These aren't the droids you're looking for

But they sure are cute!

Castle Air Museum

Over the holiday we visited the open-cockpit day at the Castle Air Museum out in Atwater. It's the site of a decommissioned air base, and air-history enthusiasts have gathered a remarkable variety of historical fighters, fuelers, and transporters.

Since Jory loves planes, we knew this would be a great visit. The only major problem was the sweltering heat - which is why we borrowed a hat for him.

Here's Jory with one of the quailailos, which looked remarkably unsafe:

And of course Jory and Daddy took a signature picture (Anika's enjoying herself too with some smurf-blue raspberry flavored kettle corn):

All in all we had a lot of fun!

Taming the Quailailo

On our way back from Merced we stopped at the Gilroy outlets and Jory wanted to ride the helicopter, which for some reason he calls a quailailo. Quailailo originally seemed to mean both helicopter and chicken, but fortunately Jory finally converged on a single meaning.

Jory had gotten to see helicopters taking off and landing at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater over the weekend - but we're saving those pictures for the next post.

KC traipsed all over the outlets to find an ATM, with Jory shrieking "Money for quailailo! Money money!" KC finally popped Jory in the helicopter, inserted the money - and this happened:

For some bizarre reason, Jory really likes watching this movie of him screaming in the quailailo - it's hilarious now. What a weird kid.

Road-trip Entertainment

Jory had to find some way to entertain himself during our long road trip to Merced over the holiday, and here's what he came up with! Notice the "Thomas the Tank Engine" sunglasses - this kid is a label whore.

July 4th rodeo

There was a petting zoo at the July 4th rodeo that Jory and I went to with his grandparents. And now there is a group of animals terrified of over-eager two year-olds.

The bunny was amazingly calm while Jory pet it:

Jory didn't know quite what to do with the llama at first, but then he got very excited about the brush:

This photo seemed somewhat ominous: (not clear for whom)

And then Jory had a great time with Grandpa's hat during the rodeo events!

Go America!

Galloping through the Chinese grocery

Jory and I had a good time riding a horse statue in the Chinese grocery store...