Air Show in Altus!

The base hosted another air show this weekend. We had one here two years ago, but this year the Thunderbirds were scheduled to be there. Fun! Of course, they showed up a day early to practice, so we had a sneak preview of their performance on Saturday. The girls spent the rest of the weekend pretending that they were Thunderbirds. I even had to intervene in their play once to confirm that yes, girls can in fact be Thunderbirds.

The day of the air show Phil dropped by our friends' house to retrieve some chairs they'd borrowed and discovered that they had a real life Thunderbird pilot at their house! Yep, #5 pilot Rick was there -- it's a small Air Force and everybody knows everybody else and he's a great friend of our friends. Who knew? Phil took the girls over there to meet him and they were completely star-struck. He was really nice about posing for pictures and was great with the kids.

It really made the performance special, and the kids kept waving at their new friend. Plus we got to sit in the special "Thunderbirds VIP section" for a little shade during the air show -- our friends had a few extra tickets so we jumped on the opportunity.

Turns out Rick is the lead solo pilot, so he gets to do the upside-down flying, and other neat-o stunts. He told the girls that he would do a REALLY loud fly-by, but that it was a surprise so they couldn't tell us parent-types. They were so excited when he went buzzing by! Claire whipped right around and said, "Mommy, THAT was the surprise!" And several kids around us (who weren't in on the surprise) started crying. It was pretty loud!

The day of the air show was absolutely perfect: big blue skies, a few white puffy clouds, and lots of Oklahoma wind to keep us from getting too hot. ;)

Claire even made sure to tell the folks around us during the C-17 demo that her Daddy "used to fly C-17s!"

(Click the pics for bigger, more, and a movie, too!)