Walkin' on Sunshine

Kaylee enjoyed her slumber party--when I picked her up, she was straggly-haired, baggy-clothed, sleepy-eyed, and content. She said they were up until 1 or 2 a.m., and the Mom told me she'd heard the girls giggling at 6:45 a.m. So Kaylee was running on maybe 5 hours of sleep today. We had some plans out at the airport, so when I picked her up I took her right out to Kokomo and told her to try to be patient. I was slightly amazed that she played all day out at the airport, with three other kids, until close to sunset when we went out to eat, made it through the restaurant, and never got cranky. She then stayed awake until at least 11 p.m., too. I bet she's wiped out tomorrow, though! She did well; I was impressed.

First thing this morning, I had a Discovery Flight with someone in the Champ. It was such a beautiful morning for a flight--if the weather could always be like today, I would be perfectly happy. Chuck came out and was my handpropper, which I appreciated. I couldn't exactly ask the new guy to prop the plane, and neither was I all that eager to to do it myself with a non-pilot at the controls, particularly since this plane requires a little extra TLC to keep running after you start it, and no way could I get from the front to the throttle fast enough to keep it running. It still died a couple times on me, keeping Chuck busy for a little while, but finally we got her warmed up and ready to go, and went on to have a very nice flight. :)

Steve grilled up burgers and dogs at Kokomo, we opened up the hangars, the kids played on bikes, scooters, and golf cart, AE brought over homemade vanilla, strawberry and blueberry ice cream (and man was it good), and a friend who is purchasing an airplane had someone bring it up here so Nathan could do a pre-purchase inspection on it. We ended up with twelve people hanging out, eating, working on the airplane, etc. The guy who delivered the plane up here told us to please request him the next time we wanted a plane delivered, because he'd never been treated so well. ;) Lots of good food usually works well for hospitality around here. ;)

After a group dinner of Outback, I made it home just in time to log on to the online conference a small group of us is doing for formation groundschool. We went over hand signals today, and formation takeoffs, covering Chapter 2 and and an Appendix in the manual. Altogether it was about an hour and a half to two hours of material tonight. Next week I think we're meeting somewhere down in Indy to do a more difficult chapter in person, and then the rest should be online again, which is handy for us since we're not all in the same area. Hand signals I have down, most of the ground work I have down not too bad. It's the flying part I could use the practice with, but the ground isn't a bad refresher, that's for sure. The more that sinks in, the better...

We all enjoyed our Saturday. Those are the days full of sunshine, food, camaraderie and relaxation that leave you tired and content at the end of the day. :)