A Fort Calhoun couple looked to the sky to learn their baby’s gender.
About 30 friends and family of Chelsea and Chris Samson gathered in the snow Dec. 8 at the Samsons’ acreage for a “gender reveal.” They waited for Scott Olson’s Cessna 175 to release a stream of either pink or blue chalk and biodegradable confetti.
After a few test laps over the party, Olson’s buddy in the backseat wedged open the door and unfurled the bag of powder.
Blue.
“I was kind of rooting for a boy,” said Chelsea, who has one other child, an 11-month-old boy named Sawyer. “I thought having the two close together, they could be best friends.”
Chelsea said she was brainstorming ideas for the gender reveal when she thought about the crop-duster airplanes she sees above the fields in Fort Calhoun.
“I pride myself in being as out of the box as possible,” said Chelsea, a 29-year-old Las Vegas native who restores old homes with her husband. “You see all the same gender reveals over and over again.”
Chelsea had called more than a dozen pilots, comparing prices and searching for someone who would fly on a budget. Finally, she found Olson. He wouldn’t accept payment, but he did take a $250 donation to Job’s Daughters International, a Masonic organization for girls and young women.
Olson said he had never done anything like this, but he had a great time — even if there’s still a streak of blue down the side of his plane.
“That stuff’s hard to get off,” he said.
Just as things were beginning to calm down after the big reveal, Olson’s plane came roaring back overhead, letting out another puff of blue.
Someone asked Chelsea: Does this means twins?
“Nope,” she said. “Only one!”