Tuesday, July 18, 2006

So why am I singing "Love Shack"

"Got me a car, it's as big as a whale and I'm about to set sail." Click on images to view larger. Notice the circled area, it is the tires seen in the second photo.
A contingent of the Wyoming cousins came to visit today, and we currently have a house full of boys. My two sons, ages 11 and 7 have boy cousins ages 13, 8 and 4. The lone girl is the same age as my oldest son, and she doesn’t appear to be at all out of place among all the males.
The family has been here a few days visiting several relatives and hitting a few popular spots along the way. They have been to Lagoon, a regional amusement park, and Temple Square, as well a visiting our small aquarium.
So DH and I were obliged to find them something new, exciting and different in the way of entertainment. We chose the Hill Aerospace Museum.
According to one of the web sites, “Currently the Museum exhibits over 80 military aircraft, missiles, and aerospace vehicles on the grounds and inside the Major General Rex A. Hadley Gallery and the Lindquist Stewart Fighter Gallery. The museum collection also includes a wide variety of ordnance, an assortment of aerospace ground equipment, military vehicles, uniforms, and thousands of other historical artifacts.”
http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/info/museum.htm
This fairly dry little description fails to mention the museum is very close to nirvana for men and boys. My L was thrilled the second he spotted the extra-large cargo craft by the front door. Before long he was spouting statistics to his girl cousin. He watches the History channel a lot, and remembers what he sees.
A decided this was a cool place to be when we watched a film depicting cluster bombs blowing up tanks. The boy loves to see things blow up or explode.
They all had a great time with the hands on exhibits. Who can fault a place that lets you put on a fighter jacket and sit in a cockpit?
My brother’s L was rather interested in the ammo, and he was fascinated by the computer flight simulator.
(These may look like photos of the same child, but actually they are four years apart. They are just wearing matching outfits)
While we were there DH called his brothers and told them they had to come visit the museum the next time they were in town. I actually had a good time, too. I had my camera and several fun subjects to shoot, of course. But I was also really interested in the B-52 bomber and some of
the stealth jets. Sister-in-law didn’t say much, but she did comment that her husband (my brother) would truly love the place, if only he could find it in his heart to leave his happy little Wyoming home and venture onto the evil freeways of Utah.
This crowd of cousins, plus the other A in Wyoming and Jake, Mace and Abby in Utah are such a fun little group. I am so pleased to see my boys enjoying their cousins. I only had one cousin, and she lived thousands of miles away. My one uncle (my father’s brother) married a woman in Kentucky during World War II and the brothers basically lost touch with each other.
It makes me incredible sad to think of Uncle Elmer and his life. I wish I had been given a chance to know him and his family better. I wish so many things for him.
Mostly I hope my boys don’t end up going their own separate ways, and continue the tradition of spending time together in a big ol’ happy family.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

those are the cutist pilots I have ever seen. I would have gone down to hot as he!! Utah with the fam but I was babysiting for DW while she was in Cheynne all last week to a workshop. I didn't think that since I just had four days off and there was a layoff at work the week before that I could just zip off to h@ll... I mean Utah for another four days. Besides I used up all my vacation time. I would truely have loved the museam and seeing you as well but all the other $#!t dosen't strike me as high times. The aquarium, OK, the traffic both vihicular and pedestrian, NO!, the -BQ, sure, seeing my wife more than two days in fourteen, great idea.
So when you were looking at the B-52 is that what inspired you start with the "love Shack" song?
Thanks for the picts of the kids.

Anonymous said...

What a lot of fun you had. I'll have to let G go there sometime when I have several hours I want to dedicate to complete boredom and walking for hours in the heat. I have basically had the experience at every car and/or air show I've been dragged to. The kids are cute though.