Elise had fun this morning playing "night night" with Ian.

So far, this is what Ian does all day, whether eyes open or closed. He is a pretty laid back little guy.

Elise has all of a sudden taken a big interest in riding the tricycles.

Pretty spring flowers on the trees outside.

Ian's first week...

Well we're home now! We got back to the MAF apartments yesterday with Ian. What a good baby he has been! He is a really laid back little guy. Of course, we've been taking way too many pictures of him. Here is the "story of Ian's first few days" in pictures!

Ian's first few days were very special. After his birth by C-section on Friday, Grandma Ellen (Heather's mom) and Elise visited that evening. The next morning, Grandpa Mark and Auntie Holly arrived (Heather's dad and sister). How special it was to have them with us! So it was a pretty slow paced Easter weekend as we got used to our new little guy.

We've learned that little Ian loves to sleep (no surprise there), loves to cuddle, and loves to be swaddled. If he is awake, and he is held or swaddled, he is content! He also loves to force us to change his clothes frequently. Maybe when we figure out better what we are doing that will get better.

Heather slowly began her healing. We took several walks around the maternity area. And Easter Sunday was especially fun. Grandma Ellen brought Elise in her little Easter dress. We held a couple Easter egg hunts for her....one in the hospital room, and one out in the hospital playground. Lots of fun!

We made it home on Tuesday. What a great experience we had at the St. Alphonsus hospital. We are very thankful for all the hospital staff and facilities, and that our family could be with us! On top of it all was the very special holiday to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior! We had a very laid back celebration. Of course, no church for us! We did listen to the Easter story on the computer. We were blessed with a few visits (not on Easter but other days) from pastor Drew at the church we've been attending here in Idaho.

Ian David arrives!

Good Friday was a very good friday for our family. With joy we met our son Ian David Lundholm for the first time!

Ian We love the meaning of Ian, which means "God is gracious and forgiving." We want to honor God for the forgiveness he has given Heather and I in His son Jesus. And if there's one prayer we have for Ian (and all of our kids) it is that they will someday understand their need for God's forgiveness, how God provided that forgiveness through his son's death and resurrection on that Easter weekend about two thousand years ago. We pray Ian someday receives that forgiveness by placing his faith in Him!

"Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God..." John 1:12

David My middle name also, means "beloved." He sure is, already!

Lundholm Our ancestors (so the story goes) were three brothers, Andersons, from Lund, Sweeden. At Ellis Island they were forced to change their name because there were too many Andersons out there. They chose Lundholm. Right now Ian is the only grandson that I know of in our branch of the family carrying on the Lundholm name!

OK so how did the birth go?

It all started with a routine doctor's appointment on April 21st. A chain of discoveries revealed that baby Ian didn't have a good chance of settling head down into the birth canal on his own like he was supposed to. So the safest thing to do was to induce labor labor and try to guide his head down in a controlled environment. So we were scheduled for labor at 7 am the next morning!

So we went home and (with excitement and nerves) got just a little bit of sleep.

The next morning around eight am they started the induction. They guided Ian's little head into the right position once....and when they did the epidural, he escaped! So they guided it back in. Heather was feeling very good with the epidural (we cannot believe how completely different the last birth experience was from this (no drugs at all last time)). We won't say if it was better or worse, just different. We'll leave it at that. If you want the details, ask Heather!

Baby Ian was drawing a lot of comments and laughs from the nurses and our doctor about how much of a "stinker" he was, and how rambunctious he was in the womb!

Well after being guided down the second time, baby Ian was head down, and doing his job just fine, except he decided to stick his hand up ontop of his head and leave it there! They decided to give him a couple hours, and some improvising with different ideas to try to get him to pull his hand back down by his side. If his hand was up on his head, he could injure his arm during childbirth. About four PM, it was clear he wasn't going to comply. So it was time for a C-section.

The C-section went absolutely great, and Ian David was born at 4:48 PM on April 22! Daddy was with little Ian while they finished mommy's procedure. He weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces with chubby little cheeks, 20.5 inches long. And he "chowed down" for his first couple of meals!

About three hours later, Heather was cleared for visitors and Grandma Ellen and big sister Elise got to come in. What a special moment that was.

We were really hoping for a natural birth, but in the end we praise God for the medical help and wisdom that was available that delivered little Ian injury free and kept mommy safe!

Many of you were praying for us and we cannot thank you enough! We are so thankful and grateful. What a good God we have!

Name that airplane

Elise has learned the difference between an MAF Kodiak and a Cessna 206.....

It was an exciting moment today when we watched a new Kodiak airplane arrive straight from the factory in Sandpoint. This Kodiak does not belong to MAF, but is for another mission that's going to use the plane. They had it brought here to MAF to have some modifications done before it is flown overseas. Elise and I were there when it came in......

It has a huge cargo door!

It just seems more exciting in the hangar when there's a Kodiak out there!

Heather and Elise spent some time doing easter eggs today....

Swimming at the gym has been a great outlet for us every once in a while. Elise really loves it.

We are excited that Heather's mom Ellen is coming tonight, and she plans to be with us through the birth of baby boy. What a blessing it will be to have her with us during this.

Waitin for a baby boy....

Today we had fun taking Elise to get her hair trimmed and done by a children's hair-dresser.

Of course daddy was ready with the camera! I got another belly pic of Heather too. At this point, each belly pic could be the last belly pic!

Yesterday we spent a few hours washing the training airplanes to mark the end of our training. Heather and Elise came over, and Elise sure had fun watching. She even scrubbed a little bit. And she enjoyed calling out all the windsocks that she saw. She kind of has a wind sock fetish right now!

This is one of Elise's favorite bed-time books called "Goodnight Moon". She is starting to know her favorite books really well!

The other day it was a gorgeous, sunny morning and it WASN'T WINDY which made it a great day to go practice at some of the airstrips we have been wanting to go to. As we headed out, we had our vaccuum gauge go to zero. That means our vaccuum pump failed. This is actually a fairly common thing in small airplanes. It meant that two of our instruments, the attitude indicator and the heading indicator wouldn't work. So we had to turn around and head back to MAF to get it looked at. When we got back, the maintenance guys said it could be a couple hours before we were ready to go again. Drat!

Well here is the culprit. The vaccuum pump. As they were replacing it, Heather and Elise came over to check out the action. Elise was really excited about it. After hours, a lot of times I bring her over to the hangar. She talks about how there's the side with the training airplanes she calls the "fixed" airplanes. And then there's the maintenance hangar that has the "broken" airplanes. She was really excited to get to watch them actually fixing the airplane!










For some reason there's a golf cart parked in the hangar.







Thankfully the mechanics got the job done much faster than they had quoted us. My instructor pilot Scott and I were so glad about that that we bought them doughnuts.


My last day of flight training (for now) was today, April 14th. I put together a little photo album of some photos I took throughout the process, in case you're curious to see.





In the pictures there I mentioned an airstrip called West. Here's a little video I shot of a demo approach my instructor did into West. You get bonus points if you can actually spot the airstrip!







I said the flight training is over for now, because in late June I am coming back alone to do the one week back-country course. We will take our training airplanes to the mountains in north central idaho and practice on airstrips that are even more challenging than the ones we have been using.

So for now, flying is over, and we're waiting for a baby here in Idaho! I sure have enjoyed Standardization training here at MAF and have really been challenged and stretched, and have learned so much. Many of you have been praying for this time, thank you so much!

A few recent pictures.....




I have one more week of flight training left. It has been a really awesome experience. The training that MAF has had the opportunity to refine over the last 50 years is very thorough and practical. It's also a ton of fun! I have never been more challenged in an airplane, and I feel like I'm learning tons of concepts.

Thanks to you who have been praying for what we should do about our four day mountain flying course coming up. This is a course where I go away for three nights to the central mountains of Idaho and practice on more challlenging airstrips there. The problem is it is right in the "red zone" of when our baby can arrive. Missing our baby's birth is not something I would ever want to happen. MAF has allowed me to sign up for the same course that is happening in June. So I will come back in June for a week (by myself) and complete the backcountry flying course. this won't delay our departure any, as our departure will be after that date anyways. We will still stay out here in Idaho to have the baby...due date is April 27th!

We have been really blessed by our friends Jason and Joselyn, Tim and Liz, (friends and fellow MAF'ers) and also the church we have been attending, who have provided us with more than we need for baby boy's short stay here in Idaho. It has been really touching to us to see people go out of their way like this to help us. It is really special to me to see the body of Christ in action like this.

Flying Action!

Today was an educational day for both Heather and I! One of the ladies here at MAF taught Heather some principles for cooking from scratch for four hours....

And one great part about that was the food they practiced cooking, Heather brought home for dinner. And it was delicious! Chicken pot pie, rolls, and (exotic) fruit salad, all made from scratch as scratch can be! She said the rolls took four hours to make, and you would not believe how many pots and pans they used for everything. Cooking overseas is going to be a new challenge!

Today was our third day of flight training and it was a gorgeous day! Gorgeous days have been in short supply around here lately. We took full advantage and got lots of practice in. We started off the day by heading to a gravel strip to practice on called Duster East.



Duster East is perched right on the edge of a plateau. We flew around it a few times to gather information about it to see if it was suitable for us to land on. After we landed, my instructor Tim pointed out something I hadn't yet thought of....that was my first airstrip landing (not at an airport)! With MAF there will surely be many more of those!

After we landed there we got out of the airplane to walk the airstrip and measure some important points for the takeoff and landing practice we were about to do. The cool morning air, the low sun and the mountains made it gorgeous!

Here's my instructor Tim by the plane.

And me.



After our trip to Duster East, I had the chance to practice canyon turn-arounds and ridge crossings, another first for me! Definitely not something we did up in Michigan! After visiting a small paved airport for more practice, we went to another dirt airstrip called ZX ranch. Once again, we made a few passes to observe the airstrip and see if it was suitable to land. As we did that, my classmate Luke was on the ground with his instructor walking and measuring the airstrip. As soon as we landed, Luke and his instructor were back in their airplane and ready to do some takeoffs and landings. So as they did that, and while Tim and I walked the strip, I got some video.....

Luke lands at ZX ranch




And then takes off....



A little while later, we got in the airplane and did the same thing.

It was a very fun, challenging, tiring and very educational day.