It reads as follows:
Yes, you may get in my room.
No making a mess.
No turning on the trains.
No jumping.
No farting in my room.
No getting on my bed.
Ask before getting onto my bed.
Jonah’s Rules for Lucy
1
New Place
I’m just now finally getting around to posting these pictures. Initially, I had a whole set of about 50 pictures that I had wanted to upload into a set on flickr. I’ve now decided against that and only uploaded a few. Most of the reason I am hesitant to upload all of the photos is that we just did a round of painting in all of the bedrooms and have added some more decoration. Jonah and Gabe’s room is now a nice sky blue, which matches perfectly with their shelves and beds. Lucy’s room has walls of alternating colors: pastel pink and pastel purple. The master bedroom is now purple. In both of the children’s rooms, I have painted in a magnetic chalkboard on their wall. This week, I hope, we will get that framed and then I will feel like I can finally take pictures and share them with my friends who are interested in seeing.
Anywho, here are some of the pictures of our new place. We have to admit that we are happy with our new space and are enjoying it thus far.
Our living room:
Apologies for the lighting.
Entrance wall:
Living Room Looking Into the Kitchen:
Dining Room:
Hallway and Laundry Closet:
Lucy’s room is to the left.
Hallway to Jonah’s Room
Bikes in Garage:
There are a few more pictures uploaded to flickr that I didn’t post here. I hope to post the newly painted room soon!
1st Grade!
I apologize for not getting the “new place” photos up. We are still unpacking and we just finished a round of painting. I would like to have the rest of the decorating done before I post photos, but I think I’ll just go ahead and post them soon. I don’t think that I could ever be done “decorating”. hahaha
Anyway, yesterday was Jonah’s first day back at school. I took a bunch of pictures of him getting on and off the bus. He was excited and scared, but when he came home, he seemed to have a good day. I cannot believe that Jonah is already in 1st grade! My does time fly by so fast!
Jonah’s Ready!
Jonah on his way out the door!
Running to the bus stop…
I have more uploaded to my flickr account, if you want to see them. Jonah has a friend that he met in the apartment community that he now gets to ride the bus with.
A Sneak Peak at my Garden
My Garden is getting set up nice. The bird feeders have attracted many different birds that Jonah and Lucy love to look at each morning.
The blueberry bush is now thriving in the ground. It hated its pot.
Next year I will work on digging up the bushes and planting flowers, I think.
Jonah – Newscaster
Jonah visits WLFI for a tour. His favorite part: The weatherman and green screen, of course! However, the news desk takes a close second place!
Moved In
We’re finally moved into our new place.
It took a while to get our internet and phone up and running, but it was worth it.
Lucy and Jonah no longer share a room. Yay! We have a grassy area outside our door we can let them run around and play on — plus, we can plant and landscape the mulched area around our apartment. I’m so excited! A blueberry and rosemary bush have already gone in, and I have my tomatoes hanging, and some potted plants on the brick portion of our patio. Today I hung two bird feeders, which led to much enjoyment for the kids as they watched birds and chipmunks spring forth for the new food.
I still have about 14 boxes left to unpack, but hopefully our apartment will be picture ready and guest-worthy soon!!! (This weekend, if hubbs and I get our butts in gear! Ha!) 
Flying
Do you remember me mentioning that I may start learning to fly? Well, I’ve finally have started.
I have found my calling. My passion. So far, I am in love.
My first official student flight, I was told that I was more apt than any other student on the first flight that the instructor has had in the past. Way to boost my esteem.
My second flight my instructor told me that my turns were very close how they should be in order for me to pass private pilot test.
My third flight, my instructor told me that he should be dogging on me to keep the plane straight and level, and not dogging on me to keep the plane under control while landing in a crosswind.
I’ve been studying quite a bit — I really want to be ready for new information and new training with each session. I am very excited for each next step. Sure I’ll hit some maneuvers along the way that I’ll need to spend extra hours on getting correct, but I am hoping to enjoy the process.
I am very thankful for the way this has come into my life — a great instructor, a plane that is free of charge, and only paying for gas. Soon I’ll be moving closer to the airport that I am training out of — which makes my drive time much shorter.
I’m very happy to have this new learning experience. I just thought I’d share.
Yeesh
It’s been a while since I’ve last written on here. I’m not promising that I will be back constantly, but I want to see if I can try this again. I miss blabbering on the internet, whether coherently or incoherently.
Pictures to come, shortly
Saturday, after driving 3 hours from Dayton, Ohio, we arrived home to what looked like a mess left behind from a tornado. The power was out, the streets were flooded a few feet high, trees and power lines were down. We all looked at each other and thought, “wow, we must have missed something BIG.”
Yesterday I had the opportunity to take some photos of the damage in our area. I am amazed that even after clean-up, there was still a mess of trees around.
I will get pictures up shortly, but in the meantime, here are some links to satisfy your appetite:
The majority of these pictures are actually within a few hundred feet of where we live. Pictures 2 and 20 are of trees that are right outside of our patio window.
http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/lifestyles/photo_galleries/photos-damage-from-saturday-storm
Here is the first blog post from the meteorologist:
http://blogs.wlfi.com/2010/07/18/july-17-2010-west-lafayettelafayette-microburst/
Here is the second post:
http://blogs.wlfi.com/2010/07/19/looks-like-macroburst-not-microburst-hit-w-laflaf/
Sorry, but! :)
I have found myself to be quite busy as of late. I’ve been packing as much in my life as possible, as it seems these days.
I did have an adventure a couple of weeks ago that I would love to tell you about, so here it goes:
A friend of mine (T) is a pilot, and as some of you may know, I’ve had piloting aspirations my entire life. Every once in a while, he has offered to take me on some of his flights, but usually I have been unavailable. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, our schedules aligned and I was able to come with him on a maintenance flight.
This was most certainly a new experience for me for multiple reasons: I’ve only flown an ultralight before, and I’ve only been behind the cockpit of a single prop plane. T professionally flies a King Air B200, I believe. Now, for those of you who do not know what kind of plane this is, it is a double prop plane, and a souped up beauty at that.
When I first got there, T was waiting for me outside the hangar. We walked inside and T told me what this maintenance flight was: cabin air pressure check. “I hope your sinuses are clear or you’re gonna feel it.” Once I heard what they were doing, I admit that I became nervous. They basically let the cabin pressure drop and check the leak rate of the plane, as well as see if the oxygen masks fall as they should. And do you know why they have oxygen masks? Because if you get into high altitude without cabin pressure or an oxygen mask, you get hypoxic. So, I was not really looking forward to seeing how that would feel.
Then we started the pre-flight check. This is something that you have to do every time you fly. I’ve never done one before since the pilot of any plane/ultralight I have been on before did it for me. T showed me all of the neat instrumentation on the plane and let me listen into the radio while he was requesting take-off status.
Once the pre-flight was taken care of, the co-pilot came on and we prepared for take-off.
I got to sit back in a nice comfy leather seat during take-off. We flew up to about 16,000 feet before we reached cruising altitude. T turned around and gave me a thumbs-up. Time to let the pressure drop! I sat in the chair, not feeling anything at first. Then my heart began beating quickly. Then my hands and feet turned blue. Then I felt very light-headed and a little high. I just kept taking deep breaths and my body began to normalize itself with the changes. Once they got to their intended pressure to let the masks fall, I was only feeling light-headed and having a slightly fast heartbeat. The masks fell and I heard them say they were repressurizing the cabin. T then left the cockpit to do the rest of the maintenance check while I hopped into the co-pilot’s seat. I then got to see the man in action.
I got to then fly for about a minute, with some help. I was then told we were ready to go back to land. As we flew back to the airport, I got to help steer the plane, drop the landing gears and apply the breaks. There is nothing like breaking through the clouds and seeing the runway below and head down to land. I loved it.
Hopefully I can soon fly again. T will be giving me flying lessons (in trade for my own services), but I first have to get the funding to do so. Buying my own (used) plane is definitely the cheaper and more economical route to take, but it is finding the money to put up front to do it. For the type of plane that I want to buy, it would cost me less than what we paid for our car. There are definitely some upkeep and hangar costs, however, they are not quite as large as you may think, as you are able to factor those costs into your hourly rate.
So hears to hoping and more flying fun in the future.
-A
