With all of the gifts that Judah already receives this time of year, we wanted to celebrate his 5th birthday by doing something together as a family. My Dad is a retired mechanical engineer and used to design airplane parts. He has different models in his workshop that Judah loves to tinker and play around with. Judah loves listening to Papa’s stories and asking lots of questions, so we thought it would be fun to surprise the kids with a day trip to the Palm Springs Air Museum. The boys took a nice long nap on the way there while we took in the desert landscape. When we arrived, Judah was so excited! There was so much to see, touch and do. The docents and volunteer staff are former pilots and veterans who shared their knowledgable and enthusiasm with us. We thanked them for their service to our country. The planes are truly works of art and being able to see these wonderfully restored vintage aircrafts up close was just awesome. We even got to go inside some of them. Judah’s favorite part was pretending to be a pilot with Daddy as his co-pilot in a flying boxcar aircraft. After a fun day learning and exploring, the kids were tuckered out and tummies were rumbling. There was so much more to see and do (two hangars, memorabilia, a library, flight simulators for kids of all ages) but being the Winter Solstice, it was getting dark and felt late. We plan on returning to this historic museum soon. We stopped for dinner on the way home and Judah blew out a birthday candle and thoroughly enjoyed every last bite of dessert. We got back on the road and recounted our favorite moments from the day.