Garry, Kelly and Orson: Last Day of Summer

Boo Hoo!
In seven short hours it is officially over.
I am close to depressed.
I am overwhelmed at what needs to be done.
I am excited to meet new students.
I am looking forward to seeing my work friends everyday.
I will miss spending the days with my boys most of all.

I had this crazy itch to pack in as much as possible these last few days. We have been to the cowboy store (CAL-Ranch), Orson is now the proud owner of a howdy belt. We went to the Air Force Museum and saw the planes. Orson didn't want to leave the Learning Center, you can't blame him, it is pretty cool. They have flight simulators, toys, computers and cool dress-ups to put on:

There are these really, really cool men who are Museum volunteers. There is Kay, he greeted us as we walked into the first room of planes. He was a pilot during World War II. He learned to fly on planes like the two blue ones hanging in the hangar (silly me, I forgot the camera), the next plane in line was a fighter plane or twin engines. He chose the twin engines because he didn't like the idea of shooting people all the time. Instead he flew a transport plane. He dropped off in Southern France during Normandy, he said he was lucky to have missed that. All in all 20 combat missions.

Next we talked with a veteran who is an engineer. He worked on the engine design for the SR-71 Blackbird, one of 3500 engineers. It doesn't look like it could fly. It actually leaks fuel until it is in flight and heated up and then the plane actually expands 1 foot in length! There is this hall of fame highlighting pilots from UT, we learned that Senator Jake Garn is a retired Brigadier General with over 10,000 flight hours. Wow! That is like flying a 40 hour work week everyday for over 5 years.

Today we went to the beach (no surprise there). The kids would go there everyday I think. It is wonderful! They play and play, some fighting, but mostly they get along. Here are some pictures of our last beach day: