Saturday was the first time we took one of our nephews/niece on a plane ride! One of my siblings trusts us enough!

To this day, I still remember the first (ever!) flight I took in a single-engine plane and how magical it felt. It was exciting to get to share a bit of that with our nephew Thomas (and out of the same airport, no less!).

After the cruise, we went back to my snister’s and checked the weather. We had a cloud ceiling at 6,000 and low winds. Good flying conditions!

I told Thomas about the different parts of the plane and what they control and how you control them while Steven did preflight. Of course, I am only remembering the words “yaw,” “roll,” and “pitch” now, so Thomas just got hand gestures on Saturday. Same effect. Ha.

We showed him how to set up his headset and Steven did his official passenger briefing (which is longer than the one he gives me – that one has become him jokingly saying and pointing at things instead of explaining them — “door, window, vent, barf bag, fire extinguisher, watch for traffic”). We also explained “sterile” cockpit — that there are certain times to be quiet so Steven can focus, mostly at takeoff and landing.

And we were off! We planned a thirty minute flight — over his dad and stepmom’s house — then toward Waverly, where we did some steep turns.

I could actually feel the change in Gs. How steep were those turns?!

After Steven came out of the two steep turns he realized he’d drawn too circles, and wanting to humor Thomas, he did his FIRST EVER sky art. Ha ha ha. We are so mature.

Then we flew back and landed!

Thomas was pretty quiet during the flight and after we took the headsets off he asked if other pilots and tower could hear us when we were talking during the flight. Ha, no, they did not hear us talk about drawing a dick and balls. We explained they only hear us when Steven pushes the radio button on the yoke. We should have told him that at the beginning!

Before the flight we were telling Thomas how he’s old enough to get a license, and he said he knew that, because one of his classmates has his. Then we saw that kid leaving a plane as we were heading to taxi to depart. Funny coincidence.

Anyway, Thomas enjoyed it! He was being pretty cool and chill about it in a teenage boy way, but the next day his dad and stepmom told me he kept talking about it and showing pictures which made me feel cool. I hope he had fun telling his friends at school. And who knows, maybe he’ll get the aviation bug too!

After the flight we hung out at my snis’s! We ordered subpar Thai food for dinner, then went on a lovely walk through the neighborhood!