Easter eggs, jumbo elephants and Big Jet

We had another fun-filled Saturday this weekend. We started off with an Easter egg hunt at the church with the Primary. At first, Reese just wanted to eat each piece of candy as she got it, but with my gentle encouragement, she eventually got the hang of it. It's amazing how a race against the clock (and other kids) for some candy can bring your competitive edge right out!

Unfortunately, we've got some work to do to get quicker hands before next year, as you'll see in the video.

I was really ticked that this kid practically took the Easter egg out of Reese's hand (taking candy from a baby, hello?!), but I was pretty proud that it didn't seem to phase Reese.

After the Easter egg hunt, we headed to Maxwell Air Force Base for an air show. My Uncle Pat was a pilot for the Air Force (and even did some time in Montgomery, if I'm not mistaken), and took me to an air show when we lived in San Diego. I remembered it being really fun, but I guess the memory of exactly how cool it was had waned. When we first walked into the base, and saw a fighter jet doing some serious moves (at one point it looked like it was about 5 feet off the ground--surely it was about to land, we thought--and then went straight back up, literally straight up) I was totally overwhelmed....like it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

We walked around a bit before the next act...and saw some pretty cool planes...

...then we saw the C-130 Hercules dropping supplies...

...some more walking around...next time I am getting one of these for Reese!

Then it was time for the F-18 Super Hornet. It was so awesome! I could watch that jet fly all day long. The F-18 flew back and forth as fast as it could go, then it would go straight up until you could almost not see it anymore. It would roll, and turn. Then it did this maneuver...
...it flew across the air, with its nose up in the air at an angle, and looked like it was flying very slowly. It was so crazy! I realize these videos don't even come close to doing it justice, but it was the best I could do with my camera.

I'm not sure if you can tell, maybe if you look really closely, but the F-18 is inverted in this fly-by. Just like Top Gun!!

...it was a little loud, with all those fly-by's. There is a 'character' on Little Einsteins called Big Jet. Once Reese made the connection that this was a real-life Big Jet, she loved it!

This is an F-22. There was a pilot standing by this jet answering questions, and I was very interested to hear what he had to say. But, I couldn't think of any intelligent questions to ask--I was in total awe--so I just listened to him answering other people's questions and it was as though he was speaking another language...'Alpha' this and 'vector' that. I had no idea what he was talking about...but I just stood there smiling. Ultimately, the gist I got was that he could tell the plane what maneuver he wanted to do, and the plane would do all the necessary calculations and adjustments to make it happen. Sounds easy!

As if we could cram any more fun into this day, we left the air show and went straight to the Ringling Bros. circus! I just knew Reese would love it...and she did, mostly! The highlights for Reese, I would say, were the jumbo elephants and the lions, and all the sparkly costumes on the acrobats. (Oh, and the Dippin' Dots she got in the white tiger mug!) The humor from the clowns was a little over her head. We were all pretty exhausted by the time we got home, but it sure was another fun Saturday! (I'm not sure if we will be able to keep this pace up!)