Christmas Lights: a bird's eye view

Most years we go see the Mesa temple lights with Jim's family at some point during the Christmas season.  Last Friday Jim mentioned to me that his dad wanted to take us all on Sunday night.  But our vantage would be a little different than the usual:

Mesa Temple Grounds

(excuse the blur)

Gilbert Temple Grounds

(isn't it gorgeous??!)

Mike works at the Temple with a Brother Hatch who kindly agreed to take us all up for these amazing views. The thought of my whole little family up in a tiny airplane initilly unnerved me (and my Aidan), but it was a smooth, gorgeous and comfortable trip. My nerves only flared when Davyn got out of his seatbelt.  I sign languaged him (because it is loud up there when you take your headphone set off...and I didn't want to disturb the pilot with my mid-air mothering through the intercom) back to his rear end in the seat position. He might have missed a few sights, but my imagination saw him leaning against his little door and plummeting through the night sky. I was more than willing to sacrifice his sightline.   

Jim sat in the front with Brother Hatch piloting.  Azure was to my right:

And the boys were in the back (these pics taken pre-flight):

(please excuse the extreme red-eye...if I take the time to edit, these will never get on here!)

Despite Davyn's wiggles, I loved sitting in the middle so that I could keep tabs on my three (not-so) littles.  Their delight was apparent.  Azure sat absolutely still and quiet, but the boys riddled Brother Hatch with questions and commentary throughout the trip. Aidan completely impressed me with his polite "thank you" after each query was answered. Davyn completely embarrassed me as he interrupted the times of "radio silence" when the pilot needed to talk to the tower.  So we hit the full spectrum of parenting, I guess - the constant swell between pride and horror. 

Still...the city lights and freeway were so pretty from up high. So peaceful, so still.

We felt so lucky to have such a fun Christmas light excursion.  Thank you, Mike, for arranging, and Brother Hatch for your generosity!

The whole Scott crew.  It took three trips for us all to have a turn!