Oh, the joy of boys

Saturday was Armed Forces Day, did you know that? We didn't until we started hunting around the internet for something fun to do and Ed asked if we could go to a war museum that he used to go to as a kid. I said, "ugh, isn't there something else we can do?" Then I felt sort of bad about being a bummer, so I looked it up and realized that it might be the perfect day to go. Cantigny is the name of the place (still don't know if it's pronounced Can-tee-nee or Can-tigg-nee, but oh well). They were going to have three army helicopters there and a bunch of displays and children's activities, etc. to celebrate the day. We headed out and BOY, did I have to eat my "ugh" statement from the morning. We had a blast! I am slowly realizing that I am outnumbered 3-1 (so far) in this family and I better get used to war museums, etc. Here's some of the cool stuff we saw (forgive me for not knowing the actual names of these things beyond "tank", "helicopter, and "gun"):

Ed and boys on top of a tank:
Ed and boys receiving orders in the bunk:
Lunch break:
The proud daddy:
Samuel dressed as an army guy (you could actually put on the full gear from each war - Revolutionary through Iraqi)
Checking out Helicopter #3:
Taking it for a spin:
Joel's turn (okay, and the crazy thing here is that they actually flew these planes in and were going to fly them back out after a couple thousand people climbed in and out of them. I heard the one guy saying how he always does a pre-flight check but he was going to have to do a serious inspection of EVERYthing before they flew out this time. No duh-I saw a 10 year old kid in before my boys flip every switch imaginable on that thing!)
Checking out the gun:
Having fun on the tank:
Samuel checking out the "shooter" as he called it (p.s. that is real gun! they just let any ol' person play away with it!) (oh, and p.p.s. a newspaper reporter asked if he could write about Samuel in his article. He thought it was so cute that Samuel walked up to the gun while holding his stuffed bear and then handed me the bear so he could shoot the gun. Now that I think about it, it's kinda sad! GOD BLESS ALL YOU MOMS WHOSE LITTLE BOYS SHOOT THESE THINGS FOR REAL!):
Sitting in the cockpit: