This weekend was the first Saturday in about a month that it hasn’t rained here. This is how we celebrated the beautiful weather.

Every once in a while some of the pilots at the Shelby County Airport give free rides to children in an effort to get them interested in flying. The program is called Young Eagles and is generally intended for children a bit older than Edie, but through a friend she was able to participate.

The pilot in the video, Jim Cawthon, is a long time friend of our family and is the sole person responsible for Ken’s desire to one day own a plane. Until that day comes, he is sweet enough to let us mooch off of him. Thanks Jim for a great day that Edie will be talking about for quite a while!

Technorati Profile

For those of you who don’t know my husband too well, let me just tell you a little bit about him. Ken is one of those people that’s good at everything he does and is not afraid to set big, audacious goals for himself. The very fact that MediaMerge exists is a great example of that, but even more so, the fact that he started MediaMerge when he was just 23 years old even better supports my point.

Since I have known he possesses this character trait, and I’ve even gone along with some of his crazy schemes, I really shouldn’t have been surprised when he came to me a couple of months ago and told me that he wanted to learn to fly a plane. I actually think I took more convincing about this plane idea than I did with the whole “starting our own business” idea.

I am not going to lie-I have a pretty good fear about the whole thing, but after much discussion, I have been swayed to see the benefits and freedoms it would allow not only MediaMerge, but our family as well. Suddenly, friends and family (a lot of you who read this) are not so far away, and Ken’s business travel time would greatly decrease.

So last Wednesday, Ken finally convinced me to actually give it a try, and his friend, Jim, was gracious enough to fly us around a bit. We didn’t take Edie, since it was questionable how I would react in a tiny plane without throwing a two year old into the mix. But, I like to think I handled it pretty well-no major freak-outs or screaming to get my feet back on the ground, no puking or praying to God to get me out. So I think I met Ken’s expectations for a first flight experience, and I was pretty proud of myself as well…I mean, look, I am even smiling afterwards!