January Recap

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here; I swear, every time I blink another week has passed! I'm going to try to keep this fairly up to date with monthly recaps through the year, and random other posts here and there to fill in the gaps. So for now, here's January (just a little late)!

Happy New Year! I kicked the year off sitting on position at work. The supervisor brought around little plastic glasses of sparkling grape juice, and one of my coworkers yelled a countdown across the ops room. Really, it wasn't a bad way to start the new year.   :)

Mark and I worked the mid that night, went home for a quick nap, packed up the car, and drove up to NJ. More sleep would have been nice, but oh well. We did Christmas stuff with our families and had fun catching up with some friends for a couple days.

We made sure to eat some delicious breakfast at the Liberty Diner...

...and played cards with Granny and Zach.

We stopped at my parents' house for a little bit before heading back to Virginia. Mom is hiding behind stupid poophead Meatloaf.

Mark and I have been watching a lot of the Great British Baking Show lately. It's so refreshing to see a reality TV show where everyone is so happy to be there and there isn't any sabotage or backstabbing! Plus, it doesn't hurt that everything they make looks delicious.

I've been trying to spend some time relaxing with a book in my office once in a while. The wiener doggies like to hang out with me sometimes.

Watching so much of the Great British Baking Show has made us a lot more motivated to try new recipes. Mark wanted a round loaf of bread, so we found a recipe and gave it a try.

It turned out really well, especially when we paired it with some of the fresh eggs my buddy gave us.

We eventually got around to putting away all of our Christmas stuff. As part of that, we took all of the Lego train track we had and built a giant loop before putting the train away. Bacon went nuts and kept trying to eat the train as it zoomed around the track.

It had been a while, but I finally got back in the air with my plane! My buddy Ken came with me, and we flew out to the mountains to enjoy the view for a bit.

Visibility was pretty nice to the south...

...but there was snow in the forecast, and you could see it moving in from the north. (Don't worry, we made it back to the airport well before the weather moved in!)

Mark and I both moved to Mondays and Tuesdays off for this year, and as part of that, we now get to work Friday days shifts. We decided to celebrate by going out to dinner in Culpeper. It was so weird, being out on a Friday night like normal people!

We both had the mid that week, which meant that we both had most of Sunday free, too. We decided to take advantage of that to go out to brunch at Claire's at the Depot. So fancy! (And of course, we've been completely opposite mid schedules since then, so no more delicious brunch for us.)

We had a bit of nice weather, so we put it to good use by hanging out on the porch with the doggies.

We also watched the playoff game with the Eagles. We never watch football, so it was especially crazy to watch them win. Off to the Superbowl!

I finally tried out my hangar microwave and finished off my brunch leftovers while taking a break from playing in my shop...

...then I spent a little time flying with Dave in our friend's C152. Dave has thousands of hours in helicopters and King Airs and flies his own C210, so the C152 was a fun change for him!

He did a few crosswind landings, then decided he'd had enough fun for the day. (In his defense, it was a pretty healthy crosswind.)

I spent a little more time playing in my shop...

...then Mark brought Wembles out for a visit.

We were still watching lots of the Great British Baking Show, which meant we were still feeling pretty adventurous with new recipes. We wound up making pulled pork in the crockpot, and tried out some sweet potato skins with some leftover sweet potatoes we had grown.

We also tried another bread recipe, which turned out pretty good (though maybe could have used a couple extra minutes in the oven). Overall, January was basically delicious and a bit lazy. Not that bad a start to the new year!