What a perfect start to the day.  I got to take someone up for a flight this morning.  We met at the airport around 9:15.  The weather was great when I first woke up, but then the clouds starting rolling in.  Fortunately, they were just high enough for us to head out over Niagara Falls.  My passenger had taken flying lessons in the past, so he knew the drill.  Lots of activity in Niagara Falls – Great Wolf Lodge was thoroughly packed and there were a couple Maid of the Mist boats trudging about along the Niagara River.

Once we left the Niagara Falls scenic circuit, we headed south along the Welland Canal, almost down to Port Colborne before heading back north to St. Catharines.  He was all ready to rock for some aerobatics.  As I always do with my victims….errrrrr……passengers, I explained everything he would see and feel, then I did one maneuver at a time with straight and level flight in between.

He loved everything – the roll, loop, snap roll and especially the hammer heads.  Good times!  I must admit, I still to this day get a little disappointed I don’t feel a rush or anything from the aerobatics.  I still love doing them though, don’t get me wrong.  But still, there is no bigger rush or feeling of joy than looking to my right and seeing my passenger smiling and laughing.  It’s the best feeling in the world – far better than any rush I could ever have!  I’m so lucky to have this gift to share with awesome folks, like my passenger today (came all the way from London!)

Mike and I had a nice flight last Saturday.  We flew down to Tillsonburg for breakfast.  As usual, it was quite busy there, plus they had the Harvards out:

We flew by tons of windmills on the way there and back – they’re taking over Southern Ontario.

Back home, the kitties were being their normal selves.  Mya was sitting on Pinky:

Abby was looking cute but clueless:

And Peanut was just hanging around:

The kitties were thrilled when I brought him out of the tank for a visit.  Giddy up, Mya!

He’s not edible, Pinky….never mind staring:

This would have been a perfect shot, if Abby was in it too:

I noticed this morning that my one eye liner pencil was missing.  It could only be one kitty responsible….the infamous, mischievous, thieving Boo.  I kept calling her name but she was no where to be seen.  I then noticed the bathroom door was ajar.  That’s when I found Boo and my makeup:

Good grief!  Someone needs some lessons….you ever hear of less is more?!?  Hussy.

Speaking of not being true to one’s self, I walked into work to quite a sight.  I change the picture on the post near my desk about once a week, all different 8×10’s of my cats.  I guess my neighbour didn’t want to see Mya’s nakedness anymore:

Tee hee!  I was wondering why other people sitting near me were looking at me funny when I was approaching my desk.

Mike and I went to The Works burger joint a couple days ago.  He’s a bit of a burger addict and always goes for the biggest and newest.  This one was called the Chorizo Your Own Adventure:

I took this amazing artistic shot looking through an onion ring, of him eating an onion ring.  Yes, I should submit it to National Geographic:

Today’s symptoms: My energy was quite good today!  I’m having worse than normal crushing pains in my hands though.  The thing I don’t get is that it does not get any worse with pressure or movement.  It’s not like when you stub your toe and it hurts when you move it or your shoe rubs against it.  I guess it’s because it’s nerve pain?  My hands (mostly the left one) hurt quite a bit when I was flying today, but the pressure of the yoke, especially during the aerobatics, didn’t make it much worse.  Typing right now isn’t making much of a difference either – the pain is fairly consistent.  I’ll have to ask my neurologist when I see him in May, since I’m a tad curious.  I guess it’s a good thing as activity doesn’t make it worse, but it’s still annoying and frustrating to deal with (my mother would say the same about dealing with me!)

I can’t believe the Walk for MS is almost here!  I hate asking for support, even though this cause means so much to me.  The Walk for MS is Sunday May 7th.  Weather permitting, I plan on flying over all three walk sites in Niagara while the Walk is underway.  They all start at the same time so I typically fly out to the St. Catharines site ten minutes before the Walk starts and I do some aerobatics to get folks going.  It’s such a rush to look down at the people there to support this cause so close to my heart.  After the Walk starts, I fly overhead and take some pics, then I head over to Welland to take pictures of them, who also just started their Walk.  After flying over for a bit and taking some pics, I head to Chippawa (near Niagara Falls) to take pics for their Walk participants.  I’m so lucky that I have the gift to do this every year. I did not ask for pledges last year (I had major surgery in April and wasn’t sure if I would be healed in time) so I’m going to ask for support this year.  As I do for most years, everyone who pledges me for the Walk will be entered in a draw to go up with my in my Cessna 150 Aerobat.  If you wouldn’t mind, please check out my Walk for MS pledge page here:  http://mssoc.convio.net/site/TR/Walk/OntarioDivision?px=1375843&pg=personal&fr_id=5499

Paws crossed for great weather that day!  Thank you so much for your support!

Here’s a pic I took over the St. Catharines Walk site a couple of years ago:

Today’s symptoms: Felt pretty decent except my energy took a dive early this afternoon.  I had to lay down for about an hour (I was off work today).  Feeling a little more perky now.  My headache isn’t as bad as normal today, so that’s a bonus.

Oops, I wrote this yesterday and forgot to publish.

Mike’s sister graciously decided she was able to tolerate me in her home for a few hours and invited me to Easter dinner.  I’m so grateful as I had a great time.  She had quite a few people over so I thought I’d help out by bringing a cooked ham.  Since times are tight, I unfortunately had to glaze and roast Pinky, who kinda looks like a big ham anyway:

Fortunately, Pinky is so huge, the chunks we took out of her didn’t even make a dent.  She was very yummy!

The rest of my critters were thrilled with Easter and totally got into it:

Even Zim got into the festivities:

Good times!

I was off on Monday and the weather was good so my little mother and I flew out to Brampton for brunch.  As I was checking out Vyctor, a helicopter came in to land:

She hates getting her picture taken and of course, turned away:

It was a smooth flight and we made it to Brampton in about 40 minutes.  Jan had never been there before.  The circuit was fairly busy and we were third on final.  We then taxied behind one of their training planes:

It was a great breakfast.  With full bellies, we headed back out to Vyctor:

I told Pinky about our adventures and as you can see, she was thrilled:

I saw this phrase recently.  How many people can relate?  I used to do it constantly but since I don’t let it bother me much anymore, I have to admit, I’m much happier.  Easier said than done but worth working on:

Mike and I are watching a movie while eating some treats.  Mya didn’t want to miss out…trust me, she didn’t:

You’re welcome, world!  Yeah, my cats are awesome.  You can thank me with cheques or large quantities of aviation fuel and/or chocolate.

Today’s symptoms:  I felt not too bad when I woke up.  Pranced into work like an adorable little blonde….errrrr…..stick-like-thing.  Started to crash toward the afternoon.  Going to feel great tomorrow though – I’ve already decided.  Life is good.

The weather was nice last weekend so we flew to Brantford for brekkie.  I met up with a friend from Exeter there.  Mike took this pic:

The wind was blowing and exposed my big egg forehead, so I drew a Santa hat on the pic.

We had a really nice breakfast before heading back to St. Catharines.  The flight back was much quicker as we had a tail wind.

Yesterday we went to the Pet Show in Mississauga.  We arrived just as they opened at 10:00.  The lineup was insane, but went fairly quick. We first checked out some lizards, snakes, spiders, and this cutie:

There were gourmet (fancy) chickens:

Roos:

A couple of pups that apparently just got hitched:

We also watched the aqua dogs show where they jumped off a ramp into a large pool.  Some of them went almost 20′.

This little fella wasn’t quite so gracious:

It was a good few hours we spent there.  I was having a bit of an issue walking for so long because I’m still experiencing spasms and increasing stiffness in my left leg.  After walking around for about an hour, it was causing quite a bit of pain in my leg and lower back.  I think I was a little limpy by the end.  During the drive back, I had another ocular migraine.  This is my third one in two months.  I went to my eye doctor the day after my second one and that’s when I was told exactly what it was.  I’m a little bothered that I’ve had three so close together.  I don’t like the worsening (over the last week, although it started a few months ago) stiffness and pain in my left side.  During my neurologist visit in January, he said the stiffness was noticeable to him during his examination and paired with the new lesion on the MRI, assumed I was having an MS flare up.  I didn’t take him up on his offer of trying a medication for it because I assumed it wasn’t going to last long.  I’ll be giving him a jingle on Monday to see if I can get an appointment.  Sigh.

On the way home, we stopped at the Marble Slab Creamery for some ice cream.  I had raspberry cheesecake frozen yogurt and Mike had this chocolatey dream:

Once home, I told my little goobers about our adventures with all the other pets.  Zim was thrilled:

Pinky didn’t care to hear about the details but was interested in Zim, who booped her on the nose:

Boo didn’t care much either.  She sat there patiently while I stuck paper reinforcements to her head.  It made her look like she was getting a brain scan.

That evening I attempted to watch TV, but Mya decided that it wasn’t going to happen:

Today’s symptoms: I was dragging quite a bit this morning but went to see my little mother for a bit.  We hit Timmies, Food Basics, then back home where I vacuumed my car.  I got home around 1:00 and was in bed for a few hours afterwards.  I really feel lousy (lots of pain and fatigue).  Have been vegging on the couch since then.  Hopefully I feel better than this tomorrow.  Geesh!

My mother just gave me a great tip for my recent issue.  Lots of new people have moved into my apartment building.  Some of them are quite stinky.  We never used to have this problem.  I feel like dropping cards off at their doors saying “Welcome to the neighbourhood!  You stenched it up perfectly!”  On a day like today when it’s raining and there’s hardly any breeze, the smells float around quite a bit more.  It doesn’t help that I have a highly sensitive sense of smell (can smell a fart from a block away).  My mother looked up online what to do about this odour problem and suggested that I put equal parts of water and vinegar in a pot and put in on the stove on low.  I did it and in less than thirty minutes, the smell was gone.  It’s not just masked, it’s been totally neutralized!  I didn’t want to bring the oven into the bedroom, so instead I used my tea light oil diffuser with vinegar in it:

I’m so happy with how great it’s working.  Yea!  Thank you Jan!  I wanted to get her something as a thank you gift.  We were at the mall today and I asked if I could buy her these little shoes for her little feet:

She said no and called me a few choice names.  I think she was just afraid they would be too big.  Tee hee.

Today’s symptoms: I’ve had a bad headache on the left side  for the last couple of days.  Yesterday, my pupils were two different sizes from it.  Also had bad aches shooting down my left side today.  I think it will be better tomorrow….one can hope!

Great weekend!  Mike and I wandered downtown yesterday and hit Timmies then the St. Catharines Market (although didn’t buy anything).  Weather wasn’t the best so when we got back, we just worked on a puzzle and watched some shows and a movie.  Weather was great today so we hit the airport and went up for a flight.  When I walked into the hangar, I was thrilled to see Vyctor was wearing his pants again.  My aviation mechanic removed them just before the first snowfall of the year – the covers over the wheels can pick up snow which can interfere with the brakes:

While we were starting up, we saw a Club plane park on the apron and the instructor hopped out.  I waved him over and asked if the guy still in the plane was doing his first solo.  Yup!  We both felt his pain!  The first solo is so insane….you look over and there’s no longer an instructor in the right seat.  It’s very scary but so freeing.  We followed behind him to the runway and waited for him to take off:

Good luck dude!  We followed him in the circuit and watched his great flight.  I congratulated him after he landed.  The awesome tower dude Yousef said “Thanks for taking my job, Liz”, since they always congratulate the solo students.  I told him he was a slacker.  He got me back when I was leaving St. Catharines air space and he called me to tell me I was leaving the airspace before I called him.  He called me a slacker too….tee hee.

It was a nice flight.  I felt a little incomplete for not doing any aerobatics.  We headed south almost to Lake Erie, then north and a little east to the Niagara Falls scenic circuit.  Just as we entered, an awesome helicopter pilot I know said hello to me.  We tried to grab some shots of him flying below us”

A little hard to get a good pic as we were bouncing around, zipping along in opposite directions.  He let me know that he noticed traffic behind me at 4000′.  I was at 3600′ (planes must be at least 3500′ in the scenic circuit).  We were just a tad shocked when the traffic he pointed out passed over us:

They were from the Niagara Falls Airport in the States, which is just slightly east of the scenic circuit border.

Mike grabbed some nice shots of the Falls.  I was surprised to see Maid of the Mist was already operating:

After our flight, we drove over to the new Chef restaurant for brekkie.  Copilot Donkay came along and Mike was thrilled:

We got home, finished a puzzle avec the help of some chats:

Let them play with Zim:

Made a gourmet meal (tuna casserole) with some high end, hand crafted napkins (I kinda somehow missed cutting out one of the arms):

Worked great though:

(I think Mike’s was doing the Macarena).

Then we topped off the evening playing with Peanut using the laser pointer….please welcome Peanut the Red-nosed Gecko:

Today’s symptoms:  Felt quite good the last two days!  Always nice when it happens on a weekend!  Weary now after all the excitement and awesome flight…totally worth it though.  Life is good!