And I think it`s gonna be a long, long time

We`re just back from Road Trip 2013 which took us to the Okanagan, Washington and Oregon for two amazing weeks. I`ve got a ton (ie about 400) of pictures to sort through and organize into posts but I`ll start with this one…………

We had planned to go to this amazing indoor water park in McMinnville, Oregon that is in an airplane hangar and has a decommissioned 747 on the roof. You climb all these stairs to get into the plane where the emergency exits are water slides!!! Genius! So fun. So, so fun. But when I say planned, I mean that we decided we would go there, an hours drive from Portland. We didn`t actually plan anything which left us having to stop at Wal-Mart to buy towels and then, finally, we pulled into the parking lot of the water park. The completely empty parking lot. Worst. It is the worst telling your 3-year-old that the water park that you`ve been psyching him up for for weeks, is closed. Brutal. I`m not sure who was more disappointed, him or us. It was an equal bummer all around. But since we were there, we decided to part with $60 and tour the aviation and space museums (oh, we skipped the Firearms and Ammunition Hall wherein one must pass underneath a giant sign that has a long, ridiculous quote from Charlton Heston. Gag.). The museums were actually pretty rad (note: if my parents had brought me to this kind of thing on a family trip I would NOT have thought it was rad. I would have complained at every step and sulked, and stomped and told them they were the lamest, etc, etc. We decided that we can not deprive Thomas a childhood without these moments.) and we spent a great deal of time ferociously competing  playing on flight simulators where you had to try and dock your space craft to the docking station. Some people crashed and burned (Thomas and Andrew), while others were told that they did an excellent job and were subsequently asked to submit their resumes to NASA. For days afterward, Thomas asked me to sing Rocket Man over and over again (sorry to all those passersby who had to be subject to that). Then, today, I played it for him and in probably one of his top 5 cutest moments, he grabbed my hand with his cute little chubby toddler hand and said, “Mum, do you want to dance wiv me?”. You can`t invent this stuff – little kids are the best.

Why not listen to the song and imagine the cuteness while looking at some pictures of our day? Just press play on the vid and then scroll down….. (I don`t think this works if you view on your phone)

He may have failed the height requirement part of NASA`s tests but he would otherwise have totally been asked to be an astronaut (note Andrew`s thumb to the right), as per usual)

Competitive space craft docking

The Spruce Goose (google it). Pretty cool. I have included a pre-schooler in the picture (look closely) so that you get a sense of the scale. It’s a billion times larger than a pre-schooler.