Steve and Kaylee went out to Kokomo today, and Kaylee learned to ride her bike with no training wheels! We just do not have an area at our house that is good for bike riding, so we kept saying "one of these days we'll take her out to Kokomo and do it there." It's perfect out there-big ramps, smooth concrete, long straightaways, the whole ball of wax. Nathan's kids all learned to ride bikes out there. :) We've always kind of
figured this would be one of those things where she would decide she was afraid, where she'd fall and get all upset, etc. We were just totally wrong and should have done this awhile ago. Kaylee had a little trouble figuring out how to arrange the pedals so she could get going, but once she got that down in a couple of minutes, she got on, she pedaled across the floor, stopped, turned around, did it again and again. Not one fall. She got slow once and wobbled her wheel back and forth-and kept it. So Steve opened the hangar door and let her go outside to see if she could make turns and such-No Problem. I mean, she hasn't had a single fall over yet other than one she did on purpose so Steve would let her take her wrist pads off. Steve made her wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with all her pads so that when she wiped out she wouldn't get hurt-but since she didn't, eventually he let her put her other pants and a short sleeved shirt on. She just took off riding like she's been doing it all along. That was pretty cool. It reminded me of when she potty trained. One day I tell her she can have M&Ms if she goes potty in the toilet instead of in her diaper, she did it once, I gave her chocolate, and she was done. I'm still relatively amazed at how fast and painless that whole exercise was, and I'm still in a little disbelief that she just hopped on there and rode like she's always only had two wheels.I was on a trip when Steve and Kaylee were doing this, and when I landed and we pulled up, I saw her riding her bike out there and noticed there were no training wheels, and for a minute I thought it was must be another girl (Gwenie) or something. But nope, there she was, cruising around with her Princess Protective Gear. Bike riding and conquering swimming were our two big goals for the summer. One down, one to go! I'm proud of her. :) I took a video clip of her riding which you can see here if you have high speed internet. Steve also took two video clips on his cellphone to send me while I was gone. The quality is terrible (cellphone quality!), but she starts off and says "This one's for you, Mom." and rides around. The second one is her coming around to a stop and saying "I can ride a two-wheeler now!" Hmm, I just tried to view them off the page and I can't get those to work. I'll have to look into that later...
So that's what Kaylee did today!
As for me, this morning I headed to Waukegan in the 172RG with Justin to pick up his wife. Out of four legs into and out of Chicago, I must say three of the four were as easy as you're going to get in busy airspace like that. The fourth, coming out, was more typical. They sent us a long way out of our way, changed our heading a bunch of times for traffic, etc. It was a lot more bumpy, and there was some standard popup summertime weather, too. I just realized I forgot to turn the music on. I had XM music and forgot to turn it on? Humph. Oh well, it was probably busy enough over the radio without the music...
A little later I had another flight in the RG, this time taking up a friend of a friend on his 50th birthday. There were four of us in the plane, and we wandered around and looked at some local places. The only problem was that there were three fairly good-sized storms out there; one of them a big ugly one. So I kept an eye on those, and after 30 minutes I had to tell them we had to cut it short and come on in. It was a bit of a gusty wind for landing, but we got everything put away and locked up and got headed out before the rain and real winds hit.
That reminds me. Yesterday when I landed at Muncie for the second time in the Baron, a man came up to me and said "Did you land here earlier, too?" I said yes, and he said "Okay, I had never seen a lady Baron pilot before, and I kind of doubted there would be two of them in the same day at the same airport." He was there doing formation training with the Grumman group, and we talked for awhile. Some of the few strangers I rarely mind talking to are fellow pilots-it seems like you can always find something to talk about in flying. ;)
Today is also the 9th anniversary of Devon's death. Some people sent us memories they had of Devon, and that always means a lot to know that others are remembering too. This isn't a day that holds the best memories for us-the birthdays you can celebrate the memories of birth and joy and life and happiness and hope. The "death day" or "angel day" as I phrased it years ago just doesn't come with anything but the hardest memories. But we focus on the good, because we were blessed to have him in our lives...
Now it looks like we will have a good evening in which to unwind and relax. Kaylee is trying out the new shower head that Steve just installed in our bathrooms, then heading into bed. It's a good time to go relax on the deck and feel the cool post-storm breeze and hang out for awhile. :)
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