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This morning was Kaylee's last swim lesson, and it was Testing Day to determine if she should stay in Level Two a little longer or move on to Level Three. Usually you don't find out until the next day, which is a "free swim" day, after which you get your certificate. But Kaylee wasn't going to be here tomorrow for her free swim day, so I went up to the coach afterwards and asked. She's in Level Three. :) She was so excited! Okay, I was excited too. She just wasn't ready to swim until now, but once she got in the mode for it, she barreled ahead full steam. The girl who wouldn't put her head under water without an argument 12 lessons ago did a cannonball into the water today. Go Kaylee! She came home and pretended to be upset to her dad for awhile, and then surprised him with her news. All the way home she was plotting how to not smile while she pretended to be bothered at not passing, and she pulled it off. This is her last swim lesson of the summer as the next batch of lessons fall during Oshkosh and she won't be here. But for the rest of the summer she gets to just have fun actually swimming. She earned it. :)

I brought her home afterwards, where Steve was still lying sick on the couch, and left her to take care of things while I went out to Glenndale to finally get the billing finished. I made the last changes and got the email statements sent out and the snail mail statements printed out, but ran out of time.

I took the Citabria and flew it to Sheridan where I picked up the 172 to bring back to Glenndale in order to fly with a student. We did about an hour of ground school, then took a cross-country flight the good old fashioned way. We used a map, time, and ground references to find our way there...the foundations of navigation. It took us about two and a half hours for the whole flight, and I had him fly me back to Sheridan so we could put the 172 away where it belongs, after which I brought him back to Glenndale in the Citabria. He enjoyed the flight in the little taildragger with few instruments, and so did I, frankly.

When we were done, I folded, stuffed, licked, stamped and mailed off the rest of the billing and came home where Kaylee was waiting for me with bags packed and ready to go on her next big adventure...visiting Grandma & Grandpa Chiles for several days straight, all by herself. :)

I got everything ready to go, called to file a flight plan, and the weather briefer said "Um, have you looked at the radar?" Why yes, yes I have, and yes I see all that. There was a decent-sized wad of storms in Illinois rather right in my way, but I had a couple of options and enough on-board equipment, so Kaylee and I loaded up the Baron (I love that plane too) and headed off.

The whole time we were in the air, Kaylee asked me questions about the props, the throttles, the instruments, and mostly the weather. She was fascinated by the weather. We talked about plans. I showed her Plan A, which was direct to Cape, and showed her our track and why it wouldn't work. So we went to Plan B. She wanted to know what Plan C was, and I showed her that, and then she sarcastically asked for Plan D, and I told her that was "Turn around, go home, and come back tomorrow."

I pretty much got current with the majority of my aviation world in one day today. I flew a trainer/C-172 with a student on a cross country using nothing but a map and a watch. A taildragger/Citabria into and out of a grass strip. Then went on a cross-country to Missouri in an airplane with every piece of fancy equipment you could possibly need, including Garmin 430, 530, and 696 GPSs, onboard radar, XM radar, and XM radio. You know, the important thing at the end there. ;) I got to go through rain, around storms, and into day IFR, then had a beautiful clear sunset leg of the trip, then got to come home at night VFR, then a little night IFR too, into a bit more rain. Did I miss anything?! It was actually very nice. I turned up the tunes and watched the sun go down.

Kaylee and I had dinner with Grandma & Grandpa (thank you!) before I headed home, and when I left it was to them waving arms on the ramp. I gave the required wing-wag goodbye, and left them at her mercy for a few days here. I know she'll have fun, and hope they do too. :)

I didn't get home until about 11 p.m., putting the plane away in the light rain. I'd call that another rather full day. I think I was home long enough to pick up Kaylee in the last fourteen hours....so it's good to be home!