Asheville, NC – 195 Club “Caravan”

Christina Arnold Leave a comment

May 20-22, 2016

After a 1 year hiatus, the International Cessna 195 Club’s Caravan returned for its 2016 edition with the destination being Asheville, North Carolina. The choice of Asheville was a bit selfish as it had been on our “Fly To” list for a few years. The big draw for us was to see the Biltmore Estate. We had flown to Newport, Rhode Island in the summer of 2011 (the first year we had our 195) and toured The Breakers, which was a summer “cottage” built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II. After seeing that cottage we were really interested to see the “home” in Asheville built by his younger brother George Vanderbilt II.

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We survived the 2016 tax season!

Christina Arnold 1 Comment

I have now officially made it through 10 tax seasons!  This year would have been 11 tax seasons since becoming a tax professional, but last year I skipped out in favour of Hudson, who arrived at the end of February.

When I returned to work at the end of November I was already thinking about what this busy season might bring.  Lots of new variables were going to be in the mix leading to a fair bit of uncertainty for how things would go.

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All-inclusive was the way to go!

Christina Arnold 1 Comment
Time sure seems to have picked up speed since Hudson’s arrival last February. It has already been a month since we arrived home from our one week getaway in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic! We went from December 29th to January 5th. This was our last longer distance trip before Hudson turns one. It was a great way for our family of three to culminate Hudson’s first year of travel.

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Aviation firsts

Christina Arnold 1 Comment
  • First airshow – Sun ’N Fun, Lakeland, Florida on April 24, 2015
  • First flight in our 195 – from Waterloo airport to Alf Beam’s private strip on May 20, 2015
  • First cross country trip in our 195 – to Burlington, Vermont on May 23, 2015 to spend the weekend at the Milton’s cottage
  • First airline flight – to Vancouver, BC on June 20, 2015
  • First helicopter ride – near Revelstoke, BC on June 25, 2015 for a 25 minute sightseeing tour around the mountain peaks and a glacier with Aunt Michelle
For many people, these aviation firsts don’t happen in their first year of life.  Hudson is a very lucky little man!

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Florida in April!

Christina Arnold Leave a comment

While I was pregnant I had made up my mind that we would do whatever we could to go somewhere in April. Being a tax accountant, my maternity leave would be the only chance in my career to get away at tax time. So we settled on Florida. Sun ’N Fun was on our list of things to do and it worked out perfectly that it was taking place a couple weeks later than usual. Kurtis also really wanted to try and rent a sailboat for a few days to put into practice everything he had learned during the sailing course in the Bahamas in December.

We definitely got mixed reactions when we told various people our plans. About half thought we were crazy to travel with such a young infant, especially to go sailing. The other half said it would be the best time to travel with Hudson due to his “immobility”. Crazy or not, Kurtis and I love to travel and sharing new adventures with our little man is very important to us.    (more…)

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“Breast might be Best”, when it works…

Christina Arnold 1 Comment

When I was pregnant I was certain that I would breastfeed our baby for at least 9 months, which is when I was going to return to work.  Breastfeeding was good for Baby, good for Mama, free, “portable” for all the travelling we planned to do, etc…  I read Ina May’s Guide to Breastfeeding to make sure I was ready and even pictured what it would be like in my head.  Breastfeeding was what nature intended.  So, as long as Baby and I had enough skin to skin contact right after birth and in the first few weeks and the baby’s latch was good then everything should happen as nature intended, right?

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Ready to become a “flight of 3”

Christina Arnold 1 Comment
Our Blog has only logged our adventures since it was created in August 2013, but Kurtis and I have certainly been “Madly off in all Directions” for pretty much our whole marriage.  As Kurtis and I got closer and closer to meeting our little “Pumpkin”, we spent some time reflecting on how much fun we have had during the past 14+ years of marriage and our “flight of 2” status.  We are both extremely excited for this next chapter in our lives and now being a “flight of 3” :).  We are looking forward to having lots of fun adventures and making lots more memories with our little one.  Here’s what we’ve been up to prior to “Pumpkin’s” arrival:
  • September 2, 2000 – We got married.  We spent a few days exploring the St. Lawrence by car up to Cornwall and then headed back to Waterloo.  Christina transferred from St. Clair College into 2nd year at University of Waterloo’s Accountancy program and school started a week after we got married.  We lived in a furnished apartment in Waterloo just off campus for 4 months.

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2014 – A Year in Review

Christina Arnold 1 Comment

I went back in our Blog to my summary of our activities in 2013 and it was fun to read all that we had been up to.  So I decided I would put together another quick recap of our year’s activities in 2014.  As you will see we didn’t really manage to slow down like I had optimistically written in the 2013 Year in Review.  Oh well, I guess that is an indication that our Blog’s name is definitely appropriate as we just naturally seem to be “madly off in all directions”!

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