0-9 Months

Here's another look at Elise's "progress." We are amazed at how much babies change in their first year of life! And she's only at nine months. Here's a few pictures from the past, and a few we took the other day.

We were treated to a visit from Ellen and Dave last weekend. Here's a few pictures we took!

Not your average road trip....

Heather and I just got back from a "road trip" that we will never forget. Well we didn't actually use any roads. We flew instead! We may have shared with you recently that I have been trying to find ways to get the high performance flight hours that MAF requires. Some of you said you would pray for that. Well thanks for praying because a generous friend let me use his airplane for just about all 50 of the hours that I needed! We saved about 15 of the hours for this road trip to Florida. The idea was to get down to Florida to introduce my grandma in Jacksonville to Elise, her first great grand-baby. Well so the first job was to find Elise some hearing protection for riding in the airplane. Here's what we came up with.




Here's Elise hanging out on the bed the morning before the trip. She's lookin' pretty relaxed and has no idea what sort of adventure she's in for.





The first day we left Grand Rapids around five PM and our goal was to make it to Kentucky. We stayed the night in "Georgetown, Kentucky" which is a stones throw north from Lexington.   The nice folks at the airport left us a key to the courtesy car so we could drive into town and find a hotel.  The next morning they said "come back any time".  We were thinking there's pretty much no chance of that happening but who knows!  (Little did we know we would be back there staying the night one week later). 

Elise hanging out in her car seat in the back of the airplane.

The next day we were hoping to make it to Florida, but local storms delayed our departure and we only had enough daylight to make it to Winchester, Tennessee.

Already a day late getting to Grandma's we were sure hoping we could make it on Saturday.  Everything went smoothly on the flight from Tennessee to Florida until we got about 20 miles away from the Jacksonville airport and had to land at some small, remote airport because some big heavy florida rain showers stood between us and our destination.  This airport was so small that it didn't have any building to go inside.  We couldn't see anybody around, and there was no taxi-way to exit the runway!  We pulled off the runway onto the grass and the rainstorm enveloped us for a good while.  While we were cooped up in there we scrounged up whatever snacks we could find and played with Elise.  I couldn't help but grab a photo to remember this by.

Heather and I prayed for an opening to fly to Jacksonville, because if we couldn't make it out of this little airport in the boonies, we didn't know what we were going to do that night!

After an hour-and-a-half of being cooped up in there the rain died down and I called a weather briefer to make sure it was looking good to head into Jacksonville.  Finally Saturday night as the sun set we were tying down our airplane in Jacksonville and Heading to Grandma's place.  A day-and-a-half late, but better late than never!  We stayed in the guest room in Grandma's retirement community.  It was very nice, and the best part was it was right down the hall from Grandma!  Here's a couple pictures.

Elise was pretty excited to meet Great Grandma Lundholm.

And she was also very into Grandma's walker

We watched the weather channel with Grandma that night and as they showed the time lapse radar for the Jacksonville area that night we could see the hole that we prayed for. There was a big mass of showers covering the whole area, moving north, with a horizontal bar that represented a break in the showers (the one we flew through) , followed by another big mass of showers that came up and enveloped the area again. Was it an answer to our prayer or just happenstance? Who knows, but we got what we prayed for!

After spending Sunday with Grandma, we left Monday morning for Elizabethton, Tennessee. 



We "pulled over" for gas and a break in some little town in South Carolina. It was funny because we didn't even realize we were in South Carolina until we walked into the airport. The state brakes are not depicted very clearly on the aviation charts. We assumed we were going straight from Georgia to Tennessee.

Here's Elise hanging out in the airport.



When we took off from South Carolina, our next destination was Elizabethton, Tennessee. We were in for quite a show. We climbed up high as we began to reach the Blue Ridge mountain range. As we climbed, we began to emerge out of the haze layer into crystal clear blue sky, and the clouds for miles around began to be visible. This picture was taken right as we were passing ontop of the haze layer and seeing some clouds.




As we flew over the mountains, and over and among the clouds we were treated to some of the most amazing scenery.  It reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings.  I remember my friend Matthias who said "sometimes I wish my eyes were a camera." Heather grabbed the camera and started shooting some photos.




We both agreed that the photos she took barely caught the beauty of what we saw.  It was an amazing landscape, or cloudscape.  These images were vivid in my mind a week later at church when our pastor read the verse in Romans that talks about how God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that all men are without excuse.  As for me, I do not want an excuse to avoid God.  I want to know the one who created this amazing beauty!  

Elise snoozing in the back.

We saw more images like this when we departed Elizabethton a few days later, as we flew around navigating around storm clouds over the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky.  Unfortunately the camera was  buried so far back that Heather couldn't grab it to take some pictures.

So we arrived in Elizabethton that day and met Ron Royce, the former director of the Moody Aviation flight department.  I had an appointment to fly the Cessna 206 with Ron for the next few days.  He helped me prepare for the MAF evaluation.  One of our lessons got rained out, and we only got three and a half ours together in the 206, but it was some of the best and most intense ground and flight instruction I have ever received.  And I got a little bit of experience in the airplane that I will likely be flying on the mission field.  While we stayed in Elizabethton Ron had hooked us up with some friends of his, the Grahams, to stay in their guest Cabin. The grahams were very kind, loving and hospitable people.  We stayed in the cabin four nights and it felt like a vacation for us.  It was refreshing to see the beautiful hills of Tennessee and to just take it easy for a few days (minus the few hours a day I was gone flying with Ron).  We went on a few walks and drives, and hung out with the Grahams and their golden retriever Grace a few times.  what a refreshing time!

Here's Elise enjoying the porch swing at the Graham's cottage.

We woke up one morning and found her reading the bible out there.

Mommy and Elise

Elise looking cute in her car seat.

Elise just loved Grace the golden retriever.

This is the view from the Graham's driveway

Taken from the porch swing at the cottage.

It's now that I realize that all the pictures we took of the cottage were from the porch.  The inside was nice too.  Elise took the bedroom upstairs, and we slept on the futon down on the main level.  It is a luxury to have another room to put elise in.  It was funny when we stayed at hotels because after we put Elise to sleep, we would have to go hang out in the hallway or the bathroom.  One night Heather and I played cards out in the hall!  

After Elizabethton we were hoping to hop over to Virginia to visit some friends for a day.  But the weather over there was horrible, and it was getting bad in Tennessee.  We decided it was time to head back up to Michigan.  We had to wait a half-day just to depart Elizabethton, waiting for showers to calm down.  We made it back to Georgetown Kentucky, where we stayed the first night of our trip.  We used the airport's courtesy car again, and stayed at the same hotel.  The next day was completely clear and beautiful, smooth sailing all the way back to Michigan.  It was the only day of flying where we did not have any weather problems, and it was very refreshing.  At one point as we flew across Ohio the air was so clear and the visibility was incredible.  

We were very ready to be home after eight days on the road. As we were flying back to Grand Rapids, Dave and Ellen were driving up to visit, Heather's mom and step dad. It was a treat to see them. I will post some pictures from their visit on the next post, because this one is quite long enough!

Pics and Videos....

This post is going to send a whole lot of pictures and videos at ya! To start off are some pictures from our trip to Arizona the other weekend. We went out because I was in my friend Eric's wedding, and it was a good chance to see my side of the family. Elise got to meet her beloved auntie Kelly, and she also got to meet her great grandma and grandpa. She sure enjoyed seeing granny Robin and grandpa Buddy again, and she definitely liked meeting all those animals!




These pictures are just some random recent pictures. Heather does a really good job at catching all of the little faces Elise makes.