The Blackhawks

Jacob had to leave us for a week while Nettie was here with the boys and Travis was out hunting. I am so grateful that she was here! I ended up in the ER twice that week, and in the hospital again for testing another day. When I was home, I felt awful. Nettie took care of all ten kids that week for the most part. She even did school with my kids too! She's pretty fabulous. At the end of the week we all went down to the airfield to see the helicopters fly in with Papa on board. They are SO LOUD when you are up close. After they were all in and everyone went home Jacob was able to let us get in one of the helicopters in the hangar.

Here we are waiting in the rain. Thankfully it had mostly stopped while we were waiting

Jacob is in the second helicopter back. He wasn't the one flying on the way home though. He was working on his "cockpit management" skills evidently.

Lizzie is rather attached to Ezra. She likes to show him everything and tries to get him to play all the time. In fact, she just told me, "I love Uncle Ezra the most!"

Waiting for Papa (and Uncle Jacob) to land.

There's Jacob after all three helicopters landed. They are putting the aircraft to "sleep"

Here's Simi hanging onto the ropes used to tie the rotor blades down. All the kids kept trying to do it even though we told them not to. I guess ropes hanging at eye level are just too tempting.

Tracker sitting in the cockpit. All the kids got a turn, and Jacob got to tell them how stuff works. How many of you know what a cyclic and a collective are? Well, now the Holt and Keller kids do. Well, the did for about 2 minutes until something else caught their attention. :)

Here is one of our pilots in training. He looks ready to take it up already!

These boys are good friends. They are always coming up with something crazy to do. Joseph dreams it up and Tustin carries it out. They are quite the pair!

In the back of the blackhawk where all the seats are. There is another section in front of this, and then the cockpit is in front of that.

All the cousins together. They are lots of fun!