Days "Off Duty" Are Delightful!

Before I get into my most recent days off, I'll share a few pictures from Frontier's Emergence Celebration that was held at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum on Thursday, 10/15/09. It was an awesome celebration!

The purpose was to celebrate the fact that on 10/1/09, Frontier Airlines emerged from 17 months in bankruptcy! We're the first airline to do that in approximately 10 years. What a feat! What was even cooler, was that our creditors were the ones who picked up the tab for this party! Just goes to show how well everyone worked together to keep us afloat!

During the evening, there was a video presentation, where we all sang along to the new Frontier commercial "We're Still the One," as well as listen to speeches by Sean Menke our CEO (and new Chief Marketing Officer at Republic Airways Holdings, Inc.) and our new CEO Bryan Bedford. As a show of appreciation, Sean's name and his wife's name were painted on plane #204 as a thank you for all the hard work he did leading us through the bankruptcy process.

During the evening, I roamed around and visited with classmates - Renate and LuEllen are pictured above with me. I also visited all the food stations, sampling delicious snacks, each with their own "theme."

I was also very happy to see a lot of furloughed flight attendants there. Ben (pictured above with Renate) was one of them - I sure hope that they are recalled SOON. We need them.

Greg drove up from Colorado Springs for the evening (the event being held at an airplane museum peaked his interest), and he had a chance to see some of my classmates for the first time since graduation two years ago, and was able to put names with faces.

Back to my days off...

This is the view from the 2nd floor balcony at my sister's townhouse in Leonardtown, MD. I'd sit there in the evening while I tried to catch up on my email (the Verizon signal was really weak on the first floor where I'd sit and visit with my Mom). Off in the distance is Breton Bay, a beautiful body of water within walking distance of the townhouse.

The townhouse is located in a small community - it's their temporary home while they try and decide where to live next. Mom lives on the first floor and has her own bath and patio, and Diane and her family occupy the top two floors. There's even an elevator that they can use when they need to move heavy items around or are too lazy to take the stairs!

And, of course, since Diane's favorite holiday is Halloween, she just HAD to let everyone know that she's in town! You are looking at spider webs stretched across the front of their unit, as well as ghosts flying around from the balcony. She's being very stifled this year...most of her Halloween decorations are back in VA in a storage container. Just wait until next year...hopefully, they'll be settled into a new home with lots of land, and the infamous Svihla Graveyard will live once again.

I got to hang out with Mom in "Mom's World" - she's got a nice set-up, complete with a fridge and a microwave. She keeps her freezer stocked with ice cream and her fridge stocked with sodas for Matthew and Natalie when they get home from school. It's really nice to see Matthew hanging out with Mom while he does his homework at her kitchen table. I think Mom really enjoys that.

Mark is much closer to work now (when he's in country), and he's able to be home a lot more. He even made dinner on my last night! Blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs. Delicious!

On one of the days, I drove Mom down to Larry & Brenda's office in Poquoson, VA - it took us 3 hours by local roads, but it was a very nice drive. Larry took me on a tour of his office building (the last time I saw it, it was under construction), we met all their dogs, and then we went to lunch at a delicious German restaurant.

Mom was especially happy to see Larry - he's recently had some serious health issues, so it was good to see that he was looking better.

And, Larry being Larry, he continued to call me "Bony," a nickname he assigned to me many many years ago. Back then, it bothered me, but now I'll take it as a compliment!!!

They have three dogs at the moment - their newest is Lulu, a shelter rescue. She seemed to be black lab and pitbull mix.

Then there's Bosco, a German Shepard mix who is also a rescue.

And Jasmine - who loves to pose for pictures!

They're good dogs, and seem to really enjoy being around Larry's patients. After lunch, Mom and I headed back to MD, so that Larry and Brenda could head home so Larry could rest.

While I was hanging out at Diane's home, we went to look at pieces of land that were available in a subdivision, and we also looked at model homes, floor plans for other model homes, and did a lot of dreaming, planning, and even put down a deposit to hold a lot for them! Woo hoo! They are going to have so much fun planning out what they want - including a detached garage for Mark's first wife, and a mother-in-law apartment for Mom. It's going to be an exciting time for all of them.

On my last night in town, Diane and Mark took me to "Fat Boy's Bar" - an interesting experience, for sure. Lots of playing pool, drinking beer and listening to live music. And the interesting thing is, is that the age group was pretty much around my generation!

Diane was very accommodating by picking me up and dropping me off at Washington National Reagan airport...approximately the same distance from her new place as my home is from DIA. It was a great visit, and I hope to be able to spend some time with them again in the near future.