overheating, I'm stumped. Options

[6strngs]

so today, I drive my car home from work. get out of the car and notice a strong coolant smell. I let it cool down for a while, then went out to check it. The radiator was still full with coolant, but the overflow tank was kinda low. so I poured some coolant in (pre-mixed 50/50). anyway, so I go to drive the car again and after a short trip, only a couple miles, I'm hearing this weird whining sound. I glance down and see that the water temp gauge is reading HOT! like, it was all the way into the red! I pull into the closest parking spot and shut off the car. I let it sit for about half an hour and decide to drive it back home. I start the car up, and the temp gauge jumps to 1/2 way. normal. and as I start driving, it starts climbing. it gets to about 3/4 of the way to hot and then very suddenly just drops back down to half. then it stays there the rest of the way home. I pull into my garage, and get to work. I tried my best to track down a leak and decided it appeared to be that the hose that feeds coolant to the throttle body was leaking. so I replaced it. so after a couple hours of work (decided to do some other stuff too since I had everything taken off anyway) I go to drive it again and same thing. the temp gauge reads normal, then it will climb in temperature, then drop back down to normal, then climb again, then normal. anybody have any ideas? thermostat? water pump? malfunctioning sensor and/or gauge?

[hatchy_gt-s]

it will not hurt the engine to have air in it
example:
if i where to run water threw a closed system (with clear tubes) their would thousands of air bubles going by and if i wher to stop the flow the bubles would colect to make large bubles (or air pockets) and if i where to try to remove the bubles and then pump the water it would create more air via H2O consist of oxygen and where to stop it again it would creat bubles so no matter what you do it creats bubles (air pockets) and i didnt include the factor of extreme heat from the engine and evaporation

engineers think of these things and think hmm we need a substance between the header and the block that inkase an engine overheats it will break befor the header has extensive damage im not saying the the header does not warp it does but the gasket blows for that reason