On the horizon

It's been a long time since I've sat in the right seat, next to the Bear, of a little bugsmasher like the Cessna 172. In fact, it's been quite awhile since the Bear did any piloting at all. But recently, it was looking like a flight into the interior would be the only way to make certain things happen by the deadlines without losing another whole weekend and possibly taking more time off work. So he took some time over the last couple of weeks to get back up to speed with his flight skills and get checked out at one of the local flight centres.
The original need took care of itself, so the Bear had planned to take one of his young coworkers up for a flight yesterday. When his passenger went AWOL, I stepped up and ever-graciously volunteered to take his seat :) As I said, it had been a long time, and it's always been an enjoyable way to spend time together. So the Bear suggested hopping over to the mainland to say hi to my mom, and then the plan evolved to include a shopping trip over to IKEA to check out nursery furnishings and kitchen cabinets. So we found a few options, and we'll have mom pick them up for us next week when the Bear's expecting to come through with the truck.
So the trip out was a bit hairy. The airspace down here is a bit more active than the Okanagan, and if you're doing anything but circuits around your home airport, you'll find yourself shifting every five or ten minutes between different airport control zones, each of which requires you to be checking in on different frequencies to get clearance for flying on different routes at different altitudes. A lot of the various airports and control towers are short-staffed, which leads some of the people you're depending on for help through the maze to be a little short on patience. The trip back home was much smoother. While mom and I were comparing cribs, the Bear was picking through the flight supplement and pouring over the maps, to make sure he had all the possible permutations of the trip home worked out, with frequencies all noted on his clipboard and waypoints plugged into the GPS for navigational backup. And between flipping the map and dialing in the next frequencies for him, I managed to click a few shots out the window.
Here's a shot of Bedwell Harbour, between North and South Pender islands, taken on the way over.And the late evening sun over the Georgia Strait on the way home.

Free at last!

I can hear the final words of Martin Luther King's famous speech echoing in my head. Now I don't want to diminish the what was being fought for at the time, and I'd hardly call my work environment of the last couple of years oppressive, but it does feel very freeing to consider that
it may be a year before I have to get up in the morning and go to a day job.

Now there's a whole new world of things to learn and do and watch in that year. I'll do my best to keep you all posted.

Still kickin'

Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted. It's been pretty busy, but I thought I'd better put something up before my small readership gave up on me.
So, since my last post, we had a visit from the final pair of inlaws on the long weekend and acquired a new fridge with ice-maker to make the Bear really happy. I must admit that in the recent heat, I've developed an appreciation for readily available crushed ice. We spent the next weekend back in Kelowna tearing out the walls around the basement bath in our old house after an inspector found a soft spot behind a dropped tile. We also loaded up the last of the stuff we'd left behind for the tenants, did some catching up with some good friends, and I got a slight sunburn. I took an extra day to recover, and still found the three day week that followed a little long. This past weekend we finally spent at home on our own, but it was no less busy. We cleared the stuff in the soon-to-be nursery to one side, patched the two accessible walls, painted two coats of Chesapeake Sunrise, put the new wood trim on the inside of the new windows, moved all the remaining stuff to the opposite side, and pulled the trim off the door and closet on the other side. So hopefully this weekend, we can patch the other walls and the remaining ceiling, and get the cleaned up trim back on the doors. There's still some very bright and badly painted blue on the large baseboards, but we've decided to leave that now until we get inspired.

And finally, I've put in my official notice that will be my last week of work. Phew! So, perhaps there'll be a few more posts again in the coming weeks, at least until the baby arrives and my hands are really full.

t - 2 months

...and counting. We've reached that point where it becomes more useful and interesting to count the time remaining to various milestones. This past Tuesday, June 27, was t - 2 months to the baby's due date. And this weekend marks t - 5 weeks till I stop working. 9 days till my next checkup. 16 vacation hours left to divvy up over the remaining workdays.

And yet, some days it still doesn't seem quite real. And as the countdown continues, there's still so much to do, much stuff to get. The deck is coming along smashingly, thanks to some expert assistance from my step-dad to be, Steen, last weekend. Thursday night I helped V measure and cut the pieces to fill in the decking on the landing half-way down the stairs, and he's put all the outside trim back up over the new windows in front. If I can muster some energy, we'll look at the railings this weekend, but I'm not holding my breath. V's dad and step-mom are coming to town Sunday morning for a couple of days, so we'll likely be entertaining them instead.