Thanksgiving Action

Ellen, Dave and Holly came to visit for Thanksgiving. We had our friends Jeffrey and Bethany over today too, and they brought their baby Zeke. Doesn't a baby make a holiday extra fun? I thought so.

Baby Zeke tries out the bouncy thing.

Baby Zeke with mamma Bethany.

And as you can see, this is about to become a "baby blog!" Many of our friends' blogs have gone that direction, now we get to follow suit! I am excited. The baby is due December 18 (we still need to find her a name! It's hard to keep calling her "the baby")


Heather's Dad came to hang out at our "new crib." Actually he and I put the crib together, and he came to check out our new "pad". (That was Heather's joke....I stole it from her) We moved into a two bedroom a few weeks ago to make room for the baby. We really like the new place. It's on the third floor....allright we're not underground anymore! At our last place we were halfway underground. I was overjoyed at the fact that we have a porch and a large sliding glass window that faces the afternoon sun and sunset. (though we have the porch plastic'ed off now for insulation purposes).

I hope you are having a blessed holiday!

Picture Perfect Ending

As I flew over the snow-sprinkled ground between Traverse City and Grand Rapids, I watched the sun make an appearance far off on the horizon as it set between the overcast cloud layer and Lake Michigan. Over the last few days the lake effect snow had lightly sprinkled the area. As the sun set, the lights of the little towns I flew past began to emerge from their surroundings as warm, clear points of light. The lights and snow of the small town reminded me of a painting of a snowy, cozy little village around Christmastime. What a treat, and what a wonderful way to end a long, but blessed two days. The morning before I began to fly up to Traverse City for my last FAA test. This test was for the CFII rating, or the instrument part of my flight instructor license. As I got to a town called Big Rapids, a wall of snow showers met me, so I landed at Big Rapids. My examiner actually drove from Traverse to Big Rapids to try to do the exam. By the time he got there, it was snowing like the blazes! We did the ground part of the exam He asked me questions for a couple of hours and posed scenarios to me to see what I would do in given situations. Then I had to go find a hotel because nobody would be flying out of that snowstorm! The next day, I waited most of the day until the weather reports said it would be okay to head all the way up to Traverse City. I arrived late in the afternoon, and we did the flight portion of my test. I passed the test, we did the necessary paperwork, and I hopped back in the airplane with little daylight to spare, and flew direct to my home airport, Ionia. And the scenery was so beautiful, I wish I had a camera (The picture above is actually of a flight a while back where the sun was rising.) It was a fun flight back because I passed my test and I was on my way back to see my honey, who I haven't seen in two days. It was also a special flight back, and a special day because it was the very end of my flight training, and of all of the aviation training we came here to do. I had a chance to reflect on this last couple years for Heather and I that have been very special. The training, relationships, and memories have been wonderful. The Lord has been gracious to us.

My Lovely Bride--of 4 Years!

Heather and I celebrated our four year anniversary on Thursday. We did one of the things we love to do the most, which is took the day to do practically nothing! We stayed at a Hotel which our friends the Jeffrey and Bethany hooked us up with a great deal on, and we did not much of anything! In typical anniversary fashion, I went by there earlier with a jar of roses, and they graciously planted them in the room before we arrived. We watched some cable TV, watched a couple DVD's, ran to Panera for dinner, and slept like logs on that comfy bed! What fun. We also found out Heather's cousin Shawna was in labor with her second baby last night, and this morning found out the little girl was born! Eladie Marie Marshall is 7 lbs 10 ounces, 20 inches. Eladie and her older sister Josie are about a year and a half apart. They're gonna have some fun together growing up! So, in our family, we're "on deck" for having a baby! Due December 13th, and we're still working on getting a name. That's hard work! Thank you for reading our blog!

Quick Update

Ricky passed his CFI test!!! Yeah!!! He is officially a flight instructor now. He did really well on his test and I'm very proud of him. It is a difficult and long test....lasting about 8 hours with a combination of an oral exam and a flight portion. He is now working on the CFII rating (certified flight instructor for teaching instrument pilots).

We just moved into a new apartment yesterday and are finishing cleaning our old one today. It is actually just around the corner in our same apartment complex.

We have more belly pics to put on the blog, just haven't done it yet with all the studying/moving. Hopefully they'll be up soon!