Day 5 – Family & Planes

After our kids being awake for ~19 hours during their day of travel we mentally prepared for a 5am worst case wake up but optimistically thought that maybe it could even be 6 or 7. Well…we were wrong.

Brooke was up for the day around 2:30/3am and Beckett was up for the day at 3:30am. Woof! Trying to keep Beckett quiet and entertained for hours while the rest of the house slept was definitely challenging.

We powered through it and as soon as Parker and Serafina woke up the kids picked up where they left off. Parker, Brooke and Serafina play so well together it’s amazing. They essentially watch themselves and constantly entertain themselves. They spent the entire morning playing outside on the playground and building a rock wall.

A little before lunch we descended the Sacramento Mountains and went to Holloman AFB which is where Brandon works. We got to see his office, all his flight gear and then go out to the flight line. Beckett threw an absolute tantrum as we were driving across the live flight line so we had to turn back to not cause any issues. Instead, Beckett and I stayed in Brandon’s office and Brandon, Jaclyn, and Brooke went out to the flight line and looked at the Mirage F1 jets that Brandon files (and will be flying to Utah tomorrow). We all got to see tons of F-16s takeoff, taxi and land. At this point, Beckett was in absolute heaven! He even got a wave from one of the F-16 pilots.

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I then got to take a trip out to the jets and Brandon showed me all around it. These machines are so impressive and the complexity to fly one is just insane.

We left the base and headed back to Cloudcroft where the kids played outside for another gorgeous afternoon. Thank god it’s ~20 degrees cooler in the mountains. The kids played and played and played until about 8pm and we finally got them to bed.

Right after putting the kids to bed we saw an absolutely stunning wild horse in the yard that looked like it was maintained by a Kentucky Derby trainer. The picture doesn’t capture the beauty.

We caught up more with Brandon and Christina (under Brandon’s purple mood lighting) and then went to bed wondering what adventure laid ahead for us in the night.

-Jay