Cowboy Zebra

Today we went to McChord's first air show in three years. They had been too depleted due to Afghanistan and and Iraq, but are now able to put on shows again. McChord Air Force Base is roughly 30 minutes away from our house, down south through Tacoma in I-5. It's a beautiful place with Mt. Rainier in the background of every performance. The Thunderbirds were the show of the day, but they were preceded by all the standard things we've seen in Pensacola plus a few extra(B2 fly-by). The Air Force Skydiving team did several jumps at different altitudes from a C-17 Globemaster III, which was fairly impressive. The boys got to walk into the back of a C17, as well as tour several other planes and helicopters. My favorite was the F22 Raptor static displays. On Thursday the Raptors did a bit of showing off over downtown Seattle. Apparently they got a bit too boisterous with things around the Space Needle because the guy standing with the Raptor mentioned they were told to tone it down a bit. For me though, I enjoyed it shaking our building and causing most of my office to go outside and see a Raptor doing a high alpha flight over the West Seattle Bridge.

It was a sunny gorgeous day(eventually), but the boys were a bit tired so we headed to the parking lot early to watch the Thunderbirds from there and then to leave to beat traffic. 4.5 hours later we drove out the gate! Yes, after getting in the Tribeca we drove for about 100 yards and then stopped for four and a half hours. Apparently there were multiple wrecks somewhere in the area. For some reason it absolutely shut down the parking lot. After three hours they seemed to open an alternate route out but there wasn't anyone "directing", so it was basically left up to us drivers to form lines and find ways out. You know it's bad when the Air Force starts handing out water rations 4 hours in. So, we passed the time in the Tribeca in various ways. Several hikes to the port-a-potties were made before we finally made it out of the gate. I emailed their public affairs officer while we were waiting to get out. I received a response and am letting her know we enjoyed the show but I hope that they make contingency plans for the parking issues in the future.

His spidey-sense helps me win video games.

just slept the whole time. As long as she's being held, she's a happy camper! The hooterhider that Tamsey made for me also works perfectly for shading an infant on your lap!