Reverence

I've always had a sort of proud spirit for our Armed Forces. Both of my grandfathers, and many other members in my family served in the Air Force. And after living in a country where national security is not one of our top priorities, you become much more grateful for it. In fact, I think i'm just a proud American. I've always felt a sort of reverence for things of this country. Not everything, ha. I don't agree with everything that goes on here. But for the most part, our ideals and basic principles and things like the American Dream have always had a special place in my heart. I cry like a baby every year at the Stadium of Fire when they sing the National Anthem in such a grandious way.


Anyway, I wanted to blog about something we did last week. We were in Denver, visiting two of our best friends Blake and Nellie and they took us to the Air Force Academy. It's in Fort Collins, about 30 minutes south of Denver. It's a beautiful valley and even prettier campus. If you could pick somewhere to go to school, it would definitely be there. We went first to the visitor's center. It had a neat little hallway with posters and information about the academy.

Me and Nellie and Blakey next to one of the posters. :)

This one is about the Seniors. They had one for every year they're in the academy explaining they're primary focus and duties. I LOVE that pic of the seniors on graduation day of them throwing their hats with the fly over by the F-16s.  

After that we watched a little video about the life of the cadets and it was really neat. They had me wishing I had gone there! I was very impressed with the way the cadets handled themselves and presented themselves and the respect they had for their peers and supervising officers. It means a lot to them that they're there. It was also noted that they give up a lot to be there. most ppl their age are excited to go to college, get away from mom and dad, party it up and live the college life. But they go to do drills and work hard and become an officer in the United States Air Force. It's something to be commended for sure.

The other really neat thing we saw was the church they have built there. We went on a little walk from the visitors center so we could see it. It was seriously incredible! It's one of the focal points on the campus and a beautiful building. 

Justin and I in front of the church.

Blake, Nellie and Blakey!

Isn't that a cool building?? You can tell how HUGE it is from how little we, and the ppl behind us, are.

This is the inside of the church. It was so beautiful!!! I wish we had a picture that could really do it justice. The stained glass windows were incredible.

     There were also other chapels located donstairs. None were quite this grandious but they were still beautiful. And no, there wasn't an LDS chapel, but we don't really need a chapel to worship, right?

Outside the church we could see the whole campus, which honestly wasn't that big. And I mean the number of buildings wasn't very large. There were huge facilities to do training and stuff, but there's only 4,400 cadets at the academy at any one time, so they don't need much room for housing and classes and such. It was also neat to see all the planes they had displayed on the campus, some of which we were told ares till in Air Force Inventory, meaning they're still functional planes.

Here's two of them! Blake knew what they were, but I don't remember. ha. Anyone know??

This is prolly my favorite pic of us. Love you Justin!! :)

These were taken out the car window. Ha. So they're not the best, but I think they're cool! I wish the pic showed how enormous that plane was. It was incredible.

Sweet pic! Again, out the car window. Sorry the mirror had to make a cameo. ha. Still a cool pic. :)

So that was our little visit. I hope you feel some of the same reverence that I feel for these people that give so much of themselves for our safety. Our country wouldn't run with out them and we literally owe our lives and freedom to them. I want to say thank you to every service man and woman that ever has and ever will serve in that capacity. For those of us that don't get to do that, we need to make sure this is a country worth protecting and do our own civil duty to keep it that way.