My parents visited this weekend, yay! We always have a fun time with them.

They got in late Thursday. So late that they let themselves in and I slept right through it.

On Friday we:

• Did an early flight with Dad (more on that below), which included a stop then driving to get breakfast/pastries

• Picked up some tires Dad had bought online
• Had lunch at El Famous

• Visited Steven at work (he went to work when we got back from our flight around 11:00)
• Hung out at home and did puzzles
• Made lasagna for dinner (and ate some pumpkin pie)
• Did face masks (Mom and I only)

On Saturday we:

• Had breakfast
• Went on a run/walk/ride

• Did another puzzle
• Had leftover lasagna for lunch and finished the pumpkin pie
• Went shopping (me & Mom only – the boys hung out and watched movies)

• Had chili & cornbread for dinner
• Hung out and asked each other questions from a Table Topics Questions set (Mom wrapped a few of my holiday gifts for me – thanks, Mom!)

On Sunday we:

• Had breakfast sandwiches and hung out
• Went to the beach

• Had Burger King for lunch
• Tried another pumpkin pie I made (long story short it didn’t set because of the coconut cream I used)
• Said goodbye around 1:00. Sad!

We love having visitors, especially my parents! We’re so glad they came and we got to hang out so much. It’s nice to just sit and catch up (and work on an easy puzzle or two or three).

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Alright let’s talk about this flight! My dad really loves to fly so we wanted to take him up (Mom doesn’t like to fly so it was just the three of us).

I really wondered if this flight was going to happen at all because the cloud ceiling looked really low both days we had a plane booked (Friday and Saturday). But we did a briefing and even though it was MVFR (marginal visual flight rules) Steven said we should be okay. Sounds good to me!

And it was fine on the way there (we won’t talk about the missing voltmeter in the plane…)! We stayed low (below 3,000 feet) but it was clear and quiet – hardly any other planes out. A nice simple flight! Edited to add (for my memory only): It was quiet out that we kept hearing all the pilots announce they were doing 7, 5, 3 etc. mile finals. Steven and I laughed about that and explained traffic patterns to Dad and why a long final doesn’t usually work.

We went to Watertown Airport (KRYV), borrowed their courtesy car, and drove to the Pine Cone Restaurant in Johnson Creek to get breakfast and giant pastries. We originally chose Watertown because several people told Steven they have cookies and we thought it would be fun to fly there for cookies then go get breakfast.

When we went there Tuesday night we saw the cookie jar had a few store bought sandwich cookies in it, surrounded by crumbs. Steven and I laughed about how we had both assumed they were somehow making fresh cookies for people… because why else would they talk about it? We’ve been to FBOs (Fixed Base Operators) with much nicer perks than this one! Ha.

But the ladies who work at this FBO are super nice. They’re known for being very welcoming on the radio frequency. It’s kind of funny to fly there and hear the way they talk – just like normal convo on the radio. We are so used to hearing people talking in aviation code.

ANYWAY. When we went there Tuesday the lady working recommended the Pine Cone (we found out later she works there), so we went. It was fun to check it out and see the giant pastries. Steven got eggs and a cinnamon roll, I got hashbrowns and toast, Dad got a glazed donut, and we got an apple fritter to take back for mom, and cookies for the people at the airport.

The weather looked like it was going to be the same on the flight back, but the clouds were lower and foggier so we didn’t do a direct route – we flew a bit west to try to get away from the clouds. Dad said he liked flying so low and looking at everything below – I’ve liked that in the past too, when I am sitting in the back staring out the window. Now I’m sitting in the front and thinking about how high we need to stay above the ground and that if we encounter traffic we can’t go much higher because of clouds. And I’m thinking we have way less of a glide distance if there is engine failure. Anyway! It was obviously all good.

Because we went a different route we got on a different CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency – a radio frequency used by pilots to communicate with each other and announce their intentions while operating to or from an airport without a control tower) and heard a heated discussion between two pilots. One was warning the other that they were in an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) approach path or something and the other basically told them they knew and didn’t care. The other pilot advised changing course and got a response of “mind your f*cking business.” Whoa.

Hearing that kind of worked me up! And Steven said (to me only) what I was thinking “the weather kind of sucks, let’s all focus on flying.” (Those people were at an airport south of us (Galt), so it didn’t affect us, thankfully.)

But there was a lot more traffic. Gah. As we were descending and getting close to Waukegan Airport, two planes were aimed right at us from different directions and at different altitudes and that kind of sucked because we needed to descend but didn’t want to get closer to them. Then we got into the traffic pattern at Waukegan and an airplane departing was headed straight for us and I was like “ATC (air traffic control) should be controlling traffic right? We have departing traffic pointed at us at minus 500.” I usually don’t talk to Steven when he’s landing but I was concerned ATC hadn’t said anything about the traffic yet.

Steven confirmed they should be, turned a bit, then ATC came on and told that person departing to immediately turn. Er, thanks.

Flying is exciting, guys! (I made this sound kind of scary – it’s not, just illustrating that a big part of flying is being observant and knowing what’s going on around you all the time.)

Then Steven buttered the landing and that part of our adventure was done! Dad said he loved it. I think we could fly him anywhere and he’d be happy as long as he can see out the window and check out what’s going on below. Same, same.