American Heroes Celebration

The American Heroes Celebration Air Show was a dream come true for Jasper. The event features the everyday heroes that serve and protect us on a daily basis. As you know from previous posts, Jasper LOVES firetrucks, cars, motorcycles, ambulances, and trucks in general. Well, Jasper clearly knew where to start after we arrived.


At each truck, a member of the fire department was there to greet us. Each one loved Jasper's boots, and they enjoyed showing Jasper around their truck. I was impressed with their enthusiasm, and Jasper was eager to thank each one.




Jasper really likes to get close to the wheels.

His eagerness to see the ambulance is obvious.

After sitting in the driver's seat of the ambulance (a definite highlight of the day), we walked past more of the trucks and displays. Jasper is a very well behaved boy the majority of the time. On this day, he was great! He listened to me and to the fireman, and he was eager to see and do all that he could.




Another highlight of the event are the helicopters that fly in for the event. The weather didn't cooperate to have the helicopters arrive as scheduled. This created the opportunity for us to be close as the helicopters arrived. Jasper couldn't take his eyes of the helicopter as it circled the field and descended to land. I tried to anticipate where the second helicopter might land based upon the landing of the first, and it allowed us to be pretty close as the helicopter touched down.

The landing helicopter is from Austin Starflight. Without me saying anything, Jasper recognized it as an "air ambulance helicopter" just like in one of his books. After the rotors stopped spinning, the kids had the chance to climb inside.

Jasper recognized that this truck looked like an airport firetruck. In case you are curious, it was made by the same company as the airport firetruck in one of his books.

We then discovered the little fireman's obstacle course. The Austin Fire Department had setup a course that the kids could run with a real firemen. The events included hose hauling...

using a big hammer...

pulling a simulated kid to safety...

and using the fire hose.

It was really a small version of the Firefigher Combat Challenge. You can tell by the smile on Jasper's face that he enjoyed the event.

It was an impressively run event, and Jasper loved every minute of the adventure. He napped well that day.