More Airplane Fun!

Jon doesn't ever need much of an excuse to fly the airplane. Pretty much all you need to do is mention you've seen an airplane before and he'll take you for a ride! For real. Well, last week he had a super duper good excuse for taking the plane (which, btw, needs a name - don't you think? More on that later.) out of the hangar and up in the air. Our nephew, Bryan, is stationed at Fort Hood now. He's been there just over a month and just our luck, he agreed to come to Dallas for Thanksgiving! Jon thought that sounded like the perfect job for him - leave the house the day before Thanksgiving. Sneaky, eh?

So he flew down to Killeen to pick up Bryan and took a couple little passengers with him. William and the neighbor boy, Jack.

Jack and Will pose with the plane.

Jack taking his own picture in the back seat!

Bryan loves to fly and hopes to get his own license someday, so he was happy to climb on board. He's a really nice young man. It's hard to believe he is so grown up. We remember the little curly headed guy sitting in a high chair!

Looking like his Dad!!

The view....

Almost home!

Thanks for coming for a visit, Bryan! It was a pleasure to have you. We hope you will come more often!

Name the Airplane

Jon may think this is stupid. I haven't mentioned it to him. But I think it would be cool for the 195 (airplane) to have a name. It's such a cool plane. So, I'm asking for your help to name the airplane. There are plenty of photos on the blog of our family flyer if you need some inspiration. Leave a message or two, or three with your suggestions. I guess there should be a prize. If we pick your suggestion, we'll take you to the Blue Pig in Ardmore, OK for lunch. Now, if you live in Hawaii or some other remote location, you either have to get yourself to TX, or we'll have to come up with another prize (or if there is absolutely no way you are getting on a small plane)! And the prize would be equally as wonderful, so don't be bashful!

One Last Oshkosh Post

You're probably all bored to tears with this, but there are a few more things to share about our week in Wisconsin.

In case you can't picture what this event looks like, here are a couple photos from the air:

This one is a shot of a small portion of the exhibit area.
This is one of many, many parking lots.  There are several areas this size full of campers, too!

One of the highlights of the week was Jon receiving an award for the plane.  He received a "Bronze Lindy" for Best in Class of the vintage airplanes of his "type".  He could totally explain it better.  Maybe one of these days I'll get him to contribute here.  In the meantime, here's a photo:

Molly was thrilled to join him on stage!  

One night we hit the town and found this really cute drive in that reminded me of "The Spot" in Kenosha, Wisconsin where I spent my early youth.  

Here's "The Spot"

And here's Ardy and Ed's in Oshkosh

It's super cute with orange building.  And I love the retro star on the sign!
The kids had a blast sitting on top of the car.  They ate their meal up there!
The trays that hook on to the window were just like the ones at the spot.  Of course, we had to have Root Beer!  Molly got the cutest little tiny mug you've ever seen.

The kids made friends with all the servers (who were on roller skates, btw) by the end of our dinner!  It was really a fun time!

Soon we were back on our way home to Dallas.  We were ready to get home.

The kids were pretty tuckered out....

We stopped in Milwaukee, where we put Lucy on a commercial flight to Salt Lake City for EFY (a summer church camp at BYU).  Then we continued south along Lake Michigan right past Kenosha and then Chicago.  It was pretty fun to see the city from the air.

The flight back was great, and we arrived home ready to move out of the house and into the hangar!  Our new house was not ready yet - surprise, surprise!

Oshkosh B'gosh!

We took a lot of photos while in Oshkosh. The thought of blogging about all of them is a wee bit overwhelming, so I made an album to share some of them. There are more coming! Enjoy!

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It's a ROAD TRIP.......Flying Style!

I began this post way back in July - actually in Oshkosh, but the internet connection there was such a pain, that I never got it finished and well - since then have had a few other things on my plate.  Anyway, here's some more catching up!

We are off on our first family flight (alliteration coincidental)!  We left Aero Country Airport in McKinney, Texas on Saturday morning, July 26th.  The newly restored Cessna 195 was well packed with Will, Molly and Lucy in the back seat and the baggage compartment filled!  We were all excited to get going.  The kiddos were all high tech with headsets hooked up to the seatback DVD system. 

  

Everyone was really excited - even ME!  I guess I'm getting used to this flying stuff. Despite the headset and "air-conditioning" doing a number on my hair, it's a pretty comfortable ride. I didn't get a picture of Jon in the pilot seat, but he looked very pilot-like and official.  With charts ready, we headed north for Wisconsin!

We made a stop to wait out a bit of weather in Ft. Smith, Arkansas.  There was a nice FBO (that's pilot-talk for an airport rest stop) with a lounge where we read, used the computer and lounged about.  We also had lunch in town at Paradise Bakery.  

The pilot lounge was a good spot for a family photo, complete with props from Will.  Thanks, buddy!  

We got on our way again after Lunch and after a while I was looking out the window and saw this:

Just under the wing I see this white building and I say to Jon, "Hey, that looks like a temple! Where are we?" So we checked the map, and sure enough, we're above Nauvoo, Illinois! And that is a temple! So we circle the town and got a little closer look.  

We determined we needed to come back and spend some time in Nauvoo.  It's not a bad flight and there's an airport right outside the town.  We even considered stopping on the way home, but it will most likely be a Monday, and none of the Church historical sites are open on Monday! Bummer.  It was really fun to see it from the air, though.  It's a beautiful temple.

We decided to stop not too far from Oshkosh for the night so we could fly into the air show early in the morning and avoid the traffic.  So we stopped in beautiful Juneau, Wisconsin and stayed in the AmericInn.  After a fun time at Applebee's for dinner, Will and Molly went for a swim.

 

The next morning we were up early and with our matching t-shirts we headed off for Oshkosh!  The whole landing process was very organized (a huge number of airplanes fly into Oshkosh during the air show, making it the busiest airport on earth for that week) and it was much easier than we anticipated.  We were guided to the Vintage Airplane area and then to the Cessna 195 parking.  Everyone was glad to be there!  It was a long flight from Texas.  We were ready for some FUN!