Busy, busy, busy

On Saturday, we went to an air force base nearby for their, er, open house. Well, that's what they call it. Okay, it translates exactly as "open days" but that makes no sense at all, translated. Thus: the Royal Dutch Air Force Open House.

Douwe and Daan had enough fun looking up at the planes and helicopters while standing in the parking lot nearby to last them a month; however, we drove there, might as well go in.

They had, I must say, several really excellently planned aspects of crowd control; and at least one very badly planned one. There was a lot of water everywhere, whch was good. There were a lot of first aid units available for people who did not drink the aforementioned and then walked several kilometers on an air force base in the beating hot sun where there is 1) absolutely no air conditioning; and 2) no shade anywhere except in the hangars which strongly resemble really big ovens. (The kids were thrilled each time -- "Look mom, an ambulance!" I think they thought it was part of the show.) * They had people in what I believe were marine uniforms stationed at the entrance with -- of all things-- huge bottles of sunscreen which they glopped into the hand of every person associated with a child and instructed them firmly to put it on the child. There is something to be said for having a really large uniformed person around to dispense the suncreen. I got Absolutely No backtalk about the sunscreen from my sons. Which is unusual. Maybe I should hire a retired marine to come round when we are going out.

Hey, Ernest was Air Force, now that I think of it. I wonder if his uniform still fits. Hmmm.

And they had these little (actually, they were pretty big) stickers which were put on the front or back of every child (depending on the tendency of the wearer to pull it off and throw it away) with the child's first name and the mobile number of the associated adult, which I thought was clever.

Yes, actually, both my kids had them on their backs between the shoulder blades, why do you ask?

Douwe looked at all the exhibits (which were in the hangars) but the only one that really captured his attention was -- are you ready for this? -- the display by the people who do forensics on crashes and other aviation mishaps. Well, the video of exploding helicopters and midair airplane collisions and various airborne vehicles suddenly becoming little balls of flame no doubt had something to do with it. However, he asked me what those people in the video were doing, so I told him they were trying to find out why the crash happened, and they could tell by looking at the pieces (the display thoughtfully included a lot of various pieces of formerly airborne machinery in various states of investigation). He asked how that could be. So we went through the displayed bits and pieces and I talked about them. He said, "It's a puzzle,". I agreed it was like a really big puzzle.

So for a short time he decided that he did not want to be a pilot, he wanted to do puzzles when he grew up. Though after Ernest took him in the F-16 flight simulator, he was back to being a pilot.

Daan enjoyed the mock Battle of Britain quite well, and disliked the F-16s because they make too much noise. He wanted to know what the bombs were, because they were not fireworks, and I told him that sometimes you just need to blow something up, and when you do, then you use a bomb. This seemed to satisfy him, though it did earn me rather a lot of bombing in the tub since then.

The Apache Helicopter stunt team (which has a real name and is a fighting unit, but I cannot remember it now) is really amazing and they left the rest in the shade. The formation flying in the jets and the stunt flying was pretty cool; but what can I tell you, it wasn't the Blue Angels. (lol) .

Today I got to do my penace for not paying attention to the sun; I put on sunscreen, but only once all day. My kids, well, I was very busy greasing them up, so they are just fine. I however, am a lovely red on my arms and, since it's Father's Day, we went sailing. So I got to spend a 90 degree day with long sleeves on to cover my already burnt arms.

I'll remember the sunscreen next time.

*Apropos, I would like to point out that my children were wearing sweaters to school this past week. Then it was 30 degrees this weekend, which works out in the 90s if I am doing the math properly. Next week: snow. Kidding.