Outings // Museum of Flight

Yesterday, directly from swim lessons, we went straight to the beach. The Blue Angels are in town for their annual SeaFair hurrah, and we wanted to make sure and catch their practice show.

Some friends met up with us at Madrona beach - it was the most crowded I've seen that little stretch of beach, ever. There were a ga-zillion boats out to enjoy the show, as well. Grown-ups sat in lawn chairs to watch up on the grass, and kids and their parents played in the sand and water while the Blue Angels soared above and before us. It was aaaahhhhmazing! And at times, breath-taking, as they reach speeds close to Mach 2. They boooom and zooom and leave your eardrums ringing!

After lots of fun in the sun, we went home for some naptime and then we went and picked Jacob up from work and headed down to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field.

(a passer-by offered to take a picture so I could join my family...and the kids faces are cracking me up...they are like - who's the strange dude saying "cheese"?)

Generally speaking, Sawyer is a HUGE fan of cars. After he saw the Blue Angels and it dawned on him that they are even faster than race cars...he is now a big fan of jets. Check him out below, can you tell he's trying to sound like a jet, himself?

And here's our little Aspen, inspired by the history at the Museum, to spread her wings, and fly :)

I think Jacob was pleasantly surprised at how awesome this museum is. (I think he was wishing we weren't chasing after two little busy-bodies so he could've read all of the signs, etc. It is really that cool!)

We crossed the sky bridge and went outside to see the Concorde and Air Force One. We made the kids wait in a long line to hop on board Air Force One and check it out. Sawyer wasn't super excited to wait in line. At least he got to see airplanes taking off and landing while we waited :)

Aspen wasn't thrilled about waiting, either. She kind of ran around and was entertainment for everyone else in line, which made her happy. She also loved to see (and hear) the planes taking off and landing.

I had promised Sawyer that we could stop by the gift shop on our way out, so he could see if they had any toy blue angels. We were having such a great time looking through one of the galleries, that all of a sudden a voice said "it is now 9pm and the museum will be closing"...so we booked it over to the gift shop - which wasn't letting anyone else in. After I asked, the woman at the door heard me trying to explain to Sawyer...that we couldn't go in...(she no doubt saw how upset he looked) and she said "hey, come here - I have 3 kids of my own and I understand the importance of keeping a promise". I could have hugged her to pieces (almost). She let us sneak by, and we quickly found a F/A-18 Hornet and of course we let Aspen pick out a plane, too - and bought them, and quickly made our way out the door. The kids held their planes in hand, making plane noises, all the way home. In fact, they both even slept with them last night.

Hooray for the Blue Angels. It was an awesome day.

And now, it's friday. Last day of swim lessons was this morning, and Daddy came to watch. This evening we are headed out to the Magnuson Park Amphitheatre to see Creme Tangerine, a great Beatles' cover band we try to see every summer. It's not as warm as yesterday, but we will bundle up a bit and enjoy a bit of dancing and our picnic as we listen to them play all of Abbey Road.

Happy Weekend, all!