Picture of the Day: December 25th to December 31st

December 25th: Christmas! We both had to work day shifts, but after we got home we changed into pajamas and had our own Christmas. Bacon especially liked helping Mark open his presents. 

December 26th: I was still getting over being sick, so we had a lazy day at home. We spent the evening watching some more Great British Baking Show and trying a couple whisky samples. 

December 27th: Jeff and Caeli were in town, so we had them over for a bit. We had snacks and whiskey samples and played pool and watched cartoons. It was nice to catch up with them again.  :) 

December 28th: Back to work, though we did spend a little bit of time hanging out in front of the fire when we got home.

December 29th: One of my buddies at work has chickens and ducks, and since his family is out of town for the holidays, he had a lot of extra eggs. He brought some of them to work and gave them away. I'm not about to turn down fresh local eggs!  :)

December 30th: We got a little bit of snow today. I'm not sure that any of us were happy about it. 

December 31st: Goodbye 2017, hello 2018! This is how I rang in the new year: sitting on position at work, sipping the sparkling grape juice that the supervisor thoughtfully brought in to share. One of my coworkers yelled a countdown across the room, and I said "Happy New Year" to the one plane I had on frequency. Really, it wasn't a bad way to start the new year.   :)

And with that, my Picture of the Day project has come to an end. It doesn't mean I won't still post things here! I'll still update this with stuff that we do. I just won't be taking pictures every single day. I've got some fun stuff planned for this coming year, so it's time to focus my energy on new projects!

Picture of the Day: December 18th to December 24th

December 18th: I had to run a bunch of errands, and it wound up making the most sense to put all the stamps on my Christmas cards in my hangar so I could stop by the post office on my way home. Multitasking!

December 19th: My parents came to visit! And they brought delicious Italian food from Carollo's with them for dinner. We hung out and watched some Great British Baking Show after dinner, and shortly before I went to bed I got a fever and started to feel pretty awful. Awesome. 

December 20th: I was still feeling pretty sick, so I stayed home and slept while my parents and Mark went to Old Town Culpeper for the day. My mom brought the stuff to make pizzelles, so she showed me how to make those after dinner. (And that's two loaves of freshly made challah on the counter, too, that she made in the morning!)

December 21st: My parents left in the morning, and I called out of work and spent the day napping at home. I did find the chia pet that evening, thanks to a few hints from my mom.   :)

December 22nd: Another day sick at home; I spent most of it napping again. Whatever this cold/fever/sore throat thing is, it's kicking my butt hard. At least the tree is pretty. 

December 23rd: I spent yet another day sick at home, though I was starting to feel a little better as the day went on. I posted this year's Christmas card on Facebook and Instagram, so at least there's that. 

December 24th: Finally back to work! But only for a few hours; I took leave and wound up coming home for a nap around lunch time. I finally finished wrapping all of the presents I needed to wrap, then Mark and I each gave each other a Christmas Eve present and watched Muppet Christmas Carol before heading to bed early. Almost Christmas!   :)

Picture of the Day: December 11th to December 17th

December 11th: Time to shoot the Christmas card!  :)

December 12th: I spent part of the afternoon with one of my buddies at the FBO, comparing different electronic flight bag programs on our iPads. It was cold and breezy, so it was a nice afternoon to sit inside, sipping warm apple cider. 

December 13th: Mark put up our outside Christmas lights today.

December 14th: The angel on top of our tree. She wound up filled with colored lights this year, so she's extra fancy.   :)

December 15th: We had to work today, but we did take a few minutes to hang out in front of the fire after we got home. 

December 16th: Exciting day at work! And by exciting, I mean it was kind of slow and I spent one of my breaks in the cafeteria, talking to people online and watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. 

December 17th: I had day/mid today, but I did spend a little bit of time in between working on some notecards for myself. My original plan was to stuff these with money to give as Christmas presents, but honestly, I might keep some of them for myself!

Picture of the Day: December 4th to December 10th

December 4th: I almost cried tears of joy when I got home from work and saw this. (Instead of crying, I settled for a loooong hot shower.)

December 5th: Mark and I have been watching the Great British Baking Show lately, and honestly, it's hard to watch it and not want to bake everything ever. By the end of the night we wound up making 3 different kinds of cookies. Oops.

December 6th: Time to get our Christmas tree! You're supposed to look for the fattest one in the lot, right?

December 7th: Our poinsettia in the kitchen. I was feeling a bit under the weather today and wound up calling out of work and going back to bed for a while.

December 8th: Back to work, just in time for...a random snow storm? Bleh! It started out as a chance of flurries and every time I looked at the forecast they had revised the totals higher.

December 9th: It did snow, as forecast, but thankfully didn't stick to any of the roads. That meant I could still go to the airport Christmas party. We had a really good turnout, and while I didn't win the raffle for the fancy GPS watch, I still had a lot of fun catching up with some buddies. (And we wound up getting about 2 inches of snow by the end of it.)

December 10th: And that fast, the snow was gone. That's my kind of snow storm! We both had day/mid today, so this was about the extent of time I got to be outside before it was time to go in and grab a nap.

Picture of the Day: November 27th to December 3rd

November 27th: Ahhh, it's so nice to be back in Mexico for a few days! We're spending a long weekend at the same resort we visited last year; this year our room is right on the beach. I'm looking forward to some nice beach time this week! (And I'll have more blog posts about our trip soon!)

November 28th: The view from the main bar on the beach. We spent most of the day hanging out on the beach, reading and sipping drinks and just relaxing. It was really nice.   :) 

November 29th: We took a morning trip to Tulum to see the ruins. We had a bit of free time after the main part of the tour, so we went down to check out the beach. 

November 30th: Our last full day at the resort, and we spent it at the beach again. Normally I love going on all sorts of excursions and such, but the one thing we wished we had done differently the year before was spend more time enjoying the beach. Mission accomplished!

December 1st: Not a bad place to celebrate my birthday! We had to fly home in the afternoon, but we spent the morning soaking up every last minute of beach time before we had to leave. 

December 2nd: Man, what a difference 24 hours makes. Bleh! Mark went back to work, but I had an extra day off. I noticed a puddle on the floor after I fed the dogs, and at first I figured it was a mess that one of them made. Then I noticed just how big the puddle was, and that it smelled like rusty water, and figured out that something else was up. Lucky us, our hot water heater died and was leaking water all over the place. Awesome.

December 3rd: I didn't have the mid this week, which meant that I was awake when Santa rode around the neighborhood on the back of a firetruck.

Picture of the Day: November 20th to November 26th

November 20th: Dinner of champions! Pizza, tater tots, and a bourbon and ginger ale. You're supposed to color coordinate what you eat, right?

November 21st: My buddy Bob came over to the hangar and helped me get my bigger tools set up. I actually cut sheet metal with my band saw...you have no idea how happy that makes me! I'm one healthy step closer to getting started on my kit. I know it'll be hard to make much progress over the next month or so with the holidays, but once things calm down I'm planning to spend lots of quality time in my shop.   :)

November 22nd: Mark and I had our Thanksgiving today since we'll be spending actual Thanksgiving at work. We roasted a chicken, and had stuffing, veggie mac and cheese, Brussels sprouts, challah buns, and cranberry sauce. It all turned out really well!

November 23rd: Actual Thanksgiving! I stuck with my tradition: watch the Macy's parade while I eat leftovers (in this case, homemade bread pudding), drink coffee, and read the Washington Post and all of the sale papers. We went to work in the afternoon, where we spent most of the shift hanging out and stuffing our faces.

November 24th: My mom sent me a really neat birthday card; the inside was a pop-up airplane that you can detach and turn into an ornament! It was pretty cool.   :)

November 25th: I had to make a quick stop at my hangar on the way home from work. If I hadn't been so tired, I would have gone up for a quick flight...the sunset was gorgeous!

November 26th: We both worked day/mid and had a very hectic afternoon in between! We had a flight to catch first thing the next morning, so we had to get the dogs to the kennel, finish packing, and close up the house before we left for work. I was counting down the minutes until we left...I couldn't wait for a few days of warmer weather!

Picture of the Day: November 13th to November 19th

November 13th: Mark had to make a short-notice trip to NJ for a few days, so I made sure to do enough hanging out with the doggies and a drink in front of the fire for both of us.

November 14th: I spent the day doing some odds and ends around the house and the airport. I did at least stop for a break to catch a pretty sunset.

November 15th: I finally got checked out in the flight school's C172. It's a little bit older than mine, so there are a few differences, but nothing crazy. I did learn the hard way to watch out for the giant step on the landing gear; I hit my leg HARD as I got out of the plane and got a baseball-sized bruise as a souvenir. Oof.

November 16th: Back to work. I spent most of my breaks in the cafeteria, editing pictures on my computer.

November 17th: I made a quick stop at the airport in the morning to pick up my Mercedes. As if things haven't been crazy enough lately, I have to take some time to go get it inspected down in Fredericksburg next week. Fun fun!

November 18th: Today was Remington's 5k Turkey Trot! I wound up having to sit out this year, thanks to the giant bruise on my leg I got from flying a few days earlier. Mark ran, though, and got first in his age group (and 5th overall)! We now have a 15 lb. frozen turkey in our freezer.   :)

November 19th: It was such a nice afternoon, I was a bit sad that I had the mid and had to sleep instead of playing outside with the doggies in the sun.

Picture of the Day: November 6th to November 12th

November 6th: We spent the afternoon planting the hyacinth bulbs my mom sent. I set them all out before we started digging the holes; it'll be neat to see how this looks in the spring! 

November 6th, part two: Mark called my bluff and actually ordered Domino's. It's been a joke for a while now, but we usually just joke a bit and it ends there. I figured it was the same thing this time until I came out of the laundry room and saw the pizza boxes sitting on the table. I guess he showed me!   :) 

November 7th: I was really excited about having a long weekend this week; I figured I'd be able to get a ton of flying in. Ha! So much for that. This was the lovely weather Tuesday afternoon. 

November 8th: It was another crummy weather day, so we decided to run down to A. Smith Bowman to pick up a bottle of their latest whiskey. The leaves by the river were really pretty.

November 9th: Mark went back to work, and I stayed home to enjoy my random day off. I knocked a few things off my to do list, then hung out on the couch with the doggies for a bit. 

November 10th: Back to work, though we did take a few minutes after the eve shift to hang out in front of the fire with a little bit of whiskey and the doggies. 

November 11th: It's definitely fall; the big tree in our backyard has started losing all of its leafy things. The entire backyard is covered in them, and Bacon is really good at getting them stuck to her fluff. 

November 12th: Mark put some mulch down over the flower bulbs. Now, we wait for spring!