Birthday Jan!

Jan had a birthday recently.  Mike and I took her to our favourite restaurant, the Lazy Loon in Fonthill. Oh yum – their food is fantastic.  And to make it better, they brought our dessert with a sparkler and all sang to Janski:

Looking good, little mommy!

Mike and I took advantage of the great weather yesterday and flew to Guelph for breakkie.  The folks at the Club helped Mike to get Vyctor out of the hangar:

As usual, the food there was amazing.  I don’t know of another restaurant with better breakfast food.  The restaurant is right at the airport.  We were the only ones who flew in, yet the place was packed.  Many locals have found this nom hot spot.

It was quite smooth on the way there, but the clouds came in on the way back and made it very bumpy – my kind of flight!

On the home front, my oldest sphynx Mya is becoming quite the little piggy.  She is so skinny – only about five pounds.  Every time I walk into the kitchen, there she is begging for wet food (they always have the dry stuff available):

She was again on her hind paws when she heard sirens outside:

She’s so cute.  They all are.

Today’s symptoms: Felt pretty good the last couple days.  My energy levels have been decent, although I did have to take a wake-up pill this afternoon.  I hope the rest of the week goes well.  Mind you, if the heat hits like they’re predicting, that may cause an issue with my heat intolerance (which almost all MS’ers have).

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Flighterific Week!

What a wild week!  As mentioned in my last blog, Mike and I flew out to Welland for our monthly Recreational Aircraft Association meeting.  Good times!  Then on Wednesday, I flew over the Wise Guys Charity golf tournament.  The weather was crappy in the morning – low ceilings, so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to fly over.  Fortunately, the clouds lifted just before noon.  I ran down to my car to head out to the airport.  My keyless remote didn’t work.  Ugh!  I ran upstairs and got my spare – dead too!  Holy poop!  I used the key to get into the car, but that didn’t help since the remote is needed to start the car.  I was freaking out!  I had to text Mike, so he could leave work over his lunch and take me out to the airport.  I felt so bad but didn’t want to miss the flyover.  I made it over the golf course just after 12:30, which was perfect timing.  Someone from the St. Catharines Flying Club was leaving just after I took off to bring a plane over to the Club in Welland.  Since he didn’t have a ride back to St. Catharines, I stopped there to pick him up and take him back with me.  The favour was nicely returned when my friend from the Club drove me back home.  In the evening, Mike and I headed out to Fonthill to join the golfers for an awesome buffet dinner.  What a view from the club house:

Perfect day!  I couldn’t believe how well I felt too!  Thankfully, I was feeling just as good the next day.  Jan and I had planned to fly to Stratford to visit the town.  We arrived at the airport just after 9:00 and headed out to Stratford.  Perfectly smooth day (I’m so glad because if I hit one little bump in the air, Jan glares at me and says “You did that on purpose!”)  It took us about 50 minutes to get there.  While coming in to land, I asked the folks at the terminal building to phone a cab for us. Perfect timing as it arrived just after we parked Vyctor. We had the cab drop us off at the Tim Hortons downtown, for a well needed coffee before hitting the shops.  Another perfect day – weather-wise and feeling amazing health-wise!  It was almost too good to be true!  I can’t believe the energy I had.  We spent hours browsing the shops, then hit a sports bar for noms:

After we ate, we visited a couple more stores then called a taxi to take us back to the airport:

Great flight home – I couldn’t stop smiling with how great everything went.

Another flight yesterday!  It was the Flying Club pig roast.  Mike and I got there a little early so he could try to record me from the ground doing aerobatics.  We need to tweak things with the camera a bit.  We had issues with auto focus, which we shouldn’t have had on, plus we need to make some adjustments to the tripod.  It was still a fun flight but very hot!  It was a relief to head into the air conditioned Club and eat some piggy!  Yum!

So there you have it, a flighterific week!  And just to make it even better, Mike got me this cake for hitting 500 hours of flight time recently!

How perfect!  And it tastes amazing (we’re still eating it!)  The kitties didn’t get to enjoy it with us though, although they all ran into the kitchen last time I got us a couple slices:

I still can’t believe those few great days I had health-wise.  I would give anything to have them more often.

Today’s symptoms: Dealing with insomnia the last couple of nights, plus all of the extra stuff I did the last week are starting to take their toll.  Still had decent energy today and was able to last pretty long (Mike, my mother and I went to the Pen Centre to do a little shopping).  Tomorrow will be good!   Oh and by the way – it wasn’t my car remotes that were dead, it was my car battery!  I was sure I didn’t leave anything on.  Mike and I gave it a boost and drove around for about 20 minutes that night.  I tried to start the car the next day and it was dead again.  Ugh.  CAA came out that evening and replaced my battery.  

I’m Silly??? Huh.

Mike and I flew out to our monthly Recreational Aircraft Association meeting in Welland last night.  It was another great turn-out, since joining up with Canadian Owners and Pilots Association group for the summer meetings.  A few of us flew in, which is always nice to see.  After we landed back at St. Catharines, we had to tie down Vyctor since the hangar was closed for the night.  This is where Mike accused me of being silly.  I don’t get why he would think that:

And despite what he says, tying down a plane is exhausting:

Anyway, I survived and that’s the main thing.  I also survived a very busy but amazing Saturday.  Mike and I flew out to a BBQ in Oshawa.  We were told to park on the North apron, so we did.  Lots of spots to choose from:

Where was everyone?  We had to call someone from the Ontario Regiment Museum to drive around the entire airport and pick us up and bring us to the South apron.  We decided to go through the museum prior to getting something to eat at the BBQ.  We met up with a 91 year old WW2 vet who gave us an incredible hour long tour of the museum.  The stories he told gave me constant goosebumps.  We just didn’t want him to stop talking!  Unfortunately, the tour ended and we had to bid him adieu!  Next, we headed outside for the tank and vehicle demo.  Right on.  The first one was just like the jeeps I used to drive in the Army:

About ten vehicles roared by, plus there were many more in their garage and outside:

I truly recommend visiting the museum, especially during Tank Saturdays.

It was a little smoggy that day, but we still got some great pics.

It was surprising how few people were at the stadium where the rugby game was being held as well as the volleyball tournaments:

We also flew over Henley in St. Catharines where our Canadian rowers were kicking butt:

What a perfect day and I haven’t felt that well physically in probably a year or more.  I knew I was going to pay for it Sunday (which I did), but it was totally worth it.

Today’s symptoms: The main MS complaint was this weird thing I get now and then where it feels like I’m sinking way down in my chair, I’m leaning way back and my hands feel enormous.  It also felt like one leg was bigger than the other.  These symptoms usually only last a few hours and are more annoying than anything.

BBQ Flight

Mike and I were supposed to fly to his aunt and uncle’s BBQ near Newmarket last weekend, but the event was cancelled due to the weather.  Instead, it was rescheduled to this past weekend.  Fortunately, the weather was perfect, especially to fly.  Who wants to drive two hours?  (Sorry Mike’s mom and dad!).  We took off from St. Catharines at 1:15 on Saturday and headed around Lake Ontario, then North to Newmarket.  As always, it’s great to fly over downtown Toronto:

The stadium is all ready for the Pan Am games starting this weekend:

Fortunately, we did some flight planning the day before so it was no issue getting there:

I accidentally put a bag on Mike’s head.  Oops.

In less than an hour, we arrived at Holland Landing, which is a private airport:

Nice big hangar with some sweet looking aircraft:

Of course, none were as cute as my plane, but they meant well.

Mike’s parents literally just arrived at the airport within a minute or two of us touching down (I’m so glad I did smooth landing and didn’t embarrass myself!)  Onward to the party.  It was so nice to see everyone again.  Had some great conversations.  The only bad part was having to leave fairly early.  The airport we were at did not have any lighting, plus I wanted to get Vyctor back in the hangar in St. Catharines before the Flying Club closed up for the day.  So, his dad drove us back to Holland Landing around 6:00 (unfortunately, just before dinner was served!)

It was another nice flight for us, directly over Toronto.

Toodles, big city!

They’ll be doing some Pan Am sports here, in St. Catharines.  Ready to rock:

The only thing we missed on the way back was not seeing the Lancaster fly by us, as it did on the way there:

Awesome weekend.  I paid for it a bit on Sunday, as it was very busy and tiring on Saturday – completely worth it though.

Last night, I went to bed quite early as I was pooped.  Before packing it in though, I had Zim out for a little romp:

As you can see, Mya was thrilled to see him.

Today’s symptoms: Quite drained still today but not as bad as yesterday.  Going to feel even better tomorrow.  Had quite a few spasms in my left arm and hand today that were painful and a little out of the ordinary, but I decided they will be gone tomorrow too!

Photo Challenge Revealed…

Ok, I’m a little disappointed in the lack of participation in my previous blog post photo challenge.  Here is the picture I sent:

I had one response.  In all fairness, Karen, you did an awesome job guessing!  No, it wasn’t me wrapped in a blanket at the drive-in theatre, it wasn’t a nose, nor an elbow.  Even my mother didn’t get it – no, it’s not a pimply knee.  Ugh.  My co-pilot friend Bob was the only one to get it right.  Yup, that’s my little Pinky’s back!  See it now?  Look at how cute the whole Pinky is:

Happy Canada Day!!!

Happy Canada Day, folks!  Mike and I decided to spend the day in nature.  We first visited the Wainfleet Quarry, which we went to last year as well.  Due to recent massive downpours, the waters were just a tad elevated:

Before we got down to the floor, I yelled up to Mike “Get a picture, hurry!!!”  So he did:

Yup, Lizzy caught a snake and Mike’s girlfriend is whacked.  He smelled so bad (the snake, not Mike), but was adorable (both the snake and Mike)!  Thankfully, we brought hand wipes.  I offered to pass him off to Mike, but he declined.

We walked through quite a bit of slop before reaching the far wall, where we sat for over an hour, looking for fossils and cool rocks.  We had to climb up the wall to get where we wanted to go first though:

C’mon Mike!  You can do it!

On the way back, Mike got a little scared again, as we were following a bunch of horses out of the quarry.  I used to ride for over a year back in high school, so was quite comfy around the awesome animals.  Mike, however, has never been around them.  I followed fairly close:

Mike stayed about 16km back.  Oh well.

After the quarry, we went to visit my tiny mother.  On the way home, I decided to show Mike the St. John’s Conservation Area Trout Pond.  He had never been there.

The weather was decent and most people had the day off, so it was quite busy. Although looking at that pic, it’s doesn’t look very occupied.  We just wandered around for about 20 minutes before heading out.  We saw this awesome site on the way out:

Best country in the world, eh?  I thinkest so!

Today’s symptoms: After feeling pretty crappy the last few days, although progressively getting better, I felt ok today.  I’ve been very weak again, almost like my bladder infection was back (which I went through for over a year).  Not sure if I have another infection or just dealing with crapola MS symptoms.  Paws crossed they go away for the next few days (weeks, months or even years!)