5- Happy Birthday to Me, Pt. 2

Good day/bad day?: Good

Well I tell ya what, that husband of mine sure is something! So guess what my birthday surprise was. No, really, try and guess.

This is me ordering breakfast, oblivious of what lay ahead...




I've said to him a few times before that if I had the time and the money (or wealthy benefactor) I always thought it would be cool to learn how to fly a plane. Well, he set up an introductory flight class for me! It was about 15 min of classroom about what to pay attention to (and what not to do), and then we went out for a 30min flight with me at the controls for all but the landing. I still have some work to do on taxiing in a straight line, and at one point I had to loosen my death grip on the controls, but I think I did well! Brave, brave Ben, not a fan of the heights, was along for the whole thing to document. So how was it? Fun, scary, not at all like I imagined, and pretty cool. Would I do it again? Potentially yes, but it certainly takes a lot of the things I mentioned above (time & money), so maybe some years down the road...

Allow me to provide more of a photo essay:

Me not believing that I'm doing this.

That's a nervous smile

That's a little more obvious nervousness...

One of the more banked turns I did

Land!
What Olive did with Aunt Julie, accomplice...

Yep. AND, I got to go out for super-duper delicious dinner at Lombardino's--thanks Jeff! Great to see him and Andrea, who's been so great sharing her experiences with me after my diagnosis, as well as Julie, Frank, Ben & Olive. Then I was tired. The end.

Happy Birthday, Jorl! Sorry I missed your party.