Air Show!!! Living next to an air base can be very loud and annoying during everyday life when F-16's are flying over your house 100 times a day. They are LOUD! But every other year, the base opens it's gates and lets the general public in for an amazing air show. It was a cloudy, on and off rainy day, but very fun. This jet was buzzing the crowd when we arrived going faster than the speed of sound. It would fly over, you would see it but not hear it, and then the sound would follow a few seconds later. Oh, it was loud. John and Tae said they could feel their stomachs shaking! TeAnna just covered her ears. There were a lot of planes and helicopters (pics of that to come soon) to tour and take pictures on and in. The highlight of the airshow was the Thunderbirds! They are an "elite team of pilots" that do some amazing stunts. (those pics to come later, too.) Here are some of shots I took. (Karla, I wish I had your camera for this one, but I think I did pretty good for myself!)

The six Thunderbird pilots in formation. The announcer said the wing tips of the planes are about 25 feet apart from each other! Precision flying! There were a lot of people there, and we weren't sure we would get a good seat. We walked up to the front of the crowd, and there was a sectioned-off part with a bunch of folding chairs reserved for Air Force VIP's. Does yellow tape and a guard stop Rod? NO! So Rod goes up and talks to the guard. Since it was a somewhat rainy day not all the VIP's showed up, the guard let us in! We were able to sit right up front! To get any closer we would have to have been the security guards on the runway! Very cool!

This shot was taken near the end of the show. The top of the jets are white, but the bottom has the Thunderbird logo on it. Click on this picture and you'll be able to see it.

Halfway through the show, a very fast-moving storm went through. We could see it coming along the mountains to the north, and when it got to the base it hit fast. They suspended the Thunderbirds show temporarily to let the storm pass. It lasted about 5 minutes, but there was a lot of rain and hail. Luckily, we were near a semi trailer and Rod is a fast thinker. He stuffed the kids under the trailer and they stayed dry and happy. Rod and I had our backs to the storm and got soaked. But after it cleared up, the sun came out and the show continued!

This shot I took just as the storm passed over but the planes weren't cleared to fly yet. It was amazing. Black sky and blue sky right behind it. You can see just how fast this thing was. On the front end of the storm the sky looked like this, too, just in reverse. Gotta love the mountains!