SwairFest. =)

It's SwairFest time! No, no, don't worry, take a second look at the spelling. ;) South West Air Fest!! If you remember last year, the Blue Angels were here. This year we've got the Thunderbirds, Snowbirds, a pair of F-16's, two F-18's, some biplanes & stunt planes, and the Golden Knights (parachute team). =D I love SwairFest. I especially like telling people "My brother's volunteering at Swairfest this year." and hearing them go "He's volunteering where? At swear fest??" ;)
Bro and I went down to the place we were last year, where you can see everything that's happening there and have planes fly right over ya, but you don't have to pay. We watched the F-18 in our front yard for a while, then high-tailed it down there and arrived right after the Snowbirds took off.

If you want some REALLY good pictures of them, wait 'til Monday or so. Dad took pics with my camera last night, and some of them are amazing!

They made the biggest heart I've ever seen. =) Awwww...

Those are all Snowbirds. One waggled his wings at us. =) He was flying inverted behind another inverted plane, and my brother & I were waving at them. The first flipped right-side-up and kept on going nice an' smooth, but the second righted itself, wiggled his wings, and followed the first. =D My brother was so excited at that!! And my little brother waved at them once, and one did several barrel rolls right after he waved. Now he's convinced that the pilot made the plane do that because he waved....

Thunderbirds took off after we were there a while. They're cool. And fast. And loud. But not as fast and loud as the Blue Angels are. =)
Oh, and just out of curiosity, what would you say is the best home remedy for sunburn? Like for on your nose--the one place you forgot to put sunscreen on?
~Kiwi~
P.S. You'll have to come up here for this next year, Grandpa!

99th post/AIRSHOW!!!

Hey, y'all! I'm back after two weeks of non-vacation-y-vacation. The only reason it was 'vacation' was because I didn't have school and Dad was off for a week. BUT I'm not going to go into all that. Let's just say that Mr. and Ms. Renter paid...on Friday. And now it's a new month, so we're praying that God provides them with the money they need to pay us and everything else they need to spend money on. Especially the 'money they need to pay us' part. :)

What did I do last weekend? shall I tell them, or shall I not.?.....I think I shall.

We spent last weekend avoiding being hit or scared by Blue Angels. They fly right over our house during the practice and shows. It was awesome! I was sorry that we missed vacation, but at least we got to watch the airshow....three times over, plus practice, plus when ev'ryone left.

Here are some pictures & videos taken from my camera:

This video was taken on Thursday from our driveway. Don't you just love the sound of them?
*waits ten minutes for the video to load...* Why must it take so long to load a video? It isn't that hard to get one off of Youtube onto here!

Five of the Blue Angels.

Three of them. It's true, there are three there.

Three of them...in black & white.

Four of them. In color. STOP looking at me like that! Okay, YOU come up with better captions!

Four, two INVERTED! Can you imagine flying upside-down at 500+ mph?? Cool!

Um. So last weekend was the airshow, and on Sunday we ('Punzel and I) played volleyball again. Man! I love playing that game! It's perfect for me; fairly easy, fast-paced, and doesn't include much running. Perfect! And everyone here is nice. I don't feel (horribly) embarrassed when I miss the ball or do something wrong. They give me tips on what to do next time this happens, or that changes suddenly, or whatever.
And several people have commented on how I've gotten a bit better since we began playing. "The first two weeks, it was a cause to celebrate when you just get it over the net! Now you do that regularly." That's good. I'm glad I'm improving. But I still feel bad next to some of the others! Right now I am desperately hoping that it is dry enough tomorrow to play some. Today is cold and rainy, and tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, too!
"Hey mister weather man
I don't understand
I think I said clearly clear skies should be the forecast tomorrow
I'm lookin' west,
I see cloudy skies at best,
And to the east storm clouds are headed this way...."

And I leave you with this: The next post from me shall be my 100th! There'll be a party, balloons, prizes, and CAKE! You're all invited. See you then!

~Kiwi~

Air Show!

Yesterday we went to the local air show. It was amazing! Not as good as the past few years, there weren't as many airplanes, but still spectacular. We don't like to pay for actual tickets to see it, but there is a certain parking lot close by that gives us a good view of the planes. This year (like every year) the Blue Angels were there in their jets. I'm not sure what kind of plane they are, I'll have to ask my brother, but they're big and fast and loud and just a bit scary when they pop over a building behind you and you're not expecting it. The Blue Angels (I kept typing the 'Blur Angels' by accident! Lol!) were last in the show 'cause they were the main attraction and if they put them first everyone would be leaving right after and not stickin' around for the others. Anywho, *get back on track here, girl* here's a few pics I took of them:

Note that the plane on the left and the plane on top (you can't see it really well) are inverted here. Dad was zooming in close on the computer, looking at this pic, and you can actually see the pilot's helmet!

They turned out pretty good, didn't they? These were a few of the best of the ones I got. It was hard to get a good picture because they go so low and fast. My camera didn't really have a big problem with the 'low' and 'fast' parts, but I sure did. My first instinct was to get as close to the ground as possible. Especially the one time a plane snuck up behind and buzzed us! There are six of 'em; four fly together (for the most part) and the fifth and sixth fly separately. So as long as the four stuck together and you could see them, it wasn't as hard to avoid being startled by one behind you. It was amazing how they could go straight up and fly upside down and do all of their stunts perfectly synchronized with each other.

Before those six came out, 'Fat Albert' was flying around, and I wish I had gotten a few photos of him. Fat Albert is the one that carries all the crew and equipment around. Once he was coming up at us to fly low over the crowd (we were behind the crowd at the airport), and was just floating along, then the pilot pointed the nose almost straight at me! I knew it wasn't going to crash, but it was rather scary seeing this HUGE plane coming at me!

Please note the poll I put up. Dad was teasing me about when one plane came up from behind and I didn't see it coming. Since I was kneeling on the ground (to hold the camera steadier), I followed my gut instinct and hit the deck. Now Dad is bugging me about it and telling me that 'hiding under blades of grass won't do ya any good!' and stuff like that.

Sorry there isn't any new art news. Of course, photography is an art form, so technically there is artistic content in here :^).

I'm going to go now. There might be some more airplane pics on the next post. TTYL!

~Kiwifruit

P.S. I got a really bad sunburn from yesterday! My arms are burnt and my knees are burnt and my forehead is burnt and they all hurt, especially when my friends (not knowing I'm burnt) came up and hugged me at church today, and now they'll do it at youth group, too (at least, the ones who don't know I'm burnt will). And the leader will (I'm sure) come up and tap me on the shoulder or arm and I'll scream in agony. Or we'll play a game that involves running and the ocasional shoving and I'll end up screaming in agony.

~Baked Kiwifruit