A day in the life of a pilot

Rise and shine! It's time to brush my teeth.

I hit the park for a little exercise before the big flight.

I always arrive at the aircraft carrier 2 hour early to check my bags and visit with
the other pilots.

I go over the flight plan with my Co-Pilot, Dan. You can tell by my expression that I am a little bored. Dan hasn't been on the job as long as me. He's still learning the ropes.

Finally, I hit the cafeteria for some grub. I don't like to fly on an empty stomach!

Back at the aircraft carrier, I go over my airplane inspection. Every now and then I need to make a few repairs before take off. Safety first folks.

Captain Barron reporting for duty!

I fly the plane all the way to the bookstore in Maryland. Here I am in a pitch, yaw and roll.

After unloading the plane, I have a few minutes to stretch my feet so I decide to stop by the bookstore and pick up a 500 page reference book called
AIRCRAFT OF THE WORLD, A complete guide.
Just some light airport reading.

I also get a drink of milk before boarding my return flight to VA. Strong Bones, Healthy Body.

I also took a bathroom break while wearing my hat, but
Captain Mom Mom won't post it.

Once again, I go over the flight details with my Co-Pilot, Dan. Again, this guy is a rookie and needs to see pictures of the airplanes where as I can ID all of them by their tails.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Thanks for flying American Airlines. I should have you at Reagan Airport on time. We appreciate your business and hope to see you on another flight soon."

Ahh, it's great to be home!

Good night! I am dreaming about the flight!

Rub a Dub Dub, WBB in the tub!

An afternoon at Manassas Battlefield

Saturday was our first day of pretty weather in quite awhile. So, we took William to run around Manassas Battlefield. As we explored the grounds, William decided to play Thomas the train and assigned himself the roll of Thomas, Mom Mom as Gordon and Dada as Sir Topham Hat.

He dreamed up a whole story about us riding the rails for about 30-40 minutes. We made various stops at the wash down and coal hopper, Gordon's wheel got stuck in the mud and fell off the tracks but Harold the helicopter flew by and called Rocky the crane to the rescue. We made a stop by Toby's new shed and filled Thomas with coal so he could take the kids to the parade. Sir Topham Hat gave the trains jobs to do and Bertie the bus was carrying chickens and Thomas hooked Henry up to his buffers for a trip down a really, really tall mountain. Whew, it went on and on but I got a kick out of William's imagination.


and for the record, I was Gordon until William went to bed that night.

2009 Preschool Pancake Pajama Party!

William woke up so excited this morning because it was the 2009 Preschool Pancake Pajama Party! The kids all wore their jammies to school and had breakfast for lunch.


William wore his airplane jams. Shocker.

Modge Podge

I really like photo ornaments on the Christmas tree. As I was putting away our decorations it dawned on me that I could make my own photo ornaments using some stuff I happened to have in my bag of tricks.

I bought a few ceramic ornaments at Michaels and covered them with left over paper and used the modge podge glue to secure a picture of William or our family on the front. Then I wrote the date and description on the back and sealed it with the glue again. SO EASY.

Here we have an airplane theme bell with a picture of the cutest pilot I know.

BFF

Dada to William: "William, am I your best friend?"
William to Dada: "No Dada. Mom Mom is my best friend."

2009 Christmas recap

We had a wonderful 3 week vacation in Oklahoma with family and friends. William was fired up to go to Bebe and Pop's house. William was thrilled to be with them 24-7, and loved on baby Elin too! He was so sweet to her and each time she came over to play, he'd pull out lots of toys for her to play with. He even brought over the dog bowl with some blocks in it - I think he thought it was a tray! Service with a smile!

We had a true WHITE CHRISTMAS after receiving more than a foot of snow on Christmas Eve. Luckily, I threw William's snow suit in our luggage at the last minute and as it turned out, we definitely needed it! Dan and I took him sledding down the hills at the country club. At first he was not sure about the whole thing but after a spin on the sled, he was loving it.


Christmas Eve was filled with traditional chaos! We all had a delicious chicken spaghetti dinner at the Brown's house and the great-grandkids sang "Happy Birthday to Jesus" before blowing (or was it spitting?) out the candles on the cake!


With all the snow on the ground, we slowly but surely drove over to Mac and Meme's for the 2009 Christmas present extravaganza.



We use to go in a circle and open each gift one by one so everyone could see what each other received. It took A LONG TIME but was a fun way to keep the evening going. However, there are now 4 little people under the age of 5 and all hope for "the system" is now out the window. The minute we sit down and the gifts are handed out it is every man (little person) for himself.....well more like orderly chaos. Mac is 90 and Meme is 88. They still love to shop for gifts, wrap every single one of them, and organize them into piles for each person. WHO DOES THAT at their age?




I think God gave me the best Mac and Meme in the whole world.

Next up was the main event starring the jolly ol' man himself, Santa. William woke up on Christmas morning talking about airplanes......."think Santa brought me that?" We sprang to our feet to race down the stairs while Dada took some video. I will never forget our little guy's face when he saw 18 airplanes, a runway and a control tower laid out on the floor from Santa. He was full of wonder and awe. He even starred at the half eaten Oreo with pure delight.



He immediately sat down and started listing off every plane - "United! American Airlines! US Airways! UPS! Southwest!".....and the list went on and on!



After a couple of hours of playing with his toys he looked up and asked me, "Mom Mom where did Santa Claus go? I need to give him a hug and say thank you." Did I mention my child is perfect? :)

I will also mention that Santa brought William a cash register, moving belt, basket of play food, and a microwave. All of these items were consistently listed off as we asked William what he'd like from Santa. However, on Christmas morning the grocery store took a backseat to the airplanes for sure.


Once Christmas was over, it was on to New Years. We celebrated 2010 early since Dada was going to Kansas and Mom Mom was going to the Thunder game.



Since it was snowy outside we were limited to time at the park. So, we hit the bounce house! Some friends told me about a place in Edmond called Bounce Craze and I thought it might be a good place for William to run around. He LOVED it! We stayed 2 hours.



We also made cookies with Bebe and spent time laughing and playing around with Pops. We saw Rachie and John Trey who gave William a toaster and some airplane underwear (another favorite gift!), we played with Henry, and ate ourselves silly.





I always try to take a moment and step back from the commotion and just watch the joy and laughter coming from all of us. I want to savor every second with family and friends and take little snapshot memories to tuck away in my heart.

Just a few of my favorite things...

We are back from a very merry WHITE CHRISTMAS in Oklahoma. I will post more about our wonderful trip after I download all my pictures. So, stay tuned.

Meanwhile, as I was unpacking 4 suitcases and sorting through December mail and other "stuff," I came across an informal interview that I did with William before we left for Oklahoma.

To give you some background, I have VERY fond memories of my dad pulling out a spiral notebook at the dinner table and going around the room asking my brother and sister and me all about our favorite things. He 'd write the answers down and note the date and our age at the time of the interview. We did this about 2 or 3 times a year and each time we'd open the notebook, everyone got a kick out of what they said when they were 6, 7, 8, etc. years old. I consider that childhood memory as one of my most "favorite things" about my dad.

So, one night Dan was working late and William and I were eating dinner when I started asking him about his favorite things. I wrote down exactly what he said for each answer even though I think some of them are not as accurate as they should be. But, some of the random answers are exactly what make this interview such a fun memory.

William Barron - 2.5 Years old Dec. 3rd, 2009

"My Favorites"

• color - purple
• animal - giraffe
• airplane - American Airlines
• number- 8
• food- chicken
• candy - chocolate kinda like Junior Mints
• train - airport train and metro train
• toy - Bebe's house has the airplane called Tonka
• friend - Zack and Ava
• car - my red car
• thing about preschool - toys
• thing to do with Dada - watch airplanes
• thing to do with Mom Mom - ride in the car
• book - ABC airplane book
• song - Jesus Loves Me and ABC song
• Thomas trains - Henry and Gordon
• about Bebe - hugs me
• about Pops - P is for Pops, X is for x-ray
• about Gram - has a front porch
• about Bubba - he's 8.5 years old
• drink - water and milk
• at night - read crazy books. tons of them
• about morning - sun's up and it's a nice day
• to wear - my pilot costume
  
• place to go in the car - airport
• on a trip - Bebe's house
• about Santa - he's old kinda like Mom Mom and Dada

Other notes during this conversation:

"I ride with Dada to the office in the tunnel. Mom Mom goes to Target to look at airplanes and to Wal-mart. "O" is for Target" (the O Target logo sign he sees from the street)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Oklahoma!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Oklahoma!

We've been here since Dec. 18th and have had a great time with family and friends. I didn't bring along the necessary equipment to upload pictures onto the blog, but I promise to post about our December adventures once we get back to D.C. on January 6th.

For now, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and many answered prayers in 2010!