Airport fun

This evening hubby called on his way home from his full-time job and asked if baby boy and I would like to ride along with him to the airport where he was to give a flight lesson. This would give us an extra hour in the car together to talk (1/2 hour each way). Baby boy hadn’t napped all day and was fighting a nap hard, so I figured the time would be good for him as maybe the car would lull him to sleep. It did. I wanted the extra time with hubby and thought maybe this would help me get some reading done that I needed to. (It did.) While hubby flew with his student, my son napped in his car-seat and I got to do some pre-course reading for a graduate class I’m starting this weekend. Baby boy woke up before the lesson was over, so we headed over to the side of the runway to watch the planes. Hubby was working with his student on take-offs and landings, so they were staying right in the pattern, and we could see them continually coming in and taking off. I realized while watching that this is a rather unique part of our family’s life that I really enjoy. How many people regularly get to sit on the side of a runway and just enjoy the outdoors while watching small planes take off and land? Baby boy enjoyed playing with the grass and his daddy’s car keys when the action on the runway was slow.

At one point while we were watching, a powered parachute came in and landed. For those of you who aren’t familiar with these (I wasn’t really until today.), this pretty much looks like a dune-buggy attached to a parachute, but operates similar to a plane. The pilot walked by and I commented on his fun, yet scary looking machine. He said he thought baby boy looked like he wanted to try it out. Sure enough, my 13 month old son was smiling and looking very interested. When the pilot pushed the dune-buggy-looking part past us, my son started clapping. Just give it a few years and with a pilot for a daddy, I’m sure he will want to do all kinds of things that make my hair stand on end. As I told the powered parachute pilot, let’s give him a few (say 20 at least!) years though, okay? Even then, I’m not sure about a powered parachute.

I was reminded tonight how cool my hubby’s part-time job flight instructing is. It’s easy to get frustrated because it doesn’t pay that well for the amount of time that it takes and because hubby is now juggling three jobs. Yet when I hang out at the airport with him, I have to admit that there is a certain allure to flying your own plane and even to the community present at small airports that is hard to beat. So even if it means drives in the car with him to get in our together talk time, I’m glad he’s a pilot (even part-time for now), and that he has the awesome privilege of getting paid to fly a plane.