It's Official...

George can now get paid to fly! He's a commercial pilot! His check ride was yesterday. He whizzed through the ground, and the weather cooperated and cleared up right before his flight. I'm SOOO proud of him! In less than a year he's completed helicopter pilot school, woo!! He could potentially get a job now, but most new pilots are instructors for the first little while in order to build hours. To become an instructor he now has to take a 3 week course that starts in April. He is so so so close to being done, DONE! He still loves flying after all the studying. We're SO excited for his career as a pilot! Yay GEORGE!!

This is his flight planning in action.

Cap'n George's Time Line :)

2009

April 6 - George's 1st day of heli school

April 23 - Bristow private pilot exam 1 - 95%

May 1 - Bristow private pilot exam 2 - 97%

May 21 - Bristow private pilot exam 3 - 84%

May 26 - Bristow private pilot final exam - 90%

June 8 - Passed stage check to go solo

June 9 - First Solo flight!

July 24 - FAA private pilot written exam - 100%

July 31 - Stage check for private (got rained out)

Aug 3 - Finish stage check for private

Aug 6 - FAA private check ride - woot woot!

Sep 8 - 1st day instrument ground school

Sep 22 - Bristow instrument exam 1 - 88%

Oct 1 - Bristow instrument final exam - 96.4%

Oct 1 - FAA instrument written exam - 93%

Oct 2 - FAA instrument instructor written exam - 92%

Nov 19 - Stage 1 instrument ground stage check

Nov 20 - Stage 1 instrument practical stage check

Dec 22 - George breaks 100 hours!

Dec 31 - Stage 2 instrument ground stage check

2010

Jan 5 - Stage 2 instrument practical stage check

Jan 15 - Stage 3 instrument ground stage check

Jan 16 - Stage 3 instrument practical stage check

Jan 18 - FAA instrument check ride

Feb 11 - Start long line course

Feb 23 - Finish long line course

Mar 12 - FAA commercial written exam - 97%

Mar 22 - Commercial ground stage check

Mar 24 - Commercial practical stage check

Mar 29 - FAA commercial check ride ACE!

Study Break!

Georgie has been cooped up studying for his big commercial FAA exam next week. Fortunately yesterday we got out to play! He dug out his lovely bow and was shooting water bottles at about 20 yards. We may have lost an arrow into the neighbors fenced yard. In an attempt to retrieve it we threw our Frisbee over there in hopes for a good excuse to be in their back yard. The friendly neighbor went and got the Frisbee for us and the arrow is still there. Oh well, it was bent anyway!

Last night we also attended the 60th Annual Deseret Ranch Rodeo. YeeHaw! George is a hick at heart and has been longing for some rodeo action. This one had events we'd never seen before like Wild Cow Milking??! They released a bunch of milking cows and cowboy teams had to get a cup of milk out of them. It was hilarious! There was also bronc riding and mutton bustin' (that is where little kids ride sheep). A 5-year-old girl won that competition!

Another hilarious event was open to the public. Anyone 8-years-old or under came down into the arena, and they released a bunch of lil pigs and the kids ran around wild trying to catch them. It was a stampede!! This blurry picture sort-of captures the chaos.

It was fun to get out and play, and hopefully George will be refreshed and ready to rock the big test next week, woo!!

28-years-old and still aging...

It sounds like such a mature age!! I'm not sure when the maturity will hit me tho :) George spoiled me throughout the week with two amazing dinners (zesty lime fajitas and baked ziti) and two amazing desserts (my favorite rhubarb pie - he made it himself from scratch! and angel food cake with fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and plums, mmmm!)


George and I worked in the temple in Orlando for most of the day. It was a wonderful and peaceful way to spend my special day.

Our friends, Nate and Morgiana, were with us in Orlando. Nate had been wanting to check out where a co-worker pilot has a second job giving tours. So we stopped by and he generously bought us a heli ride in an R-44. We flew over the night lights of Orlando. It was a cool way to wrap up the evening.

And of course I felt lots of birthday love from all my wonderful family and friends that I spoke to on the phone. Thank you all for making it a happy one!

Busch Gardens

Saturday was spent spinning and flipping and screaming and plummeting....on the roller coasters at Busch Gardens in Tampa!

It was such a fun 'get-away-day'! We went with our friends' Sarah & Trevor. It was awesome because we gave a ride to 3 military guys that Trevor works with and they got us in free with their military i.d.'s. We got there around 9 am and there were NO lines. It was perfect. The best roller coaster was SheiKra that holds you at the top of a 200' drop-off...what could be more FUN than praying your seat contraption works?! Haha!

Here is Trevor and Sarah's cute Savannah trying out the roller coaster!

Sarah totally talked me into going on the 'Wet Log' ride even though we froze afterwards it was fun!

I felt like there was a good combo of roller coasters, water rides, zoo animals and gardens to mix it up a bit throughout the day.

We took turns taking care of Savannah - lots of times we would fight over this to give our nauseas bellies a break!

I've never spent much time at theme parks. I'm content going once every couple years. But it was WAY fun! 9-month-old Savannah was such a good baby the whole time, and she really liked seeing all the animals. We saw giraffes, rhinos, elephants, birds, zebras, crocs, alligators, apes, and more. The orangutans were really good at the 'monkey-bars'. I learned that flamingos are pink because of their diet, which is mostly shrimp! My favorite animal was probably the 500-lb. tortoise. Oh and the hippos were such fatties! It reminded me of Madagascar 2 when Moto-Moto the hippo is talking about how fat is so sexy. 'She's so big and chunkay...she's plumpin' Haha!

Here we are - the old boring married couple. We spent a couple hours just lounging eating our lunch with zero desire to get back in the park to go on more rides. But we mustered up the energy to finish off the day with some wet and wild rides and one more roller coaster. It was such a fun day!!

Lisa ♥ Eric

Lisa & Eric - the newlyweds!! What a good-looking couple!

I got back Sunday night from a very quick trip to Salt Lake City for Lisa's wedding. She made such a beautiful bride! George and I were lucky enough to go on Lisa and Eric's first date (it was a set-up)...ice-skating! We knew it was meant to be :) Not really, but we're so happy that we got to know Eric even though we've been living far away. I've known Lisa since my Alaska days in 1997! We went to rival high schools, but attended the same church branch. She is such an amazing girl and I'm so happy we've stayed friends throughout the years. I can always count on her for a good adventure. In fact get this, she ran 12 miles the day before her wedding! She's probably the only bride that's ever done that! She's training for a marathon in May. Such motivation! It was so much fun to see Lisa's family as well, we have been 'family friends' since many of our siblings have coinciding ages.

We were also roommates during my one short semester at BYU-Idaho. That was such a FUN semester. It was great to catch up with our other roomies at the wedding...Emily and Melissa! These girls know how to make me laugh!

Sara and I had fun sneaking in to Lisa and Eric's hotel room to decorate!

Beside the fun wedding festivities I also got to catch up with Sara and her family. As always it's SO wonderful to spend time with her and Joe and to admire their beautiful children. I even got to watch one of Kyson's basketball games. It was hilarious to watch 8-year-olds play the game. They are awesome! There was some major D, lay-ups, and shots. I was impressed! They were all so fast and strong! We also went swimming/hot-tubbing every spare minute! About a week before the trip, Kaden started calling me every day to give me the countdown. "Liz 3 more days until I get to see you in the hot tub..." Way to work over the auntie with your cuteness :)

I got to party with Shena on Saturday - our tradition is sushi and hot fudge peanut butter milkshakes from Stan's. Mmm :)

I also got to visit Aly! I always forget to take pictures when I'm having so much fun. Aly snapped one of Ben distracting his mama from nap-time. I'm surprised he doesn't get away with more with that cute smile of his!

It was a GREAT weekend. I'm SO happy for Lisa and Eric. I can personally say marriage is the best. I've loved every minute of it! Oh yes, I forgot to mention, the mountains. The beautiful snow-capped mountains. They were so lovely to gaze upon this weekend. I miss them. And I miss all the amazing people that live out west. Hopefully George and I will start making our way back home sometime in the near future!