Thursday 13: Summer 2013 snapshot

It’s already started. The pumpkin recipes on Pinterest. The Halloween candy at the grocery store. The first inklings of change in my backyard garden. Fall is practically here, people! (I say that and it’ll probably be triple digits tomorrow just to spite me.) In any case, before Summer slips away entirely, I thought I’d share a not-comprehensive snapshot of the last few months for a way overdue Thursday 13.

1. A recent snap: A photo of Team Aerodynamix, a Vans RV formation flying team from the East Coast. Last year, Mr. T and a number of the West Coast Ravens formation team flew in the Vans 40th anniversary 40-ship arrival at Oshkosh.

2. Travel adventures: Flying to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the EAA AirVenture fly-in and airshow. Yours truly flew 30-ish hours to and from. Talk about tons-o-learning! I’ve written a few posts so far: “The ultimate long cross-country: Flying to Oshkosh,”  “A student pilot landing at Oshkosh” and “Visiting Oshkosh as a student pilot” and I have a few more up my sleeve. Stay tuned!

I love, love, love flying over Wisconsin. Such beautiful farm/dairy land.

3. Currently reading: “Tell My Sons” by Lt. Col. Mark Weber which is a book Weber wrote while dying from cancer. Pretty sure I’ll bawl the entire way through. Also, I’m midway through the Anne of Green Gables collection, don’t judge me.

4. What makes today special: It’s the anniversary of mine and Mr. T’s first date!

Flying over a small range into Logan, UT. One of my next posts will be
about flying over mountains and at high altitudes.

5. Preoccupations of late: Learning how to fly, job hunting, getting back into the groove of academic writing.

6. Something I’m looking forward to: Getting back into the classroom! It’s looking like I’ll be teaching a couple classes at Sacramento State University this Fall. Short notice means the next three weeks will be full of course prep but I’m pretty excited.

7. A miracle: We’re gearing up to revamp the Back 40! In fact, our landscape designer fellow will be wading through the weeds to take measurements in our backyard this afternoon. It’ll be a multi-phase project, but I’m hopeful that in the next few months, we’ll have some noticeable progress made. If only I’d played the lotto last night, we could do the landscaping in one fell swoop. Ha!

8. A point of pride: Flying an airplane solo for the first time.Was it really only a month ago??

That’s me, flying an airplane, all by myself!

9. Our entry into the Most Attractive Couple contest:

10. A super surprise: Turns out I CAN actually grow tomatoes. It’s pretty remarkable what sun can do to turn around tomato production. The sad news? We left for 10 days during peak tomato harvest time. Hope all the folks at my mom’s work enjoyed my beauties.

Want some tomato insight? Read “Tips, tricks and warnings for growing tomatoes

11. A perfect dish: 

Tomatoes, basil and cucumbers from the garden paired with a bit of red onion, olive oil, balsamic and a dollop of burrata. I’ve also been making bruschetta frequently this season!

12. Summer celebrations: Oh, you know, turning 31. And rejoicing over our third anniversary!

Photo by the deliciously talented Beth Baugher of True Love Photo.

13. Coming up: Belated birthday concert this weekend. We’re going to see Lyle Lovett and his Large Band at the Mondavi Center!

xoxo,
shawna

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