From Bicycles to the Moon!

On Sunday, we took the boys to Dayton.


We stopped by the historic Wright brothers' bicycle shop on Third Street, and then we went to the museum next door. First, we watched a short film about how they invented the first practical airplane, and then we walked around and looked at the exhibits.


Connor and Lex really liked pushing the buttons that made the propellers spin and the airplane engines turn on. I swear that they must have pushed those buttons about 200 times. Lex kept turning around and running back through the museum to that same room so that he could push the buttons again and again.

See how he has his button-pushing fingers at the ready?

Also in the museum is an entire area devoted to the history of the parachute. That was a fun room, and it had the benefit of being *very* far away from the propeller buttons, so Lex finally stopped running away.


Sidebar: Did you know that Wilbur and Orville Wright had two older brothers and a younger sister? I learned that while in the museum.

I really love the fact that the airplane was invented by two brothers. I think that Wilbur and Orville are going to be our role models for Connor and Lex. Our motto around the house lately has been a phrase that I uttered a few weeks back while trying to get the boys to cooperate with one another, and it caught on. We say it all the time now:

"When you work together, you can do more."

Here is a photo of Connor on Mars.
Because what started with two brothers in a bicycle shop in Dayton, ended up on Mars.
Maybe Connor will be the first astronaut to ride a bike on Mars.
Or Lex. As long as they work together, right?

Then, to celebrate the invention of the airplane further, we went to the 2011 Dayton Air Show.


We saw so many cool things! Air Force One. The NASA Super Guppy. Space Shuttle shaped bouncy houses. Cargo planes. Fighter planes. Planes breaking the sound barrier (with the cloud and everything!). Acrobatic helicopters. A jet powered school bus. A Lego experience tent. The Thunderbirds. It was awesome!

NASA Super Guppy

Thunderbirds

Inside a huge cargo plane

Connor, Lex and I inside the cockpit of a Navy jet.
They got to push all the buttons.
Connor asked me which one turned the plane on,
and there were so many, I had no idea.

Here is a *very* amateur video of one of the performance planes. The one that broke the sound barrier. No, I didn't catch that super cool moment. Don't worry, you only have to suffer through 22 seconds of my bad camera work.



"If I were giving a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother, and begin life in Ohio."

- Wilbur Wright, January 10, 1910