Didn't we just put away the fans?

Well, we've had two summer days in a row down here in Wichita Falls. The weather has been over 90 already! It feels like we just put away the fans for "winter." Tomorrow and Wednesday are going to be cooler ( in the mid/high sixties.) Mason and I had dinner on the patio last night, that sounds old of us, and we bab-b-qued this weekend. We are having a BBQ with friends tonight as well, since I have today and tomorrow off from school! Yea!! Our lawn was covered in purple flowers, but Mason mowed them away yesterday. I'm proud to also say that my daffodils have bloomed.

My class did not win the radio contest, but we were the ONLY class to be played on the radio. That was really cool. We have today and tomorrow off for a teacher's work day and inclement weather. It's great, especially with the nice weather. My class did however raise the most money ($650.00) for a school fundraiser. They had to get pledges for reading a certain number of minutes and then half the money they get back in books and the other half I get for the classroom. PLUS since my classroom won, I get a day off from school and the lady in charge will be my substitute for the day! I'm very excited about that. :-) I was asked back for next year, and I think I'll be teaching summer school, so that is fun. I'm already planning things for next year, although I have to finish off this year before planning next year. I will be taking my Texas certification classes over the next month or two, so I am worried about that, but I'm hoping they are similar to Illinois. Initially I had my one year temp. certificate, so these tests are to extend that certification.


Mason was battling a bad cold for a few days, but he was put back on flight status today. He didn't get to fly and I don't think he's schedules for tomorrow, but that can always change. He's in the final 6 weeks of tweet training. Mid-May he will transfer to the T-38...we can't believe how fast things are going. (Although it's crazy that we've been married almost a year, too.) Mason continues to take things day by day preparing for formation and advanced contact flights. He's got about 30 flights in 6 weeks. you do the math.

A student of mine and his mother rescued a turtle from the side of the road and were housing her at their home. Unfortunately their dog got a hold of the turtle and broke the front most part of her shell. $400 dollars later, my student's family realized they could not keep her, and hence, we have an adopted turtle. Her name is Luna and we're thinking she's a box turtle. Before she was found some owners painted her shell with nailpolish :-( Hopefully it will wear off so she isn't attacked by any (more) predators. We set up a habitat for her, and I'm thinking if we get a good lid for the box I may bring her to school as the class pet, although I'm hesitant. Rembrandt is jealous that we've been paying attention to her so much, so we took him out the other night for some running around time, and Mason re-arranged his tubes. He always seems excited about that.

So our happy family is growing and growing each day. I've included some random pictures for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017143&l=ae1f7&id=77800450

I passed!

Today I passed the low-level navigation checkride! This is the third phase/checkride of Tweets, and for the first two checkrides I busted them both the first time. So I am extremely relieved to have passed this checkride on the first time. Besides being stressful and a lot of work, re-checks are a really bad thing on the pilot score that determines the plane you get at the end. So no more busts please.

Low-level was an extremely short phase with only 7 rides (2 of them being an out and back mission to another airport in one day). The first ride or two, you're totally lost and can't see any towers at all. Then you start to get the hang of it. Then you do a ride where you're totally f*'n lost again. And then you do a perfect ride. And then you take your checkride. The winds for the day and the route you get and everything else have such a big impact that it's hard to say you're confident or not going into it. Other UPT bases don't do low level nav but do a few VFR cross country rides instead. Low level is 210 knots groundspeed at 500 feet above the ground with the end goal of being at your target at the preplanned time. VFR cross countries (which we don't do at enjjpt) are basically floating along at 10,000' just going from one airport to another. No big deal, did that a lot in the civilian world. So low-level is a lot closer to what a fighter/bomber aircraft would do. On my check today, we had complications with the winds going in and out of limits so the planned fuels and bingo fuels kept changing. I had to cut the route in half basically and designate a new target as we were flying, then climb out of the route early to go home. I got 2 downgrades for being low on altitude at times and misidentifying one of my turn points by a mile or so. But I arrived at my target within 5 seconds of planned time so that was a good end.

And since pilot training never slows down, tomorrow I'm scheduled for FORMATION. One other guy in my flight finished his low level checkride today too (we were the first ones to check in the flight). So each of us and our IPs will be flying formation with each other. We had a quick and dirty, so to speak, briefing about formation flying today which left all of us feeling like we were starting to learn how to fly all over again. So this evening it's back to the books!...aaaagain.

How close do we get you ask- 3 feet wingtip to wingtip

"PUSH IT UP!"

Spring Break, what, done already???

Last week was my spring break from school, and it was heavenly! After a rowdy Friday at school with basically 42 students left to just me when my counterpart became ill, spring break could not have been better. I spent from Friday evening until Wednesday evening in Chicago visiting my family, friends, and just relaxing. The feeling of "going home" was quite different from when I had last visited in July. This isn't just because I was sleeping on an air mattress in the col, cold, basement either. (Thanks for the extra blankets Mom and Dad). It was the first time where I really felt like my home was in Texas with Mason, and that I was just visiting. Nonetheless it was good to see friends and family. Oh, and eat lots of deep dish pizza!

Mason, of course, missed me like crazy... he's been busy at pilot training getting ready for yet another checkride. He should take his low-level checkride on Thursday if the winds hold steady. He only had 6 flights in this phase so it's gone quickly, but after this check, he will continue with the advanced contact (acrobatics) and move onto formation flight. He's really looking forward to that. His nights have mostly consisted of map making these past few weeks, but he had a really good flight yesterday and we're hoping his check will go well. Keep fingers crossed.

At school, my counterpart (Kim) and I have decided to challenge our students by giving them additional courses in American History and Spanish. I am teaching the Spanish, and it's been fun this week. I get to practice, and yet I'm just at the perfect level to teach them, if I don't know something I usually just tell them, "oh, we'll learn that another day." So far, that's been working out okay. On a very positive note, my principal asked me back for next year, so that is terrific! Out of 22 3rd and 5th graders I had 17 pass their reading state test, so I was happy about that. There's no word if we won the radio contest yet, BUT my kids were on the radio, and that was super exciting for all of us!

Moustache March

Well...Moustache March is in full effect for Mason and the guys in his flight. I figured I'd put up a picture, since most people never get to see the stache. I think it's kinda weird without the beard, but I've been getting used to it.

My kids wanted to enter a local contest to win tickets to see High School Musical on ice...so today (in 45 minutes) we put together a song from the show and recorded it to submit. We've had many fun animal moments the past week, and decided to share them. Meanwhile, tomorrow begins spring break, call me crazy, but I'm leaving 78 degrees to go to snowy, cold Chicago...oh well...I'm tired, so here's some videos for your viewing pleasure.

And the hits just keep on comin (so to speak)

Sooooo...

Checkride # 2, Instrument Phase - Flight goes okay (jack up the easy parts, do well on the difficult parts of course). Then we go to the ground eval, which kicks off with two emergency procedures (the IP gives you a situation and says "you have the airplane" and you talk your way through the whole deal). It goes just fine (or so I thought) and then we go into the general knowledge portion of the eval. That goes great since I did a lot of studying for the rules and info about instrument flying. And at the end of it all, the IP says he has to go talk to someone and will be right back (so I knew either something really good or really bad was happening). He came back with one of the IPs from our flight (who shook my shoulders, again - could be good or could be bad). We all sit down and start debriefing the whole checkride and the check pilot goes, "so this is why I'm giving you a U". GRAAGHHH!!

In troubleshooting one of the emergencies, I forgot to turn a switch back on (which was listed in the checklist). I went through the whole rest of the EP fine without any knowledge that I skipped that step. And for that, he failed me. So that made for a dandy weekend of studying and stress. Today, I redid the emergency procedure evaluation (I didn't have to do the flight or general knowledge portion). The re-eval was really challenging (and annoying). The EPs that the IP gave me were completely non-standard and unlike any EPs I've ever gone through. So it was a lot of squirming in my seat to figure out what the heck he was expecting me to do. After lots of sweating, he passed me.

In between all that, I was also counseled my flight commander for the bust and had to do the standard vision exam (I'm getting better every time). I got the impression that there was a lot of debate about the result of my checkride. The fact that I made a mistake in the procedures was obvious, but the action of failing me for it (instead just downgrading me) seemed a little extreme.

But whatever, it's all cleaned up now and the world can resume rotating. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for my first low-level navigation flight. It's pretty crazy since you have to do a ton of planning for the route. It involves a lot of charting towers and elevations so you can make sure you're always 2000' away from any tower (lateral seperation). The entire route is flown at 500 feet AGL and 210 knots groundspeed. Yee-hah

On a side note, it appears to be turning back into primo motorcycling weather. And I invented a cover for the button on my flight suit so it doesn't scratch the bike. Ready steady go!

Another year older, but mostly wiser

For all our avid blog readers (mainly my mother) I'm sorry it's been so long since we've made a post. Life, to say the least has been so BUSY! I think in our last post I mentioned a trip to Dallas we were going to take. The day turned out to be more stressful than fun, but we'll probably go back sometime, if nothing else for the PF Changs that we saw there. Mason was also on his cross country since then I believe and that went well for him. He had many change-o-plans but ended up going to San Antonio. Since then, Mason has had a week of night flying. He really didn't get to fly much at night, but he was going into "work" at 2pm and coming home around 9pm. Fortunately he was home early a few nights. He's been preparing for another check ride, this time with Instrument. He was supposed to take it today, but due to a "snow storm" (flurries to those from Chicago); so he should fly that tomorrow pending weather conditions. Next week he should begin some navigation flying which is mostly low-level (only 500 ft. off the ground) and more advance contact rides, which is all the fancy tricks.

For me, things at work have been crazy! I had to make a tough decision about something and in the end the principal and I definitely didn't see eye to eye, but I stood my ground, which I 'm trying to be better at. (My father may say, I was always good at making my opinion well heard). My students had their state writing and reading test yesterday, which I was so NERVOUS about...after all those years of taking those tests, and my mother always reassuring me that I shouldn't worry because it's just about how the teacher is doing came back to haunt me as I am not the teacher. Oh well.

Today went well, my students were enjoying my birthday and some of the staff got me and my friend Kim a cake (her birthday is Saturday) so that was really fun. It's nice being at a small school sometimes. I taught my kids a verb song to an old N'Sync song so they thought that was pretty fun, and tomorrow I am putting together a survival reading challenge for them, so that should suit their fancy for the week. I'm just counting the days until Spring Break. We are on break the week of the 17th and I'm going home (YEA!!!!!!) from the 14th until the 19th, so I can't wait!

Mason was home early tonight and surprised me with a birthday cake and a trip to the casino and take advantage of military appreciation night, and we walked out with $12.00 and some change. We went out for dinner which was fun since he had taken me to Olive Garden last night to celebrate...we just mostly blobbed tonight, took Rembrandt for a roll around the house, and Mason got some study time in.

I've included a video of my kids in class today, and pictures from my classroom and the zoo. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016643&l=9f98a&id=77800450