Thanksgiving

Last Thursday was thanksgiving in America which is always a great time to reflect on what I'm grateful for this year. So here is my list of 24 things I am thankful for this year.

1) Parents who are not only great parents but also great friends.




2) To live close enough to home that I can see my family often.
3) Fantastic siblings.







Check out that old photo .. Better not forget Lukie babes who appeared 10 years later.

This year I'm super grateful for all my friends, but there are a few that have been absolutely amazing and really supportive this year who I am particularly thankful for.

4) Living with Lisa. I love how we've become close. She's been amazingly through a lot of excitement, tears, stress, and awful snapchats.



5) My 'foreign' friends Megan, Ronja, and Noelia. For not letting hundreds or even thousands of miles affect our friendship.






6) Skype and FaceTime for making the above possible.

7) Ali and our monthly 'dates'.



8) The Ryanair girlies who never fail to make me laugh.



9) To get to know more about my Grandad through his army records and stories from my Aunt. He passed away before I was born so this was amazing.

10) That I've managed to get through the year with only 1 sickness and 1 ear infection. (Touch wood I last the final 4 weeks).

11) My time at Ryanair and all the experiences I had there both good and bad.



12) Getting a new job I really enjoy and working with some new wonderful dollies and flight crew.



13) OU financial aid and grant
14) To be able to earn enough to support myself.
15) The chance to resit my math exam despite the fact that I failed again.
16) Really cheap rent
17) The ability to get time off work easily for exams and weddings.
18) Beautiful sunsets



19) Holidays!! Skiing, Palma, and Malta.






20) That none of my plane crash dreams have come true.
21) That I've been more relaxed and happy this year.
22) This year I have really started to recognise lots of good things about myself ... It's nice to feel more confident.
23) My new car.
24) The wonderful weather we've had. A few hot weeks in the summer where I got an actual tan, and a mild winter so far.

About this time last year I found this ...


... And I decided that it was going to be my motto for 2013. Since I don't make resolutions really I thought that instead I would just make sure I check each of these things off and fill my life with fabulous things. I'm thankful that this year there have been soooo many fabulous things in my life, it's been a pretty good year.

Endings, beginnings, and cake!!

Am taking a (few) minutes out of my crazy hectic life to update my blog. Since leaving Ryanair life has been jam packed with training and maths assignments. My brain feels like it's going to explode.
My last week at Ryanair was busy, long, and a tad emotional. I was able to fly with some of my favourite people and on some of my favourite routes. Of course finishing off with a hen and stag party. It really wouldn't of been the same if I'd finished on a dull polish flight. I think I actually miss it a little. A few people recently have asked why I stayed at Ryanair so long. I know Ryanair isn't the best company to work for (hence why I've left) but they've been pretty good to me and I got pretty lucky. I got a transfer when I wanted it, a contract when I needed it, I worked with a ton of amazing and fun people, and I had a heap of great (and not so great) experiences, all if which have changed and shaped me into who I am today. And without Ryanair I'm sure I wouldn't be at bmi now.












Speaking of bmi, I'm now half way through training and finding it exhausting. I don't know how people work mon- fri 9-5:30. Tackling rush hour is driving me crazy (no pun intended) and I can't get anything done during the day. I seriously can't wait to get back in the air, get back on home standbys, and get back to my crazy unsocial work hours where I actually have time to do things. My roster is looking really exciting with routes I've not flown before ... I can't wait. The aircraft I'm going to be working on is tiny though, it's going to take a little while to get used to!!!
It's nearly the end of my maths module and I've been really struggling to plod through and motivate myself. Provided I can pass the exam I will pass the course. I haven't done as well as I've hoped but then it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm still debating what to enrol for for next year.
Today I got back in the kitchen to make a birthday cake for one of the girls I'm training with. It was fun to do something other than study. I made sure I chose something simple that wouldn't take too much time to make and would hide all the flaws.

Goodbye Ryanair!!!

So after 3 years and 11 months it will be goodbye Ryanair. When I started training in 2009 I never thought that I would still be here so long. I honestly thought that I would be there a year (or maybe two) before leaving for some glamourous airline like BA or Virgin Atlantic living my long haul dream.

Instead, almost 4 years later I am leaving to join bmi regional.

Based out of Bristol I'll be flying a single crew aircraft (meaning I'm the only cabin crew), to six destinations. Currently they fly to Aberdeen, Hamburg, Hannover, Frankfurt, Milan, and Munich. Occasionally I'll have to go up to Birmngham or Manchester and fly out of there for a few days.

I'm pretty excited for a new challenge, a different demographic of passengers, and not having to walk far in the rain to my aircraft. Training begins on May 13th and will be 3 1/2 weeks long.

Despite my excitement I think I'm going to miss Ryanair. There are a lot of people I'm you going to miss, and I'm going to miss the back galley gossip. Part of me still can't believe I have handed in my notice and will actually be leaving. Never to don the smurf looking uniform again.

Provided I don't get called off a home standby, have my roster changed, I have 8 more days of flying.

So 5 things I won't miss about Ryanair.
1) walking forever in the rain to the aircraft
2) hen parties (I'm actually going to miss stag parties a little)
3) families of 8 coming onto a full flight last and blaming me that they can't sit together
4) the uniform
5) polish flights

Well I did say I was ready for a change ...

Plodding along!!

I'm staying in Bristol. Yay!! I didn't get the transfer I requested due to no spaces in the bases I asked for, so I get to stay. It's going to be so weird at work now with half the people gone. A lot have gone to sunny places like Malta, Palma and Tenerife and I'm not going to lie, I have a little bit of jealousy that I'm not living somewhere hot and sunny. Then practical Kiri reminds me why I didn't request a transfer to Tenerife.

Sometimes I hate practical Kiri!!

Skiing was good. I only went for 2 days and what I really wanted was to get some confidence back. The weather was great and there was lots of fresh snow. Since French holidays weren't for another week it was quiet too. I got back out on the blues and was feeling a lot better about skiing by the end of the holiday. Give me another day and I might of let my brothers take me on a red. Something for next year maybe.

In other news I've turned 24 since I last blogged!! I'm not sure how I feel about that. However one thing it made me realise was that I needed to write down my list. The list is something I've had in my head since I turned 20 and is full of things I want to do before I'm 30. There are 30 things ... Some serious, some fun, and since some have been crossed off already I though now is a good time to physically have it written down instead of in my forgetful mind.

I love baking and since moving into this house I hadn't whipped up any cakes or brownies or anything. In the past few weeks that has changed. I've started to replace some of my equipment with nicer things and dusted off the recipe books. It's been all things creme eggs, much to my colleagues joy when I bring them to work. The creme egg cupcakes got met with comments that I should open a cupcake store. :) whilst I'm not thinking of anything like that I am thinking that I may start selling cupcakes and birthday cakes if people are requesting them. ... Just a thought!!!

Open university is a drag. I have zero motivation to study or do my assignment and feel like I'm drowning in everything that need to be done. I'm also a really good procrastinater. But what's new ... I've just summed up what I was like at BYU aswell. Sometimes I miss the days where I was a great student and required perfection from my school work.

So yes ... Life is plodding along as usual!!!

Christmas and Changes

 Christmas was once again, really good this year. Although we didn't do a lot of the Ainslie Christmas traditions, we had a lot of great time as a family. The Saturday before Christmas we went to see Santa, then spent the rest of the weekend with James and Cheryl. It was great to see them, see their new flat, and spend time relaxing with the family. It was just sad that Laura couldn't be there.
Christmas Eve involved veggie prepping, and the Christmas Eve trip to the cinema with the Clarkies. Lucas was so excited on Christmas Eve and was tracking Santa all night. When Santa got to Rome it was time for bed and Lucas was jumping up and down and checking off everything to make sure we had put out the mince pie, carrot, stockings etc. He then flopped on his bed, told me if I wake up first I must wake him up, then told us goodnight. He's so cute!!

Me and Lucas with our stockings

 The next morning I woke up and got confronted by Lucas for not waking him up, we then went to investigate to see if Santa had been .... We found PRESENTS!! It's so much fun having a 6 year old in the house for Christmas, Kids make it so much more magical.
Laura was on a night shift and so got back home around 10,  I'm not sure she liked the fact that we were all watching her open her stocking. Then it was time for the tree :D
I love spending time with my family at this time of year. The only bad thing was that I had to work the 3 days after Christmas while everyone else was slouching at home. I'm so grateful I live so close to home and that I can be there for the random days, weekends, and holidays. If I had transferred to Maastricht I would of been really lucky to make it home for Christmas day, let alone anything else over the Christmas period.

Mum, Dad and Lucas by the tree

2013 seems to be all change so far. We've been given the news that they are reducing aircraft in Bristol from 5 to 2 in the summer. While I suspected this was going to be the case, and then the ground staff told us that was the case, it was still a little bit of a shock to hear it officially. Basically, 48 cabin crew have to either transfer or leave, leaving 40 in Bristol. First the ask for volunteers to transfer, then if not enough get their transfer (if there are no spaces in that base), or not enough apply, then they will force people to transfer. They've just announced 7 new bases that are opening in April: Eindhoven, Netherlands. Krakow, Poland. Zadar, Croatia. Chania, Greece. Marrakesh and Fez, Morocco  And Marseilles  France. If you apply for one of these you're pretty much guaranteed to go there. Despite pretty much knowing what we were going to be told, I still had no idea what to do. To apply for a transfer, or to risk trying to stay??? I think in my head I was ok to transfer in the UK, but then we got told there were no vacancies in the UK unless someone from those bases transfer or leave. Needless to say I've been pretty stressed and work has occupied a lot of my mind space in the last few weeks. After hours of research and lots of excel charts tossing up between possible places to move to either new or existing bases, I made the decision that for practical reasons I needed to try and stay in the UK (However much I might want to live in Tenerife). I've applied for Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds. If I don't get any of those I'll be risking it in Bristol, hoping I don't get forced anywhere I'm really against (Poland and Morocco) and having to deal with it if I do get forced out.

Hopefully by next week I'll know where I'll be moving to at the end of March (I'm crossing my fingers for nowhere). 

In other news, I'm really looking forward to getting away to France for a week at the beginning of February and am so grateful that I don't have to do the drive down. Since the parentals didn't want to take 2 cars, I get to fly down (thanks Mum and Dad). This job has totally ruined my ability to spend a whole day in a car. 

Really must stop procrastinating now and go start my assignment. It's funny all the things you can find to do when you want to put something off. :)