I fly

I did the coolest thing this week! I finally cashed in on my Christmas gift from Jared-- a flight lesson! It was so much fun, guys, SO much fun. I still feel like I'm flying high!

We arrived at the Santa Paula Airport with a few minutes to spare, so Jared played photographer.

(Oh, I guess I should note the debut of my new haircut? This is the shortest it's ever been... Ever.)

Then I got to meet Judy Phelps, my instructor. Judy was the 2011 National Certified Flight Instructor of the Year. The best CFI in the whole country, right here in our town! Feeling a bit of SP pride.

We then went out to meet our little plane.

Look at how liiiiiiittle this thing is. Jared reminded me that the last plane we flew in that was (not even) this small was the one we jumped out of. I wish I could link to a picture but that was 6 years ago, pre-blog. 

Judy and I (but pretty much just Judy) did a very thorough pre-flight check on the plane. There is an actual checklist of like 75 things. Pilots do this before each and every flight, unless of course you are just flying somewhere for lunch-- according to Judy-- and then you just check like 20 things. (Did you catch that? Flying somewhere for lunch?? How sweet is that?!) 

You check the gas level with a stick. That made Jared & me laugh.

With a plane this small, you can just pull it out to the runway yourself (so you don't blast anybody in the plane parking lot by turning on the engine). Here I am, literally moving a plane with a tow bar and my own muscles.

We hopped in, did the pre-flight check on all the inside controls, and then Judy gave me a few minutes of instruction on how to make the plane move (without a tow bar this time). On the ground, driving the plane is completely opposite of driving a car-- you steer the tires with the pedals at your feet and you give it gas by pushing in the throttle with your hand. It was tough to shift mentally from my car-driving habits. Taxi-ing was the hardest part!

In the air, the yoke (plane speak for the steering wheel) controls the bank, so if you turn it left, the left wing goes down and you bank left. You also use the yoke to pull the nose of the plane up or dive it down to change your elevation.

Both Judy and I had our own controls, but she just told me when and where to turn, and let me do it all.

Here we are gaining speed on the runway, about to take off...

Whenever I'm a passenger on a plane, I always wonder how the pilot knows when to pull up and lift off the ground. I even had a dream once that the plane Jared was in lifted up before it was ready and it kept falling back to the ground and taking off again. Well, here's the secret: you just get that thing to move fast enough and it lifts off on its own. It is the most amazing feeling! I screamed. A few times.

Here is the loop we made (I google mapped it below):

A (covered by E). Santa Paula Airport.

B. Ventura, with an amazing ocean view - the skies were so clear, we could easily see Channel Islands and beyond to the west, and Santa Barbara to the north.

C. Lake Casitas - this is where Judy had me do a 360-degree turn. I asked how hard I should turn the plane, and she said however hard I want. Woah! I was pretty conservative, but it was super exciting to make a tight circle (and a little nerve-wracking to tilt so much) over this gorgeous, blue lake.

D. The beautiful Ojai valley.

E. Back to Santa Paula Airport. We were in the air for 42 minutes. I saw my house from the sky.

Yeah, it's pretty here.

Judy hardly touched her controls the entire flight. I got the most help with the take off and landing, of course, but even then I felt that I had complete control. 

People, I flew a plane.

It. was. AWESOME.

Exhilarating, empowering, amazing.

We landed and were met by Jared, the kids (while I was in the air, J ran home to relieve the babysitter and bring the kids back to the airport), and my good friend and her kids. All the little ones checked out planes while Judy filled out my pilot log book. Who knows, maybe one day (after the kids are grown) I will fill that book up...

PS - The day of my flight, to gear up I tried to think of all the songs I could about flying, but all I could come up with was "Fly Like an Eagle" by Steve Miller Band, "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty and "I Believe I Can Fly" by R Kelly. Pretty disappointed that I couldn't think of more. I should have looked at this list first. How did I miss "Leaving on a Jet Plane," or worse, "Highway to the Danger Zone"?! I might have to fly again just so I can belt out the Top Gun theme song while soaring through the air. One night since then I dreamed about flying again, and the song I woke up with in my head was "To Fly" by Rihanna/Nicki Minaj. How they got those two personalities to work together, I do not know, but I'm loving the song.

FW: Goodnight, Mama.

It's worth it to have an evening away from the kids every once in a while (even if it's just to get a hair cut), because then I get emails like this...

-----Original Message-----
From: Jared
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2012
To: Debi
Subject: Goodnight, Mama.

They just went down.

funny girl

Jared & I laugh-- and often have to hide our laughs-- every day now at the things the twins say. And they're just getting started. Bethany has really taken off lately, and is a little ahead of Isaac as usual (he's always been about 2 weeks behind, but not usually more than that). It's funny how the things that we may have once found annoying or just not all that interesting, when it wasn't our kids, are now the most hilarious, cleverest, geniusest things that have ever been uttered. (My sense of self awareness is now trying to warn me that this may not be all that interesting to anyone else, but it sends us over the moon, so here it is.) Here are some of the things our little girl has said and done lately.

She's been asking, Whatcha doin there [Dada/Mama/Isaac]? Just yesterday we were driving past the fire station, and Bethany says, Whatcha doin there firefighter? Is my baby girl already using pickup lines?

While setting out their lunch I was singing Rumor Has It by Adele, and Bethany started singing Mama has it, Dada has it, Benny has it, Isaac has it, cookie has it, TV has it. All her favorite things, I suppose.

She's holding the dial from our heated blanket up to her tummy.

Who knows what she thinks she is doing.

Basketball = bas-a-ketball (Isaac used to say it correctly but has now adopted her version).

I asked the twins who pooped, and Bethany slowly lifted her arm and pointed across the room at Isaac. (I don't remember if she was right, but probably.)

If she could, she would wear a swimsuit daily.

I don' like dis. Usually in regards to getting strapped into her booster seat or carseat, or a particular food. Last night it was meatballs, which she continued to eat anyway.

My do dis - or - All by self! At least 100x a day.

So proud of her very first circle!

Oh goodness! About 10x a day. Not enough if you ask me.

Bethany can "read" (say from memory a lot of the words to) the first half of Goodnight Moon. Kinda makes sense-- we read it just about every day for over a year.

She's starting to sing songs-- Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, My Pidgeon House, Do As I'm Doing, Ring Around the Rosies, and Elmo's Song are the ones I can think of.

Girls day out, with friends at the Santa Paula airport.

The girls were flying around like airplanes. (You can walk right out onto the runway!)

Freckle = fretzel (rhymes with pretzel).

She says You okay? every time she falls.

She lets me know when to send Isaac to time out.

Pigtails.

Post-pigtails.

One day she was making her nervous face and saying I hear it, I hear it, I scared. After a few minutes I figured out that she was hearing the birds squawk in our backyard and it was scaring her. So I held her and told her that birds aren't scary, they're nice and they sing beautiful songs. She then pushed herself away and (maybe because of the songs comment) said, Watch Gabba Gabba? Birds are nice. I started the show and then came close to see if she was okay, and without me saying a word, she said, Birds aren't scary. They're nice! Message received.

Cool chick.

When I told the twins we were going to the library for storytime, Bethany started saying I like bunnies over and over. Last week, we read books about the Easter bunny, so I figured that was why. Sure enough, when we got to the library, the first thing she said to Ms. Ilene (the storytime leader), was I like bunnies.

She wants everything PINK. It starts first thing in the morning when I bring them their milk. As soon as she sees a non-pink sippy cup, she shouts No, PIIIINK! Pink milk, pink milk! Sorry kid. Sometimes milk is purple.

If you ask her (and him)...
Where does Daddy go? To work!
Where does Mama go? To exercise!

Bye, go work now.

toddler crime scene

We recently discovered how much fun it is to draw the kids' outlines with sidewalk chalk. They want to make them over and over, and pretty soon our "yard" (which is mostly covered with cement) ends up looking like a toddler crime scene. Somebody lock these two up!

helpers

Woah. I think I might have temporarily forgotten that I had a blog. Been a while!

One thing you can really count on with Isaac, is that he is there to help. Start pulling out pots and pans to cook dinner, and he pulls out his stool and stand right at the middle of the counter. Grab the laundry baskets, and he is at the washer trying to reach the detergent. It never fails. He just loves to be right in the action. (Unless it's time to clean up and then he makes himself scarce.) I wouldn't call his helping necessarily helpful, but I let him do it until he gets bored or nearly breaks something/someone and then I try to redirect him so I can still get that thing done, because heaven knows, while they are awake I usually only try to do the things that are necessary to keep on living.

The other day, both Bethany and Isaac were in the kitchen helping me make dinner... really helping this time! (Or at least not hurting.) We cooked an entire meal together with few distractions and no disasters of any kind. It was amazing! (I'm sure it had a lot to do with being a quick and easy tuna pasta salad.) As soon as I set cans on the counter, Isaac went to the drawer and got out the can opener. When I saw him put the opener right up to the can and almost do it right, I grabbed the camera and kept on shooting.

They stand by the fridge while I handle the hot stuff from the oven or stove.

That's the rule.

Looks like there is a way for those kids and I to make it through that dreaded 5:00 hour, and even have a meal to eat at the end of it. Wait... does this mean I have to start cooking more?