Beautiful evening flight

On Sunday Chad took me on a flight over the San Juan's. I'm so lucky to get to go on all these beautiful flights while he builds his flight time. The view was breathtaking. The sun reflected off the water just right and at times it looked like it was on fire. I've lived in Washington my whole life and have never been over to the islands, Chad and I will be going on September but wow to see it from the air, gorgeous.

After taking in the beautiful sights Chad had to practice some of his maneuvers, which made me sick to my stomach and I have no real way to judge how he did but he seemed to do them really well. He is SOOO close to taking his test. Praise God.

God has been so faithful and has paved the way before Chad this entire time. I never would have thought we would have a story like we do, but WOW God is good. Chad is almost done with flight training and we have NO DEBT!! Praise God! Here are some pictures from the flight. Not the best since the airplane windows kinda stink but you can get the gist.

Porter turns 1

Well I can't believe a year has passed already.  Porter James my amazing nephew was born a year ago (well this past Saturday was a year).  It has been a blessing to watch him grow.  I wish I could see him more, but living in Everett and working nights isn't very conducive to regular visits.  For about 7 months I watched him 2 times a month and I have some very wonderful memories from those days.  He is such a smart boy and he is changing so fast.  Its awesome!  His party was a blast.  We had a BBQ over at my dad's house.  Jennifer set up a little kiddy pool and slip and slide, it was like Christmas morning for Porter.  He sure does love water.  It was great to see everyone and so fun to watch Porter eat his first cake, and boy did he dive into it. 

"Commercial" Pilot for the day!

Chad's mom was up here visiting in June, and after her visit with us she had plans to go to Vancouver.  Well Chad got to practice being a real operator that day.  He flew us all down to Vancouver in a 182 that had a really cool new Garmin 1000 system.  You'll see pictures.  Chad loaded up the luggage, did all the weight/balance calculations, did his pre-flight briefing (which he always does), and flew his mom down there it felt just like a real commercial flight, minus the security lines, baggage claim, huge airplane, and flight attendants.  But who needs all that stuff when we can have our own private pilot and scenic flight. 

The Garmin 1000

Chad and Uncle Ralph

Water Fun!

Back in June I made a couple of trips to the beach with Linc, one post was made on that, but here are a few more pictures.

 Then I made another trip to the Kent water fountain thing with my sister and Porter.  Porter was fearless and went right for all the water.  It was a great afternoon with them. 

update letter

This is the best I can get it, with the computer we have right now. This is our update letter that we are sending out. Some have received it. If you haven't it's not because we don't love you but because the computer it was saved on died. I scanned a copy of it but it is not good enough to print. So here we go!