Someone suggested that I add some pictures to my blog. I guess my comments aren't very interesting, so the visuals are needed as a suppliment. Well, here's my first picture. This is three of my four kids standing next to a C-5 Galaxy at Hill Air Force Base. We spent today at the airshow that featured the Thunderbirds. We had a great time, but most of the pictures I have are of the static displays on the ground. I found that I am too slow on the trigger to get many pictures of the jets in the air, and when I do it is mostly by luck. You can hardly see my kids next to this behemoth.

Here we see Whitney Patrick and Samantha enjoying a sno cone hunkered down in the shade of an F-16. The air show featured all of the air power and might that the U.S. Air Force has to offer, and the thing that was most important to my kids was getting a sno cone. I wish my life was that uncomplicated...

Shortly after this picture was taken we lost Patrick. We were walking to see some other aircraft, and suddenly he was gone. I reported to the missing child booth and reported him while my brother kept looking. When the officer asked for a description I was embarrased when I had to say, "3 feet tall, 4 years old, wearing a ball cap that says, 'vote for pedro'..." A few minutes later my brother found Patrick, cool as a cucumber, still eating his sno cone. I doubt that P ever knew that he had been considered missing.

The first aircraft we saw at the show was the C-5, which I referred to as a 'monster'. Thereafter, whenever Patrick saw a big airplane he referred to it as a monster. Monkey see monkey do, I guess. Here is P Man standing in front of one of the monsters, a B-52 bomber.

I work for University of Utah Hospital, and as such, I see the AirMed helicopters take off and land every day. The bus stop just outside the hospital is right underneath the helipad. Just over a year ago I had the chance to ride along with the AirMed team. Having such close contact with AirMed I take them for granted. But when we got to the air show and Whitney saw that they were ther with one of their helicopters, (a Bell 420) she was insistent that we get a picture. She even arranged everyone to pose in front of the bird just how she wanted them.

You might have noticed a smudge on the left side of each of my pictures. I apologize for that. I did manage to get some pictures of the Thunderbirds. They put on quite a show.

But the most impressive part of the air show was the multi-generational fly by. At one point they had in the air a P-51 Mustang (Representing World War II) an F-4 Phantom (Vietnam) an F-16 Falcon (Cold War) and a brand new F-22 Raptor (The future) I can only imagine that the prop-driven P-51 had to have the pedal to the metal to keep in step with those jets. All in all it was a great day and everyone had a good time.