THIS MADE ME SMILE

I can relate and often tell myself this exact same thing. How about you? 

We had a lovely day and a busy one as we were out for several hours. There were errands to run in the morning, and for lunch we shared a pasty from our favorite pasty shop in Vienna, and we picked up a few goodies to take home. 

The afternoon was the best part as we picked up our son and daughter-in-law from the airport. They have been in San Diego, part business/part pleasure. They were also celebrating an anniversary. They wanted to do something special, so they drove across country, spending a week at their destination and then flew home. I have a lot of photos from their trip. They have said I can share on here, so I will be doing that off and on for a while.

We were early so my dear other half suggested we drive to the spot where we can watch the planes fly low coming in to land. He has an app on his phone that shows where they are coming from. Today, one was arriving from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, and the other was flying in from Frankfurt, Germany. 

It was a gorgeous day for landing as you can see. 

Those skies made me feeling good looking at them...

but the best part of the day was greeting our son and daughter-in-law at the airport. 

The jeep and its stickers entertained me as they were on their way from the baggage claim.

I see Dolly there. I love this lady, she has the biggest heart, loves everyone and does so much good for people!

It didn't take them long and it was a fun drive to their place. We will be meeting up again soon and will find out more about their trip.

Enjoy your day everyone and 

thanks for stopping by.

(I found the Happy Thursday graphic in Pinterest. The signature airplane was from pixabay.com and I always add my name using Paint Shop Pro.)

AIRPLANE WATCHING

A few weeks ago, when our family from Germany was visiting, we took them to The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Not too far from the gates but just outside the complex, we noticed cars parked on the side of the road.  There had been a space made for them to park on each side.

There were several people watching planes landing on one of the runways at Dulles-Washington International Airport. We all fully intended to go back to see this for ourselves. Unfortunately, we ran out of time but...

last Sunday we decided to drive out there and see the planes land. We checked on their flight patterns and we were in luck.  

We both said this was a lot of fun and that we could see ourselves driving over here again.

Gregg has an app on his phone that tells where these planes come from, and where they are heading. He also looks at the app (flightradar24) as it shows all the planes and he could see what direction they were coming in. This one was an Air India flight, out of Vienna, Austria.

This is the information given on our phone for that particular plane.

(The app is free with ads. If you are a plane enthusiast and want to pay the $44 a year you get no advertisements, but we don't mind a few adverts.) 

When we are out sitting on the deck at home we see planes overhead, quite high up. Gregg gets his phone out and tells me which airline, where they are heading and where they flew out of. The novelty hasn't worn off yet. He tells me this app works no matter what part of the world you're in. Below is what you get on your screen.

We spent half an hour or so before the planes stopped coming. I think the wind changed direction and they were maybe landing on another airstrip in the opposite direction. 

Only a few other people were with us watching, a mother with her children and a couple.

We took a lot of airplane photos between us, and here are a few of them.

We had so much fun and I'm not really a plane enthusiast, but I certainly enjoyed these and seeing them land. I wonder what Amelia Earhart and all those other hardy adventurers who started out in the old biplanes on those first flights would think?

I found an old poem that I thought would fit, even though the young man who wrote it flew planes a little further along from the biplane days. It struck a chord. I seem to remember reading it when I was very young during my school days. Does anyone else remember it?

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings’

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlight silence. Hov’ring, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew –

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

High Flight

By

~John Gillespie Magee, Jr.~

When I think of planes, I think of biplanes and that leads me to thinking about Amelia Earhart. I came up with this, with no particular reason other than I liked it and wanted to share.

Thanks for looking and 

I hope your week is going well. 

HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - VISIT FROM OUR OVERSEAS FAMILY STARTING AT THE AIRPORT - PART 1

 Hello family and friends, my blog break is over. I will be sharing several posts from our recent visit from our dear niece, her partner and his daughter. I thought they were really nice to say they didn't mind me putting their photos on here. I have always been very close to my niece since the first time I met her when she was a wee baby, and when I met her partner and his daughter, they were as nice as could be, with delightful senses of humor. I grew very fond of them over this holiday. We all had a marvelous time and it went all too quickly, but we have great memories and many photos taken during their visit.

It all started at Washington-Dulles International Airport and we arrived early. It has been quite a while since we were there to pick anyone up. As expected, we found the arrival lounge busy, with many people expecting loved ones off countless planes. Fortunately we found a couple of empty chairs.It was such a happy atmosphere. As each planeload of passengers made their way out of the customs area, the excitement was palpable. We watched as several families/friends greeted each other with such joy and excitement. We waited for their plane to land, and a text finally arrived from our niece to say they were in line at customs and that it would take forever. But at long last they came through the doors, and wouldn't you know it, with all the excitement we didn't think of taking a photo. Our arms were too busy hugging each other. But I did remember to take this on our way back home.

I wasn't sure what they would like for their first meal here, and we thought of taking them out to a nice restaurant but as you might guess, they were very tired after their journey. So, we said we would order in, and everyone unanimously voted for pizza. We picked it up on our way home at a local family-run place. Our son went to the same school with the owner's son. You can visit their website here. I get nothing in return for this, but love giving people a good rating when it is well deserved, and we get consistently excellent food. We can purchase a variety of pizzas by the slice, and they also have wonderful salads.

The new table Gregg put together worked out great, and I meant to take a photo of it all set up but forgot. I will do that down the road somewhere. There were napkins but forgot to take those out of the cupboard and no one seemed to mind the kitchen roll. We were all so happy at being together. Knives and forks were set out and that pizza was thoroughly enjoyed.

My niece holding her glass up as we took one last photo before tucking in.

The first request on their bucket list was to see an American shopping mall (I think the ladies might have had something to say about this).We took them to Tyson's Corner the next day. I am still not able to walk around too much but I sat in one of the food courts and found an empty table and enjoyed people watching. Always a fun pastime for me. Husband and son sent me a few photos...and they came back to keep me company. Neither of them are shoppers for places like this, but once our family had the lay of the land, they left them to enjoy the mall. The Easter Bunny looked very tired...

but perked up as soon as this cute little girl visited.

You're not taking my photo are you son?

Oh, okay!

We sat right outside the Panda Express and Charlie's was a few doors up, but I only felt like a coffee son brought back with him. Great coffee from I forget where. Not one of the regular names you see, a new place.

Our dear daughter-in-law finished work and joined us. Then everyone came back and there was a group photo Gregg took.

There's a lot of American pop culture on German television and the youngest member of the group had heard all about Crumbl Cookies. Fortunately one had opened up not too far away from us, so we were able to stop on the way home one day.

A pose for friends back home.

I was told they change the cookies to a different variety weekly, with the exception of the chocolate chip. The cookies are quite big and some are cake-like.

Mine was this one with small easter eggs on top.

It was excellent!

I may be getting timelines confused as strangely I neglected my journal during the time they were here. I couldn’t keep up truth be told. So we did all of the things in my posts. Just maybe not in the order I put down.

That's all for today but more coming.

Thanks for visiting and I hope your day is a great one.

HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - WASHINGTON-DULLES AIRPORT

 

A sunset photo taken by our son while he and our daughter-in-law were approaching Washington-Dulles Airport a few evenings ago.