Curious George Gets A Hair Cut

Curious George gets a hair cut...by his inexperienced wife Liz! This was the third time in my life cutting boys' hair. The first time was when I was 14-years-old and I cut my brother, David's hair. I remember it not looking that great, in fact it was pretty terrible...it looked like I had put a bowl on his head and cut around the edges, haha. Luckily David didn't care, but when we visited our Grandma June I remember her saying something like, "Boys' hair these days..." The second time was actually George's hair right after we got married in 2008...it went much better than my first experience, but I'd forgotten all I'd learned since then.

Before Liz got a hold of the clippers...

I was fairly unsuccessful not laughing at how awful the in-between stage looked. My nervous giggling made George feel very insecure about my hair clipping skills.

See? No need to worry...I thought it turned out really well. Look at that amazing blending job, ow OW! Dang George is GEORGEOUS :)

Instrument Rating, CHECK!

Lots of pilots say the hardest part of aviation is getting the instrument rating. George is a GENIUS and completed it today, woot WOOT!!! I'm so proud of him :) He was with an FAA examiner from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm, about 3 hours of ground and a 2 hour flight with some paperwork and other stuff in between. A stressful test to say the least, but he's SOOOOO glad to be done. The examiner told him she hadn't seen anyone do the ground portion as well as he did in a long time. GENIUS! Now it's on to commercial rating. Yay George!

Touching the Moon

Disclaimer: My posts have been out of date order...

The youngest Lewis, Sister #3, Widdle Weep, came to visit the not-so-sunny state of Florida, BUT we managed to stay warm anyway :)

She made a very good 'mom' shuttling George and me to school and work and providing dinners for us. I felt so bad that I couldn't be a better hostess, but she claims she still loves me. We did get to play in between work and school. One of the play dates we had was travelling to space...the Kennedy Space Center that is.

This in fact is Alethea touching a piece of the moon. Kind of anti-climatic, but still neat.

Meet Kitty Hawk, the command module of Apollo 14 - astronauts actually rode in this capsule from space back to Earth where they splash-landed into the ocean with more than 100 lbs. of moon rock on board.

Part of the Apollo missions...this was the base that held tons of explosives to get the aforementioned capsule into space.

These are the actual NASA work stations where people coordinated the landing on the moon in 1969.

Alethea in front of what the space shuttle looks like now. I have yet to see one head into space because I'm always out of town when they launch :( But there is one scheduled in Feb and I think I'll actually get to see it, yay!

P.S. We can thank NASA for many of our day-to-day conveniences. Some of the handy things we enjoy from NASA technology: cell phones, invisible braces, scratch resistant lenses, memory foam, ear thermometers, shoe insoles, smoke detectors, cordless tools, and water filters just to mention a few. Thanks NASA!

Alethea on a heli ride with George!

Like I mentioned, I had to work part of the time Weep was here...the days I didn't work she had our lives planned out to the minute. When I went in to brush my teeth one night, I saw the following schedule written in dry erase marker all over the mirror.

Schedule For:

Wed Dec 23rd, 2009

We've got a BIG day people - prepare yourselves accordingly!

8:00 am Bike to trail head

8:05 am Run on trail

8:25 am Bike back home

8:30 am Prepare omelettes

8:45 - 9:00 am Eat omelettes

9:00 - 10:00 am IMAX @ KSC

10:00 - 12:00 pm Beach

12:00 - 1:00 pm Pork butt c George

1:00 - whenever Beach

5:30ish - 6:30 pm Rides at Astronaut Hall of Fame

7:00 pm Pork Butt Dinner

8:00 pm Fudge Doorbell Ditch is mandatory

8:30 pm Marshalls?/Christmas dinner shopping

9:00 pm Read C.S. Lewis

10:00 pm Nighty Night

The strict planning paid off and we squeezed in tons of fun!

Entrance to la playa

Beach cruisin' at its best!

Mr. Horseshoe Crab

Mr. Armadillo. It was so cute! It reminded us of a little pig. Weird how all the animals we encounter in Florida are Misters.

We did get to see a wild PIG!! I was freaking out because it's not everyday that you get to see a wild pig, and this one was HUGE. I think I'm scared of them. On our walks Alethea and I would practice what to do if we encountered a wild pig. You are supposed to 'blend' in or hug the wall of the trail so they'll run on by without trampling you. We also prepared for alligator encounters by running serpentinely (zigzag). Great entertainment for a walk, you should try it!

George was mostly MIA because he was taking advantage of the extra helicopters available over the holidays, plus it was good flying weather so he got up in the sky as much as possible.

I love this shot because it shows how intense this beach is. There is a steep drop off right as you get into the water. We were up to our necks and the sandy shore was just a couple feet away!

It was so fun to have mi hermanita out here for a visit...I think you'd all agree that she needs to do her vet tech externship here in March!!

George breaks 100 hours!

That is one good-lookin' pilot!

George is doing very well in school. On December 22nd he broke 100 hours! There were a couple frustrating weeks in December with weather keeping him grounded much of the time. He's at a point in his training (wearing blinders for instrument-only flying) where the weather has to be near perfect with high ceilings. But the past couple weeks he's been able to get up almost everyday and yesterday he finished the second stage of his instrument rating. The final stage is about a week long so hopefully he'll be done with his instrument rating by the end of next week. He's still loving it and it was fabulous to get to fly with him as my pilot! I'm so excited for him to get to do something he loves for a living.

George doing pre-flight. He has to check out pretty much the entire aircraft. Here he was (posing and) checking the main rotors and hub.

Side-note: George's helos have a lot more power these days because it has been COLD here in Florida. It was 29F on my drive to work this morning. Freezing in Florida?? GASP!

Billy's Accident

On Wednesday December 16th George's oldest brother, Billy, was in a head-on collision. It happened in a small town called Burlington which is on the Colorado/Kansas border. He normally lives in Omaha, Nebraska, but had been working in Colorado. We don't know all the details of the accident, but from what we've been told he wasn't wearing his seat belt and was ejected from the truck. The truck rolled and he was pinned underneath it. After they got him out he was life flighted to Denver's St. Anthony Central, which is a Trauma 1 hospital. He was in a coma for a couple days before they finally got him stable. After that they kept him in a medical coma to begin the surgeries. He had a punctured lung, dislocated knee, several broken bones including his leg (femur), arms (both humerus bones, and one ulna), flail chest right side ribs 2 through 8, and broken vertebrae (fractured C1 & C2, and T10 through L2). We feel very blessed that Bill is with us at all considering all these injuries. And although it's only been a couple weeks since the accident, Billy has been progressing wonderfully. He is no longer on a ventilator and they just moved him out of the ICU a couple days ago, plus he just got his chest tube removed yesterday! They've now brought him out of his medically-induced coma and despite the pain meds he's becoming more and more alert and aware of his surroundings. Thankfully the cat scan shows no brain damage, and George even got to talk to him on the phone. If you'd like to follow his progress we created a blog: http://mrbillbates.blogspot.com He has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but he's a tough guy and we know he'll be up for the task!

Go Billy! We're all rooting for you in your recovery.

We are keeping Billy and his family in our thoughts and prayers and are very thankful for the great progress he's made so far.