What's Cooking?!

Last week the two members of the family who do the least cooking actually got their hands dirty!! Abigail is always interested in everything that's going on and loves to 'help' with anything and everything ... so Jenny thought she'd see how she got on in the kitchen!! Balanced precariously on some steps, she had so much fun helping make the pizza base for our dinner that evening ... first adding all the ingredients in the bowl, kneading it (or prodding and poking it would be a better description) and then helping roll it out!!

After a little bit of rolling she got bored ... and started picking lumps out of the middle of the pizza base and handing them over ... needless to say it wasn't a very uniformed shape pizza that night ... but still tasted yummy!

Mark's 'cooking' was a little bit different ... as he wasn't cooking anything you'd want to feast on!! Working on a Mooney M20J, he was checking the bearings and brake discs on the wheels.

In order to put a bearing into a wheel half, the wheel half needs to be heated up ('cooked') and the bearing needs to be chilled in ice ... this is so that when they're put together and are returned to room temperature, they expand/contract and are secured tightly. Both halves of the wheel are then bolted together.

Below you can see Mark putting the wheel back on the aircraft ... all 'cooked' and ready to go!

With regards to what 'will be' cooking in the coming months ... Jenny planted our veggie seeds this weekend ... we now watch and wait to see if anything will come of them!!

Saturday afternoon snapshot ... & more!

Friday evening was filled with laughter and craziness ... for Jenny at least!! Andy Porter ... the other MAF UK apprentice at MMS, is due to get married to a local Coshocton girlie, Esther Jarrett in June this year and Jenny and her two partners in crime helped organise the fun and entertainment for Esther's bridal shower! (see below Kristin, Jenny and Laurie ... left to right)

Mark spent the evening with Andy watching the baseball ... (they're both getting acclimatised to the American culture) ... while the girls all dressed up in headboppers, with the added extra of a lovely pink feather boa for the guest of honour! It seems that Bridal showers are lot more civilised out here than the hen nights we're used to in the UK ... as Esther is marrying a Brit we felt the British culture needed to be included in a small (yet still slightly civilised!!) way ... hence the added accessories!!

Lisa Schwartz (far right in the picture below) hosted the evening at her house and right from the start there was lots of laughter ... this just increased more and more as the evening progressed ... it was a great time for many of the MMS ladies to get together and just have some fun ... not forgetting the toilet paper veils!

On Saturday we were minus one member of the family for a lot of the day as the PT6 course which has been running this week in the hangar didn't finish til Saturday afternoon. While Abigail was sleeping that day, Jenny was decorating a birthday cake and as she put the finishing touches to it Mark came home and took some photos!

On Sunday we hosted the Swanson family who are here from the UK for their evaluation week (just like we did in March 2009) and it was their son's 2nd birthday ... he's a fan of Postman Pat, so Jenny made him a Postman pat cake and had great fun in the process!

Once the cake was finished Jenny went outside to see what Mark was up to in the garden ... putting together our new BBQ!!! The weather has been GORGEOUS recently ... regularly in the 80's ... apparently unusual for this time of year ... so we thought we'd enjoy the 'summer' weather with a summer past-time ... a yummy BBQ! Cake decorating and BBQ building on a Saturday afternoon ... we're definitely living up to our gender stereotypes ... He he!

We've been emailing the Swanson's (Andy, Heather and their two little ones, Abigail, 3 and Matthew, 2) for a couple of months so it was fun getting to know them a little better in person on Sunday, we wish them well with the rest of their evaluation week here in Coshocton and hope to welcome them back here later on this year as Andy starts his apprenticeship at MMS!

A little out of the ordinary!

For those of you who regularly check for our updates ... apologies that we've been a little slow these last couple of weeks ... things haven't been as straight forward or as routine as normal!! Abigail was 18 months old on March 13th ... so we measured her height and she clocked in at a very respectable 2'9" ... she'll be outgrowing her mummy any day now (as you can see she finds that very amusing!)!!!

Just a few days after Auntie Popeye left, Jenny managed to do something to her back and was unable to move very much for a couple of days ... not ideal when trying to keep up with a certain young lady! Mark took the first day off work and then we found willing baby-sitters for both Jenny and Abigail for the following couple of days (special thanks to Laurie ... who we'd only met 2 days before!!). It seems that a lot of Americans have their own personal chiropractors and we were somewhat sceptical about it all ... but have been completely converted ... after one visit Jenny was upright again and within 2 days almost back to normal!

While Jenny was incapable, Mark and Abigail were having even more fun together than usual ... if that is possible!!! The weather has changed from snow one week to temperatures in the high 80's the next and so we've been spending loads of time out in the garden ... playing 'ball' ... one of Abigail's new favourite words ... and doing a spot of gardening!! We are attempting to be a bit 'green fingered' (those of you who know us well will know this a new venture for us!) ... having planted some flowers before winter sent in that we're pleased to report are beginning to bloom ... we're now embarking on a little veggie plot in the back yard!

In the photo above you can see Mark clearing the area we're going to use ... it was an overgrown bed of nothing in particular (as far as we can make out!) ... Abigail wanted to be helpful (as always!!) and got stuck in there too (see below) ... enjoying the worms, bugs and dirt even more than we did! The seeds should be going in very shortly ... carrots, parsnips, butternut squash and peas ... so watch this space for updates ... and if you see nothing ... our green-fingeredness may not have been as successful as we had hoped!!

In the hangar things have been a little different for Mark too ... most of the guys headed to Columbus for a Symposium one day ... some driving down together and others flying and meeting them there!! Mark's pick up was 5.30am and he didn't get back til 8.30pm ... so it was a long day ... but it was full of information ... and Mark attended loads of seminars including ... Piston Engine Problems, Cylinder Anatomy, Slick Magneto Inspection and Aircraft Fabric Coverings. All the guys went out for dinner together before heading back to Coshocton so a chance for them to hang out a bit too.

Last week Mark experienced a personal first ... the aircraft above is a Commander 114 and he helped with an oil change ... doesn't sound too exciting ... until you understand that in order to do that you need to heat up the oil ... so Mark got to taxi it around the airfield ... steering it with his feet ... it definitely got his adrenalin going ... and his smile lasted a long time afterwards!

Last week there was also a memorable moment in the hangar for all the guys ... 3 years ago a Cessna 206 came in from a mission based in Honduras for an inspection (see above) ... but one thing led to another and more work was identified as needing to be done ... which meant more money needed to be raised ... and kept putting the job on hold ... after several glitches, right up to the final days ... they all went out onto the airfield on Wednesday and watched it fly off, back to service once again ... see below! More aircraft quickly took it's place in the hangar though!

This week Mark is doing a PT6 engine course with a visiting lecturer along with 9 others ... there is a bit more 'in the classroom' time than normal and will include 2 written tests and a practical at the end of the week ... the course is running Monday to Saturday but as one of the other apprentices described it, this is their 'bread and butter' as a lot MAF aircraft have PT6 engines!