Guess where we went today...

Anytime I go to a public place or event, I seem to see a lot of pregnant women.  Maybe it's because I go to places that are generally preggo-friendly... or maybe I'm just noticing them more often.  Today I went to a place where pregnant ladies were noticeably absent-- the Abbotsford International Airshow.  I was there for 5 hours, among huge crowds of people, and only saw one other suspiciously pregnant woman.  They all stayed home for good reasons-- it was 35 degrees celsius outside today-- much hotter on the asphalt tarmac (our car read 46 degrees when we crawled back in to head home), there was no shade, no seating, one of the main activities was crawling up ladders into small cockpits, it was super loud... and did I mention it was extremely hot?  Now you're all probably thinking I was dragged there by the boys of this household-- but I actually suggested that we go.  It's our last day to hang out as a family of three (as my family arrives tomorrow and will be staying until the baby arrives) so I thought it would be a great activity for us to do to celebrate this milestone!  And I also knew the boys would love every minute of it :)  So this morning we packed up our cooler, threw our lawn chairs into the car, made a quick stop at Starbucks, and took off for the air show!  Needless to say, Caleb was beside himself with excitement (we only informed him of the plan this morning)-- there was yelling, squealing, pointing, and car seat dancing when we pulled into the grounds.  We parked our car and spent the morning taking in the ground exhibits.

We spent a good part of the morning looking at the Canadian and US Air Force military transport planes.  Most of them were open to the public to tour-- Caleb had quite an awesome time inspecting those planes and meeting the pilots.

If you felt super adventurous, you could wait in an extremely long, hot line and crawl up into the cockpit of these planes.  Were we feeling adventurous?  You bet!  We roasted in those lines... all for a chance to crawl up  steep narrow ladders into tight, even hotter spaces.  Today I decided to forget about the fact that I am 39 and a half weeks pregnant and lugged my pregnant self up the ladders to see those cockpits for myself!  At first I wasn't going to do it, but when I witnessed a fairly large woman (not pregnant) manage to make it to the top I figured, why not?

And if I did happen to go into labour right there on the tarmac, I would have probably been alright.  The place was crawling with military personnel equipped with first aid training (and I did see an ambulance display when we first drove into the grounds)-- I'd be fine.

Look at those boys-- they had so much fun.  Here they were looking slightly warm...  Even in the heat, Caleb did great.  We didn't bring a stroller for him, he spent the day walking around by himself and didn't complain once.  We all did our best to stay hydrated (consuming many bottles of water and multiple juice boxes) and even though we were sweating profusely, we all felt pretty positive about the experience.

We packed a picnic lunch and headed to the main grounds to see the planes in action!!  It was incredibly hot at this point of the day... and dusty, and loud.  Thankfully we thought to bring an umbrella for Caleb to sit under while he ate his lunch.  I did my best to not complain about the heat-- it was my idea to go after all.  We thankfully discovered some misting sprinklers that we could stand under and cool off a bit. In the end, we didn't make it through the whole afternoon-- Caleb asked to go home and was looking so tired that we decided to call it a day.  After a quick dip in the pool and some long naps, we've recovered from our outing.  All in all, it was a fun family adventure!

On the agenda tonight?  Find a place with air conditioning :)