Of planes

Looking out the back door of the library

The end of August in Hillsboro brings the amazing annual Hillsboro Air Show. People come from all over the place to...well, what do you do at an air show? All we know is that it is annoying because there are people on lawn chairs everywhere staring up at the sky and about every 4 minutes our house rattles as some sort of jet buzzes overhead. If you have ever tried to put a toddler down for a nap during an air raid, then you know what I am talking about.

Since I would rather have my hair miraculously regrow only to have it fall out again than go to the actual air show, we decided to take the kids to the library where we could get some books and feed the ducks that live in the pond in the park out back. Conveniently, the library is located right next to the Hillsboro airport, which meant getting there involved going past three separate police barricades and explaining that we just wanted to go to the library. (But isn't that what we would say if we were really going to set off fire bombs on the runway?) When we made it, there was nary a soul there. Good day to choose books! And, there were also very few ducks there - they were hiding from the blitzkreig as well. So the duck feeding would go from this:

to this as jets buzzed over head:

Jonah decided that while we were there he wanted to start a nature collection. The collection was based on two key nature items. Acorns and Box Elder Beetles.

Somehow, Jonah caught about 40 box elder beetles (that might be an exaggeration) and would force a new one into his hand without letting the others go, which Amy and I thought was super gross. Here are the trapped beetles fighting for freedom:

Lila wanted to spend all day in the tunnel that goes under the road so that she could yell and listen to the echo. I even took some video, but discovered that the still picture was much more charming without the screaming (and echos) in the background.

It turned out to be a great outing - all of the fun of seeing jets fly in formation overhead, and none of the annoyance of actually attending an air show. I tried to get a picture of a plane in flight, and while I would love to write an entire blog about how the camera app on my android phone is clunky and has a poor interface and lacks the grace of the iPhone camera app, that's a whole other Oprah. I didn't get any plane action shots.

But I did get this one of Lila and a flower:

And this one of the kiddies.

And just because they are cute - Lila amongst the tomatoes: