Tuskegee Airmen

As you know, February is Black History Month. Ted's mom visited this past weekend to watch Sophia's swim meet (more on that later). On Saturday, prior to the meet, I took her and Matthew to the Virginia War Museum located in Newport News, which is also conveniently located next to the YMCA. Members of the Tuskegee Airmen were on hand answering questions and showing their display. Thank goodness we got there early because the line was quite long. I was thrilled to have my picture taken with one of its members, Harry Quinton, who was not a pilot but one of the ground maintenance people. Nonetheless, he had an important job indeed. And hey, to me, this is living history right here. The TUSKEGEE AIRMEN movie (Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding, Jr.) was shown and we got to watch most of it (I've seen it before and highly recommend you watching it if you are interested in U.S. military history). In case you don't know anything about the Tuskegee Airmen....they were the first U.S. black combat pilots, trained at the Tuskegee Army Airfield (located in Alabama) and fought in WWII. I won't give away all the details of the movie, but you can imagine how they were treated and regarded back then. Matthew had a wonderful time looking at all the tanks, guns and mortars. Ted's mom enjoyed it too and wished she could have finished watching the movie but we had to get over to the Y and see super Sophie race.

Sophia did well but was one tired little girl after the meet. Sophia and her teammates got 3rd place in the 200M Mixed Medley Relay for both meets on 1/24 and 2/7. She swam the breaststroke in the medley relays. Saturday's swim meet happened to be a home meet. This was her first time swimming in 5 events and her first in swimming the 100 IM (click here)...which is the 25M butterfly, 25M backstroke, 25M breaststroke and 25M freestyle. It was the first time for Matthew and I to stay for almost the entire swim meet...there were 80 events, several of which had more than 1 heat. Poor Ted was there from 1 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. I think he DQ'd like a dozen kids. Sophia's last event was #63, so we took her home right after that....which was sometime after 5:30 p.m. I am so glad I finally got to watch her swim all her events. Ted's mom enjoyed watching her swim too.

On another note, Boy Scout Troop 242 had their Court of Honor last week. We enjoyed going to this because it was a family event and everyone brought a food item to share, which meant Tricia didn't have to worry about making dinner.

The kids are looking forward to their four day weekend coming up.....it's not a week long winter break ...but for the kids, any days off from school is better than nothing.