For the past five years, Derek has aspired to fly one of these:

This is no small aspiration. To become an Air Force Thunderbird (or Navy Blue Angel) pilot requires an immense amount of time, training, and guts.

Derek’s other big interest is football, which he finally gets to participate in this season, along with Peter.

Well, guess what I learned this morning. Derek’s football coach is a former Navy fighter pilot. The guy used to fly F/A-18s. Probably off of aircraft carriers. When I told Derek, his eyes lit up. Kind of neat when two loves come together like that.

(The following pictures are unrelated, but I need to share them because of the high cuteness factor. The NYFL opened the league to 5 year-olds for the first time this year, so we decided to let Peter play. After picking up his helmet and pads, he wore them for 48 hours straight. He is so excited to share this with his big brother, and as you can see, is taking the sport quite seriously.)

Not too far behind him is Jeremy…wishing he was a couple years older.