A Marathon Vacation

Last Thursday, I took off work that afternoon to drive to Wichita, KS for a wedding rehearsal for a K-State friend of ours. I was selected to do the first reading and whatever else they needed me to do, so I got to go to rehearsal and hang out with the bridal party. I forgot how much fun it is to "just" be a reader. Not that readers don't have important jobs, but I don't have the paparazzi following me around snapping my picture every minute. I enjoyed watching the ceremony rehearsal and also meeting and re-meeting the families (which I had forgotten some of their names!).

Here is a picture of the couple that night. No, he is not trying to get away! He's just buttoning his shirt cuffs:




Tricia, the bride, and I competed in the Women's Annual Air Race Classic in the summer of 2006. Ah the memories! We had a lot of fun and gained a LOT of great flying experiences. Clayton, (her husband now-!) started school at K-State Salina with me in the fall of 2004, so it was such a wonderful chance to go and see some old friends and also lots of Wildcats!! Clayton is a "computer stud" as I liked to call the computer-guru's. Unfortunately, the computer studs still aren't much a fan of MAC computers : (

And some quick pics from the wedding:

The Happy Couple:



Tricia, giving Clint and Adam a bottle of Crown Royal:



The next morning, Chris and I headed to the airport with our friend, Lovely Kristine (I have called her "lovely kristine" since I met her, as my family know a LOT of "kris" "Cristina's","Chris'", etc...). We all departed the ICT (Wichita Airport) bright and early, heading up to Boston, MA for THE Boston Marathon, which Lovely Kristine's fiance, Heath (also another K-Stater and friend of ours) was going to compete in !!!!

We were so awake that morning, check out our enthusiasm:

Minority Report....2009 preview for REAL-not the movies?!

Have you ever seen the movie: Minority Report? A friend of mine sent me this!
Check it out:

http://transition.turbulence.org/blog/2009/03/23/unveiling-the-sixth-sense/

Administrative Appreciation Week

This week (I guess it takes a WHOLE week to appreciate us now!) is marked as something to the affect of Administrative Appreciation Week. Little did I know, that yesterday was Secretary Appreciation Day-or something like that! Needless to say, my wonderful husband surprised me : )

He sent me flowers.

**And he even wrote a nice note.**
(but his spelling got the best of him. hehe...the little card that came with the flowers said: For a Great Secretary. He wrote a little note on it, but at the bottom, he said "Hope you have a great secetary's day." -but I knew what he meant : ) I guess that is how I know it was really Chris who sent me flowers)

: )

What a nice surprise after my first day back in the office after vacation. The past several days, we have been in Boston, Massachusetts to watch a friend of ours run the Boston Marathon. We had a great time and enjoyed seeing some family/friends while we were there. It may be a few days before we get some pictures up from the trip, but until then, I'll leave you with a pic of me and the beautiful flowers Chris sent me:

Perfect Proposals Contest Submission

Today is the last day to submit a "perfect proposal" under this competition my sister came across...click the link below to see ours!

Who knows...maybe we will win :o )


Perfect Proposals Contest

Take My Voice

Today will be a quiet day around campus. A program that (I believe) our building is putting on is called "Take My Voice." Students will be wearing a black shirt that says: "Today I am silent for __________." (in the blank, there is a reason written-like cancer or whatever the person wants to be silent for that day)

I think this is a cool cause, but how can I be silent when I am a secretary? Am I supposed to NOT answer the phone? or what if I were flying.
"Cleared for takeoff...." not such a good idea for that huh?

SO I have decided to make my own version of Take My Voice. Today I am not going to talk about flying. This may sound like an easy task, but it is BEAUTIFUL outside! So when I hear that sweet hum of airplanes flying overhead, I will remember that today I am not talking about flying and this silence is for those that have been in airplane accidents.

~Robin

Wind

Today like most days here in Oklahoma it is windy. I was supposed to have a student fly to Oklahoma City to take is CFI (flight instructor) test today. With the winds as high as they are it did not happen. This is the forth day this week we have had over 30 kts (34 mph). Today they are 33 Kts (38mph) with gust over 41 kts (47 mph). It is hard to fly airplane in this kind of wind. Hopefully it will go away. At least we did not get snow last night like Kansas did.

Hanging out in Ardmore, OK

On Monday night, my student and I took a flight to Ardmore, OK to eat some BBQ : D

We arrive just after dinner time, ready for some delicious food, only to discover that the restaraunt is CLOSED. Bummer.I knew I should have checked the "$100 Hamburger" book I gave Chris a couple years ago...that book is amazing! It has hundreds of restaurants across the country and often includes times and ratings for the restaurants from people who have flown into the airports. But I did not consult this restaurant bible : (

So, we say hi to the local fire-station that is based on the field and the fire fighters stated that the restaurant is only open on Friday and Saturday nights : ( if Monday were Only Friday. SO we hopped back in the plane and I gave Chris a call to let him know not to head south because he was going to take a flight too. He said that there were some thunderstorms kicking up and pretty colored thunderstorms that were building on the radar between where I was and Stillwater, OK.

uh oh.

Yup. Pretty colors on the radar mean that I am stuck on the ground. So-we manage to get our mean, green, fighting machine of a C172 tied down and go back to visit our firefighting friends. Needless to say, we hung out with them until about 10:30pm until the weather passed. Not exactly how I planned to spend the evening, but it was a good trip. We munched on some rice crispy treats that my student made-Good thinking on my student's part! I was extremely thankful for the snack.

To help the time pass, I asked one of the fire fighters to give us a tour of their fire truck-it's that green-color and looked like a huge caterpillar. It was called something like an "E-1 Arff" or something like that. Needless to say it was an awesome truck! The tires were like $8,000 A PIECE and were up to my shoulder! I had taken a picture, but it didn't turn out very well. My student and I enjoyed the tour and learning about what the fire fighters do and how their truck works/what it does.

When we took off, I felt like a kernel of popcorn with all the turbulence ! We finally got to about 3,500 feet when the air smoothed out. If it had not smoothed out, I was thinking we were going to be landing again and camping out at an airport terminal. Fortunately, it was nice and smoothe for most of the flight home.

We crawled in late, but had a good flight. I went through the drive through to grab a quick bite before I passed out. I have never been so thrilled to get my happy meal. While it may not be the healthiest, it was food and i was hungry. Although, as i was munching away, i was thinking-what toy did i get, and who am i going to give it to?- BUT there was no toy, so I didn't have to worry about who i was going to give it to. I guess they don't think that i needed a toy : ( oh well, i was going to tell them to keep it anyway.

Then I came home and had a short, but sound night of sleep.