My Niece, the iGirl

Spent a fair amount of time with my brother and his 2 (will be 3 later this year) children at the Sport Planes Association fly-in in Ashburton on Saturday afternoon. This is my niece, the iGirl, sitting in Papa's plane and not looking at her incredibly scary aunt i.e. me! She got over her 'shyness' fairly quickly and she and I spent the rest of the afternoon together walking around the aircraft and talking to the owners.

A Harvard put on a short aerobatic display which was really good. iGirl was fascinated by the smoke that it put out during the display and wanted to go over and see the plane at the end. When we got there an air force guy was polishing the prop but was more than happy to explain where the smoke came out and what he was polishing the prop with (it was grease!).

We spent the whole time talking. When she didn't hear what I said, she would say "Say" instead of 'pardon'. Very cute. She's also really into cups of tea - not for herself. Just the whole practice of sitting down with a drink and having a biscuit. The cafe scene really suits her.

After we'd been in the Aviation Museum watching a video of a top dresser putting on an exhibition (she wanted to know way more than I could explain), she was given a large sticker of the new Air NZ airbus by one of the guys manning the Museum. Stickers always have to be used so she peeled it off and stuck it to her tummy where it stretched from one side to the other. I, of course, forgot to get a photo of that.

I have high hopes of the iGirl being a petrol head. We've already had a discussion about how my sports car is for girls to drive, that her Daddy can't drive it because he's a boy and when she's a big girl she'll be able to drive it. Her father just rolled his eyes when I told him.