Hope your Thanksgiving weekend was as nice as ours. Brian and I flew down to Arkansas (thanks SO much Matthew!) to visit his mother and some of the family. Weather could've been better, but we're thankful for the chance to be with family. Here are a couple pics from this weekend...

Brian and I will be spending Thanksgiving with family this week. We hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

It was too windy to fly this weekend, which gave us some extra time to work on the Champ. It flies great, but a few tweaks here and there wouldn't hurt. While I waxed the plane, Brian plugged in my Garmin 196 (the Champ is an IFR trainer after all), swapped out some old screws, and started on switching out the old plexiglass side windows. So no new flying adventures to share, just some much-needed ground TLC.

(warning: the posts will be light this and next week as I'm deep in edits on my next book and will be visiting family over the Thanksgiving holiday)

Brian is now an A&P! Yesterday, he passed his exam in Nashville and he's on his way home now for a well deserved break. 

In much less important news, I've added the tri-champ's history to the Planes page. If you're curious to learn more about tri-champs, be sure to check it out. And I welcome any other facts regarding the cute airplane (my word, not Brian's). 

I took the tri-champ around the patch for a bit yesterday and had a great time. What a great, fun airplane to fly. I just may have to sneak in another flight before Brian gets home today. :) 

For my first day off between jobs, I woke up at the crack of dawn, loaded up Annabelle, and headed to the hangar for a day of flying. When I opened the hangar door, sun shined on the happy Tri-Champ, but it was dropping a bit to the side. A flat tire. Not even a breath of air left, like it just gave up. Usually a flat is no problem: I just sweet up to Brian, and he swaps out the tube, making it look easy. But he's out of town right now, so I was on my own. It took me nearly an hour to track down tools (I've yet to decipher Brian's tool organization system), and air up the tire to see if it'd hold for a quick flight. Easy peasy. 

While waiting to see if the tire would hold air, I decided to winterize the hangar a bit. Nothing exciting, but stuff that needs done to open up floor space for annuals. As I went to hang a camp chair in the furnace room, a spider jumped onto my hand (yes, it's true, and the thing was horrifying - I think he looked directly at me). I jerked back, snagging my wedding ring on a cord. Needless to say, the result wasn't pretty. The diamond went flying, and the band with left with a strange twist to it (which is an impressive feat considering it's a tension band, which makes it very thick). An hour later, I found the diamond (whew)! Another hour later, it had been shipped to the jeweler to see if it can be repaired. 

And so I chose not to challenge fate and instead of flying, cleaned the Tri-Champ. Flying would've been more fun.  :)

(Pictures courtesy of Dan Sokolowski)
Dan & Diane and Matthew & Amy were there to cheer me on.
Diane was my first passenger (next to Brian) since I got my license.