A boy's dream comes true...

For the past year or so, my son Adam has been obsessed with airplanes. His two favorite movies are Flyboys and Pearl Harbor. He doesn't care too much about the story aspect of it, he just likes to watch the airplanes flying around. His favorite Wii game is Blazing Angels, and he loves to use the flight simulator. He dreams of being a pilot someday.

When we were in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago, we had the chance to send him up in a Stearman biplane. We didn't tell him ahead of time where we were going, because we knew he'd get way too excited about it - and we didn't want to be talking about planes for hours ahead of his flight! Our first trip to Dillingham Airfield didn't go so well - it was way too windy for a flight, so we had to postpone it a few days.

We returned June 19 to the airfield where Adam got his chance to go up. He was so excited, he had the biggest grin on his face the whole time. He got to wear the little cap (and goggles, if needed). He sat in the front and enjoyed seeing Oahu from the air. He came back with some nice pictures taken from the air, and a renewed determination to become a pilot someday.

Since we've returned from our trip, he's been diligently working to learn to "fly." He's been landing 747s on the flight simulator, "just in case" he needs to help out the pilots next time we fly somewhere. He knows the rules for getting a pilot license (16 to solo, vision 20/40 corrected). Only 8 more years to go, and he'll be pushing us to take flying lessons!