and taking a picture, but he opted out. *laughs* Kolby jumped right in though!    And of course, the demo that most impressed Kolby! Tehehehehe. This is the only one that he actually sat down and watched carefully!    The last stop of the air show was to get a close up of the F-22 Raptor. Kolby and Jeff alike were very, very, very excited about this one! We were all a little disappointed that they didn't do a demo with this jet!  Leaving the air & ground show, I had to take and share a picture of McEntire's new fixture at the gate. It was just completed and is one of the most awesome that we have ever seen!  |
