Easiest Move Ever

Our home out here at MAF has been the apartments, that are right across the parking lot from MAF. When they moved here from Redlands, California several years ago, they built three apartment buildings that house nine apartments total. They are such a blessing to people like us who are passing through for training. We've heard plenty of stories of the way it used to be for the older MAF missionaries, and we feel pretty blessed to have this nice place to stay.

So we've been staying in a one bedroom apartment. Because of our soon to be expanding family (Baby Brother is coming!) we are moving across the lawn, to a two bedroom apartment!




There's Heather on the porch of our old place, and the building on the left is our new home. So it was literally about ten steps to move to our new place!

Here is what our old one-bedroom looks like...


Our new place looks a little too crazy right now to post a picture, since we just moved in! We're still getting settled.
So when we walk out our front door, this is what we see...



That's MAF Headquarters. Behind that building is the Hangar, and that is where I have been spending my days lately.

Elise was feeling a little cooped up, so I took her outside to play....and brought the camera! It was definitely a little windy (we have learned that is common here.)

Of course there's always time for a timer shot.

Elise can be a little choosy about which car or tricycle she rides....




Occasionally we build "sandcastles" but Elise stomps on them before much gets finished!




I have two more days in the maintenance shop, then begin flight training on Wednesday. I am definitely excited. A concern right now is that it has been raining an unusual amount, and all of the airstrips we use for practice are going to be muddy and soggy right now. So we are hoping and praying the rain can let up a little, enough to get to go use those airstrips!

It's hard to believe we've been in Boise for 3 weeks already! I thought I would share a few miscellaneous pics to show what we've been up to! These are in no particular order.

Elise has been looking cute with her little pony tale...or stack as I call it, up front. But she won't usually wear it for very long before she rips the rubber band out and looks like this....

There's this great place not far down the street called Jabbers. It is a place for families to take their kids and let them go crazy on all the cool toys while the parents catch a breather. They have a lot of fun stuff. Elise has really enjoyed the play kitchen area and the grocery store area. Here's a few pics from Jabbers.

Before she ripped out the rubber band

Elise having fun with Daddy's travel guitar.

We toured the hospital where baby brother will be born the other day. Elise had fun playing with her glasses the whole time.

Every day I have been heading across the parking lot for training at MAF. Lately we have been doing a lot of maintenance training. Here is the maintenance lab area.

Just like Spokane Turbine Center a few weeks ago, MAF has a lot of really neat "cutaways" of airplane parts so you can see inside and see what's going on. Here's a propeller hub.

The training has been really good. The instructors have a lot of knowledge and wisdom to impart. For the next two weeks we will be in the maintenance lab and hangar. On March 31, I will begin flight training!

We had a checkup the other day for Heather and Baby Brother and we are thankful that everything looks normal! Elise is getting more excited for him to come out.

Turning a Page

Packing packing and more packing! On Saturday Heather, Elise and I are headed out to Boise for our final training with MAF. This time we are there for two months. At the end of our time there, we will have a baby! Elise is getting pretty excited about the arrival of Baby Brother. His due date is April 27th. She is beginning to talk more and more about him. It will be a fun day when we get to introduce her to him! So packing is a little bit more of a chore this time thinking about what to pack for two months, and for baby brother's arrival.

What's the training this time, you might ask? This is the major pre field training called technical standardization. That means they are bringing me up to speed on the way MAF operates overseas, both in flight and maintenance. We will begin with ground school. Then we will move into working and practicing in the maintenance shop. Lastly we will do the flight training, culminating in a week of practicing on back country airstrips in the mountains of Idaho. I am very excited to get back into "aviation mode"!


Here's a batch of recent pictures, including the latest "belly shot," the obligatory cute pics of Elise and her antics, and a few shots of my time out in Spokane a few weeks back training at the Spokane Turbine Center.




Elise was showing off her new moves the other night.



She was in the party mood because we were celebrating the birthday of Mads, our foreign exchange student from Denmark.



We would like to share a quick "timeline" for friends and family who would like to know. It's getting simpler from here on out. We will be out in Idaho training with MAF and staying until the birth of Baby Brother, then hopefully in the first or second week of May returning here to Missouri until we head to language school in Indonesia. If our support is at 100 percent and our visas have gone through, we hope to depart in July!

While I was away....

What were Heather and Elise up to while I was in Spokane the last two weeks?