Dayton

Saturday we took the day off!  My brother in Pennsylvania was in Dayton and we decided to meet them there for the day.  My little niece, Mia, is 9 months old and I hadn't even met her yet (yes, I am aware that I haven't met another niece, but there isn't an ocean between me and Mia!)  The kids were ecstatic!  Miss Lilly was so excited that she literally was not able to control herself and we had to threaten, repeatedly, to stay home or turn the car around.  She could not contain herself!  Dayton is only a few hours away and has a really cool Air Force Museum that is FREE!  It was incredible, huge, amazing ... I think I could go back tomorrow and spend another two days there and not see the same things.  This is a picture of me and the kids with the Wright Brother's Airplane.

There are three huge hangers with actual full size airplanes, from the early planes, through all the world wars, and space rockets and even a stealth bomber, which was huge and incredibly cool.  My sister-in-law and I decided that there was nothing like this kind of a museum to remind us of how little we know about so many things! 

 Master S.  It was family day at the museum, so they had a lot of demos about torque, gyros, rattlebacks, and a special presentation on boomerangs from a boomerang world champion (who knew?!) ... he ate it up!

 Miss Lilly.  She was disturbed by all the 'pretend' people in and around the air planes.  I don't think they were wax, but she thought they looked real enough!

 This is the airplane that dropped one of the atomic bombs in Japan during WWII.  Apparently it landed in SLC because on the logo on the side it has Nagasaki on one side and SLC on the other (again, who knew?!).

 Cousins -- there just isn't anything in the world as great as cousins!

Big D and his cousin that just turned five ... they are almost the same size!

 Because this was an Air Force Museum, there were lots of things about famous war planes and the people who flew them.  My brother and I have a great uncle who flew in the Vietnam War and it was so cool to see his picture/story displayed in the Medal of Honor display.  I grew up hearing about this story and met Uncle Bernie several times, but it was different to see him honored in a place like this.  Made me realize what an incredible man he was and also remember the incredible people that I come from (yes, that means you Grandpa and Grandma!).

 Even more awesome, was they have the plane ... the actual plane that he flew ... the one that he rescued a fellow downed pilot in under enemy fire .. there at the museum, on display. 

 And the plaque on display tells his story.  Plus, after eating in the cafeteria there, we found a little kiosk that had video of him talking about that experience.  Which was really cool for the kids to see him talk about his experience.  He said more than once that he had a strong impression, despite being in a dangerous circumstances, that he needed to rescue this fellow pilot and that if he learned anything, that it was so important to follow through on those impressions.

It was a great Saturday!  Loved spending time with people that I love and miss.  We need to do that more often!  It was a good reminder that family, those here in our home, far away (even thousands of miles and oceans away) and those passed on (weather I knew them or not), make us who we are and continue to help us become who we are to be.  I am so grateful for FAMILY!