Blast Off

This past Saturday we went to visit Uncle Pete and Kim. Kim teaches a class in engineering in the summers and had mentioned to Gabe awhile ago that one of the things they do is build rockets and launch them. Of course this was very exciting news to Gabe and ever since he had been wanting to get over there so he could build a rocket with her. Finally this past Saturday we made the trip. We weren't sure if the weather was going to cooperate with us but the rain let up for just enough time to launch the rockets. First they had to put the body of the rocket together.

and then they had to cut out the parts to put on the body. Gabe did pretty well at cutting where he was supposed to:)

In the meantime Ty had fun decorating a rocket that had already been built with markers.

Once all the pieces were cut out they duct taped them onto the body of the rocket.

After the rockets were all put together we headed to the back yard to launch them. The boys were so excited it was hard for them to wait for it to be set up right.

Once the rockets were filled with water they were hooked up to the air pump which Brad(my brothers roomate) pumped up to put air into the rocket.

and when there was just enough air pumped in whoever was holding the string pulled and blast off!

Here's a very proud Gabe with his rocket, the parachute had deployed to soften the landing.

Both the boys had so much fun building and then getting to launch their rockets. Thanks Kim for taking the time to help them(nevermind her shirt, she's an Iowa grad but we love her anyway:)

Here is a video of our last blast off. The wind caught it a little, hopefully the backdoor neighbors don't still have a rocket stuck on their roof!