(Note: I redid this FIVE times and it still has the pictures and words all lined up weird, and refuses to put a space in between my paragraphs at the beginning. I have no idea why, but obviously it isn't going to work correctly so I give up. It also doesn't show two of the pictures I uploaded. Don't know where those disappeared to in cyberspace but they're gone. Maybe this is blogging karma coming to punish me for ignoring it for too long!) I have been seriously slacking in my blogging lately. You know it's bad when your last post was four months ago! Joining facebook has sometimes made my blogging seem redundant. But I definitely miss being able to tell the whole story and not be bound by maximum character number restraints. Fitting everything I want to say inside that tiny box can sometimes be a challenge for someone like me. We'll just call me someone with a love of words. That sounds much nicer than some of the other descriptors for a person who enjoys talking. I'm sure my husband sometimes wishes he could honestly tell me "you say it best when you say nothing at all". Really though, I'm not giving him the credit he deserves. He's very good at letting me gab away and then responding with more than just a nod or a single word. I'm blessed with a husband who actually enjoys talking with his wife. But I digress, this isn't supposed to be about what a great husband I have. Even though it's true! A few weeks ago I was able to take the boys to the Luke Days airshow. It was my first time there and I'm so glad we went. Unfortunately dad didn't get to come with us because he had to work. But we got to take our best bud Shell, and met up with Uncle Gary, Aunt Sissy, and the cousins while we were there. It was a long day and all of the kids, except the oldest, ended up in tears at least once but we still had a good time. And even took some naps in spite of all the noise. I of course in my hurry to leave left my camera on the kitchen counter, but luckily Shell saved the day and got some cute pictures of the kids since I was ill prepared. We started out here in a very long line waiting to get through security into the base. Not only did that take forever, but I forgot I had a tiny kids backpack in the bottom of the stroller from church and since the rule is NO backpacks they threw it in the trash at the entrance. I was a little annoyed by that, but guess not much I could do about it. Although dad later said I should've called him and one of his buddies would've come and taken it for me to give him later. Easton was a little stressed they threw his bag away, but he didn't freak out which was good. They also tried to throw away all my food for the baby, including the plastic containers it was stored in (that was a little much I thought) because no outside food or drink. But their online rules specifically said you could bring in food for infants. I had to put my foot down on that one and they finally let me keep it. Then later we saw people who had packed sandwiches and brought them in. Guess we picked the wrong entrance line!

When we FINALLY made it inside we found our friends and set up chairs where we would watch the show. This is a helicopter that did some amazing tricks. He's even upside down here. Which was pretty cool considering how much power it takes to turn back around compared to an airplane.

Trying to keep Asher's ears covered was pretty much futile. He didn't care for the earmuffs, or the earplugs we tried later. He had his tongue out in almost every picture. (He got a new tooth the next day so he was constantly moving his tongue and lips over the spot where it was about to come through.) Still cute even with the long tongue action. All the kids had these earplugs at first, but Easton couldn't keep them in his ears so we eventually swapped them for the earmuff style which he thought were pretty sweet. They were obviously pretty effective since he napped in that chair during some of the loudest parts of the show. I love the skinned knees. He was bouncing around all over the place that day and kept falling on the asphalt, and went home with skinned knees and hands as souvenirs. The boys got antsy during the show so Shell and I took them to see the airplanes. They LOVED being able to touch them and even go inside some. Here we are waiting in line to see an F-16. The line only had about 5 people ahead of us when we got in it, but it took almost an hour to see the cockpit. The pilot literally talked to each person for 15-20 minutes each. It was awful, but the boys were set on seeing the inside of that plane so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves in line. This is us jumping and spinning in circles. It entertained us and the others in line with us :) After jumping got tiring (for me!) the boys got their turn with the camera. They got several interesting shots, including these of each other. (In the background of this one you can see the very wordy pilot) And I'll end with another of the cool stunts they did for us at the show. This was awesome, one plane flying upside down over the other in perfect formation the entire time. Definitely a good day!