Memorial Day Planes

We had planned on today just being a run of the mill Monday for us, but Hubby has a pretty hectic work schedule coming up, so he decided to take Memorial Day off.

We live in a very neat area if you are an aviation fanatic, which my husband is.  We have an Air Force base, a huge bone yard for old airplanes and a very large air and space museum.

The weather here has also been absolutely amazing for this time of year.  We had to put up with a lot of wind to get it, but this will probably be the last bearable weather we'll have for 4 or 5 months.  So, Hubby thought it would be an appropriate day to head over to the air and space museum.

The girls mostly just wanted to find all of the airplanes they were allowed to climb in, but we did our best to give them some idea of what they were looking at.  Hubby did most of that.  I may as well have been looking at Swahili because I don't know anything about airplanes.  I did, however, love to hear everything Hubby knew.  Just don't quiz me.

There were actually a couple of really neat moments that came together based on a few things we've been doing.  This is one of the things I absolutely LOVE about homeschooling.  I know everything she is learning about and get to give her more information when we are out experiencing "real life".

We came up on one particular plane from WWII that was painted to be camouflaged in a forest.  For the past two weeks we have been looking at different types of ways animals camouflage themselves.  We came up on the display and I asked Mooky what they were trying to show here that we had been learning about.  She knew it was camouflage.

Then Hubby explained that this particular plane was used by the Germans to bomb England.  We had just watched the movie "Molly, an American Girl on the Home Front".  We were able to explain to the girls how this plane was from the war that Molly's father was in.  The movie also featured a little girl from England who was sent to live with this family in America after her apartment was bombed.  It was really neat to be able to show them what they had just learned a little about.

It was also a neat Memorial Day trip because we were able to explain to them that most of the planes there were used by the military to help keep us safe and what Memorial Day was all about.

Mooky added air traffic controller to her very long list of future careers.

 We were showing the kids how the wheel was bigger than them.  Pumpkin is making a strange face because she is scared.  Although she is small enough to walk under most everything, she kept crouching down like she was afraid something was going to fall on her. 

Me in front of Hubby's favorite plane, the P-51.

One other funny thing the girls did.  Hubby showed them the HUGE air intake on one of the planes.  He told them if they were standing in front of it when the plane turned on they would get sucked in.  Well, that was all they needed to hear.  From then on they were afraid the airplanes could turn on and every time they felt air conditioning blowing on them they freaked out.  Ah, good times.

A big thank you to each and every one of you that have served and sacrificed to keep our country safe!  Happy Memorial Day!