Well I wasn't REALLY playing hookey from work, but I did take the afternoon off on Friday to get the boys early and take them for some good airplane fun. In the building I work in, they have a very cool museum called the Prologue Room, which highlights Boeing's years of Aviation innovation. There is at least 200 models of our products, past and present that are really cool to look at and read about. In the summer's this museum is open to the public, so we decided to check it out.
The boys ready to rock, E's even got the fighter jet shirt on!
That's a huge Blue Angel!
The pictures really don't do it justice, there are planes EVERYWHERE....
See.
The boys couldn't stop looking around...
Here's a replica/engineering article from one of the space missions, think this is Mercury
Not much room in there...
Aid posing by the Airliner collection. I'm sure he'd love to have one of these in his room.
Lots of jets we make/made...
Mookie had to have his picture by the space capsule...maybe these guys will be astronauts one day?
Another fixture used for the Mercury Space Program.
After having lunch with Mommy on Friday, I took a different way back to work and found this little gem along the way.
Holy Cow it's MATER!! Pretty darn good version if I'd ever seen it. I took the boys by, they loved it. If your looking for it in St. Louis, it's on the east side of Lindbergh, just before Page Avenue. It sits out there all day. Smiling.
Nice tow truck!
Now as some of you know, we have two very different boys when it comes to eating. One will eat just about anything; sushi, shrimp, lobster, crab legs, etc. The other will eat only chicken fingers (from select places: Wendy's, Chic-fil-A, Smashburger), yogurt and strawberries (that's about it folks). Aidan of course is the eater and Mooks is the non-eater. But tonight, we found a sweet spot for both...
At dinner, just back from the pool (which explains the "no shirt"), Aidan again professed his love of edamame (or shelled soybeans). He ate about half of that bowl...kid loves edamame. Just steamed with salt, nothing else. And....
That Mookie LOVES freeze dried mangoes from Trader Joe's. He'd eat the whole bag if we gave it to him! So funny!
That's all for tonight, another busy week ahead. Thanks for reading.
Oh my goodness it rained! Sunday all morning! Amazing!
The first time we've seen real measurable rain full out rain in forever....we got so excited, we told the boys to put on their swimsuits and go out and play (Yes Grammies, there was no lightning around). They had a blast!
Playing in the rain!
Driving Monster Trucks around the table in the rain...how fun?
So the powers that be told me on Wednesday that I had to be in Seattle on Friday for a meeting, led to an impromptu trip to Seattle last week. I can't say it was the most valuable use of my time, but none-the-less, it wound up with two very nice pictures. The first was sunset from the back porch of Charlies at Smuggler's Cove, a cool little restaurant in Mukilteo, Washington. The sun set quickly over Whidbey Island and then it got cold! Like 50's. We haven't seen 50's in St. Louis since March...
Taken with my BlackBerry camera, not bad really...
Next up, I had to get back to STL on Friday, but our meetings went until after noon. This meant taking the last possible flight out of Seattle to get me back to STL. That flight leaves at 415PM and got in at 130AM Saturday. A grueling long flight that first took us to Las Vegas and then to STL. But alas, the route to Vegas produced another amazing photo. This is Mount Rainier. One of the largest volcanoes (dorment of course) in the world. If this bad bow blows, say goodbye to much of the southern part of Seattle, as lava flow and moreover lahars (moving mud, lava and melted glacier water) would flood many of the rivers that flow into Puget Sound. I read today that the peak used to be over 16K feet tall, but an eruption knocked off the top couple thousand feet. In any case, it was stunning to see from the air. I took tons of pictures, and even took pictures for my row mates on the plane.
Since I went to Vegas, I had to get the boys something...and although that airport is dirty and gross (both in people and physical terminal), I found some dice lollipops that hit the spot!
Saturday morning we also finished up the aircraft carrier 3D puzzle that Grandpa John got Aid...pretty darn cool I'd say!
Saturday night we all sat down and cheered on the USA (with the shirts to show it) in the Olympics. The boys really like watching diving (huh, wonder why)....oh and the little kids jumping on the beds in the Opening Ceremony...they can't get enough of watching that over and over.
Finally tonight, we were working with Aidan on some space flashcards that Mommy picked up at Target (he got 32 of 36 right, including an "Eagle Nebula", whatever that is) and for a prize, each correct answer got him (and his brother) a little piece of Aunt Natalie's favorite.....Astronaut Ice Cream! Ethan then busted into full dance mode, fueled by freeze dried ice cream. It was HILARIOUS!!
We better watch out for this one, he's going to be the life of the party!
Yes seriously, we've been out-to-lunch. For weeks it seems...sorry.
Let's do a "do over" and get back in action.
Fourth of July 2012 will go down as one of the hottest weeks of temperatures in the history of St. Louis. It was easily 104-109F for 6 out of 7 days around the 4th, which made just about everything, even swimming at Old Hickory, unbearable. Luckily for us, Grammy T came into town and got to do some fun "inside" things with the boys, including going to the library (twice!), Chuck-E-Cheese and going to the Magic House.
Thank you Grammy for hanging out with the boys, I'm sure both you and they loved every second of it.
Unfortunately I hardly got any pictures of Grammy's visit, we were just having too much fun to stop and take pics, oh well...
Here's the fourth, Grammy got to go with us to our nice pool and hang out all day in the sun! We had lunch there, did jumps and rested and relaxed on our day off.
Grammy and Mooks!
And with the big guy, goggles on and ready to swim!
Now, if you remember back in past years (not last year because I was at Uncle Aaron's wedding), I've tried to describe in words how freakin' crazy people are around our neighborhood with fireworks. Well this year I capped some video and you'll see and hear why we never feel the need to go to "professional" fireworks...they're just all around us, from the comfort of our own driveway.
Absolutely nuts...nutty.
Speaking of nutty, that AP just sat on the warm driveway and took it all in!?! Crazy dog, Firework Dog!
So Mommy and I worked on Thursday and Friday, but Grammy and the boys played. Our guys love PlayDoh, and if you even hint at playing, they're all over it.
It helps too that Santa brought them some cool PlayDoh toys...:)
Saturday was our last full day with Grammy and it was too hot for the pool so we opted for Chuck's. The boys had a great time with all the games and won some fun stuff too, courtesy of Daddy's right boot...keep reading :)
That's a winnner!
Squirt racin' away!
Now the story of the moment. So there is this game, Chuck E's Penalty Shot. If you look above, there is a ball on a stick that comes down and you kick it. The harder you kick it the higher the score you get. SOOOOOOO.....the game stinks for little kids because you only get 2 measly tickets for kicking the ball UNLESS you get the top score. That's where Daddy comes in. So I kicked it once, got 873 and got the number of tickets that you saw two pictures above Aidan and Ethan holding. Then I kicked it this time above and got 888. Now there must be something funny coded in the game when you get 888 because it kept spitting out tickets like crazy....like wicked crazy. All said and done, 112 tickets for one Daddy boot of the ball. Very cool...and I did it in loafers...mondo cool. I thought I broke the machine and it just surrendered all it's tickets...bow before me Chuck-E-Cheese Penalty Shot machine....:)
So after that fun it was back to the house and off to a great dinner at Bristol's to celebrate family one last time with Grammy for this trip. Can't wait to see you again Grammy T!
Sunday was funday as we still hadn't celebrated Ethan's birthday with Auntie Elizabeth. Things have been so busy that we just didn't have time to catch up. Luckily for us, they were ready and the boys were ready for some more swimming!
Auntie E's is the place for some good ol RC Boating...
Both boys did great!
We also finally got to get out Aunt Natalie's fun present for Ethan, the blow up Basketball set!
Ethan got serious brave and just started jumping in the pool with no one to catch him and completely submerged his face! Awesome buddy! I believe the jumping words are, "All the Do Da Day!"
After swimming it was pizza, presents, and cake....
As you all know, E LOVES GIRAFFES!
There's even one on his hybrid birthday cake!!
Thank you Auntie E, Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Bill-Bill and Aunt Janet!
Fast forward one week to Friday night, the start of the St. Joe Parish Festival where Aidan heads to school 4 weeks from Thursday (damn!!). A thunderstorm had blown through right before the start and cooled temps to only in the upper 70s which made it a very pleasant time. The boys rode their favorite rides, had a snow cone and even listened (and danced) to the live band. It was great!
All aboard the scary Chinese Clown Train!
Waiting for the carousel and the....
GIRAFFE!!!!
Yummmmmm that snow cone is the best!
Takin' in the live show by "Short Term Memory"?, they were OK. Check out Aidan's Papa Smurf, he won it by correctly guessing where the wheel would stop in one of the games...awesome dude!
That's all for tonight, sorry I'm so behind. Lots of travel and busy things going on. It's going to get worse too with the big guy in Kindergarten...we'll do our best!!!
The hottest temperatures of our lives this week in St. Louis. Temps easily reached 108 to 109F in St. Louis, setting records and making things generally unbearable for everyone. Good thing the A/C is working and that we've got a place to spend our days....the pool.
I'll tell you, it is remarkable how great Aidan has gotten swimming over the course of this summer. From 2 blocks to 1 block now to nearly not needing any swim blocks, that kid is a dolphin! Ethan too, getting better and better with water in his face and today just starting ripping off huge jumps off the side of the pool with no reservations!
I used the burst setting on our camera to catch these three action shots:
E loved jumping off the side today...was awesome to watch and hear his excitement!!
Today was a banner day, I taught Aid how to do a "genie" (see above)....
...and a "sleeping genie". Both executed awesomely by the big guy!
Big landing....
Another new dive, "the cannonball"
Big Mookie jump!
And a video of the big guy....
And one for Mommy's little sidekick...listen for the squeal of pure joy! :)
That's all for tonight!
Can't wait for the holiday...and Grammy T too!
Have a great night,
Ty, Emmy, Dolphins Aidan and Ethan
