Hooray ... after the ups and downs of January, we're really happy to report that February has just been normal and boring ... and we're so pleased about that too! We're not so happy that the snow has almost completely disappeared ... although the majority of the population would disagree with us! This time last year we were still in a foot of snow having fun ... winter has been completely different in our second year here with ice storm warnings and wind advisory's in place of the heavy snow we had hoped for once again!! Here are a couple of photos taken at the beginning of the icy few days ... the second shows a tree not covered in snow but with each branch completely caked in ice, it was quite something to see in person!
Mark's back is almost 100% again and he has been in the hangar as usual come snow, ice, rain or shine ... keeping up with his regular tests and working on the aircraft. As you can see he was pleased (?) to get his hands back on his tools and get on the job again after the prolonged break in the New Year!
More news from the hangar ... the 'Senior Apprentice' is the one who is the furthest through their training ... and the holder of the 'Senior Apprentice Wrench' (for the non-Americans, read 'Spanner'!!). Last week Paul Jones (below, right) completed the required hours towards his A&P Licence and will take his final tests in the next few weeks ... and so passed over the coveted wrench to Andy Porter (below, left), another MAF UK apprentice. Andy has now taken on the 'Senior Apprentice' role and become the holder of what is renamed the 'Senior Apprentice Spanner' while in the hands of a Brit! All being well the next handover will be from Andy to Mark towards the end of this year!!
On the home front ... apart from a 24 hour sickness bug for Abigail we've all been well!! Jenny has now reached 30 weeks in her pregnancy and for those who've been asking ... you can see below she has quite a big belly right now (although very pleased that so far she has only put on a third of the total weight she did with Abigail!!). All seems to be ticking along well and we've sailed through all the checks and tests we've had ... now every two weeks ... Abigail comes along to 'look after mummy' when she gets checked and enjoys listening to Bubble's heartbeat!! She keeps randomly telling us 'I love Bubble' ... hopefully she'll be as quick to say that when they take over the house and rock her world in a couple of months time!!!
