GALLERY ( incl. our budding pilot)

 

MAJOR FAMILY EVENT ON 6/29/23

On Wednesday, June 28, we celebrated my daughter Susie's birthday, and on Thursday, June 29, her youngest daughter, Cassidy soloed for the first time. Family went wild!

Short recap:  Cassidy, who won't be 16 until July 17, is one of 130 Air Force Junior ROTC students chosen for a government-sponsored 8-week flight training program. Which she is doing in a group of 16 assigned to Elizabeth City, No. Carolina.

Mike, Cassidy's father, has an app that allows him to track her flights, which he has been doing constantly since she started her training. A truly astonishing app, as you will see in the pic below. Cassidy describes the program as "stressful" - a barrage of instruction and flying from morning to night. But, she also reports, they are well fed! They are housed in a college dormitory. 

Cassidy embarking on her first solo flight

Below, the view on the Tracker App. Susie swears she and Mike didn't breathe for the entire 18 minutes of the flight as they watched Cassidy do three take-offs and landings.

Cassidy getting her way-too-big flight suit

On the left, her instructor

Riley, Hailey & the Birthday  Girl

On an entirely different note - from Facebook . . .
 

 

Mentioning Hell might have made me think of this one (sent to me by my son in CT):

 

 From Facebook - "Albuquerque Sky" by Meteorologist Grant Tosterud:

 

And one of the strangest sights I've seen on Facebook:

Mountain village in Tibet

~ * ~

 

The Vicar's Daughter

 If you're inclined to believe that all ministers, pastors, and priests are natural-born saints, you might not want to read this week's featured Regency Gothic by Blair Bancroft. But if you believe - if only a smidgeon - that a female has the right to follow in her vicar father's footsteps . . .

 

 

Independent and capable Prudence Wedderburn, daughter of a vicar, is a woman before her time. She not only manages the parish duties usually performed by a vicar's wife, she has learned the art of healing, and during her father's final illness, she also assumes some of his religious duties—all actions welcomed by her village until her father's death abruptly ends her life as First Lady of Kenner's Cove, Kent.

Well aware she must curb her independence—even learn to practice subservience, a quality entirely unknown to her—Prudence accepts a position as governess to a five-year-old girl in Cornwall. Where, alas, rumors of her activities in Kent plunge her into difficulties with the church, she clashes with her pupil's father (an earl), finds herself hip-deep in smugglers and Cornish legends, is befriended by a 500-year-old cat, and discovers that someone—several someones?—want to kill her. Finding a happy ending in a deluge of disasters will be the vicar's daughter's greatest challenge.

~ * ~

 

For a link to Blair's website, click here. 

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Grace (Blair Bancroft)