Here's Where We're At...

I can't believe it's the first week of October already! Time really does speed up as one gets older...argh. I am, however, very much looking forward to decorating for Christmas in the near future!

Well, the most exciting news we have to share right now is that Eric has received insurance coverage to do the upcoming ferry flight of our new Caravan! This is something Eric has really been wanting to do, and it all hinged on whether or not insurance would cover someone like him (no prior trans-Pacific ferry time). Well, they've accepted him at the same price as our professional ferry pilot we hired in 2007, so that's not bad at all! No dates are set yet, but Eric plans to be in the States early next month. The new plane is being outfitted with a complete glass panel, so Eric will be going for some special training on that before flying back over here. He's also looking into doing some egress training as well, since that would really come in handy if he had problems over the big pond! His total time away from home should be right about three weeks or so.

Zachary has been working on various projects for his classes. His first major project was planning a residential move for his fictitious family. It was a lot of fun researching information and putting it all together. This assignment was for his world geography class, and he'll be turning in the finished project tomorrow morning. His next project, due in 10 days, will be taking this same fictitious family on a 10-day trip through Canada. The project is a bit more involved, but should still be fun.

This past week I started up an activity group for two- and three-year-olds. We meet up at the international school each Tuesday and Friday morning for about an hour. For about the first half hour we play outside doing group games or activities that encourage gross motor skills. The remaining half hour we spend in the library cooling down and reading books. So far we've had a good little group and all the kids are very excited to be involved (and the moms are grateful for a distraction two mornings a week). Please pray that I can continue to be inspired with ideas for the kids, and that this can be a fun and positive time for everyone.

I am now out of the house every weekday morning! I'm not sure how long I can keep up the pace, but it's working well so far. Monday and Thursday mornings I play indoor field hockey, Tuesday and Friday mornings I do this play group, and then on Wednesdays I meet with a friend of mine. Jason goes with me to hockey and to the play group, of course, but on Wednesdays he stays with Grandma. It's keeping us busy, that's for sure! Of course, on days when there is no school up at the international school we usually don't have hockey or the play group, so that will give me a day every now and then to catch my breath.

I hear it's been cooling down in the Pacific Northwest, but none of that cool weather has reached us here! It's been just terribly hot the last several days, so we've been very thankful for stable power to run our fans. All this hot weather means we'll soon be seeing some serious rain, but in the meantime we swelter!

We've 90% confirmed that we'll take our furlough in 2011. We are technically due next summer, but we're in no hurry to go. We'd initially changed our 2010 dates to 2011 so that we could attend Stephanie's graduation from academy. However, now that she's returning home that's no longer a factor. We then thought we'd go back with the 2010 plans, but after lots of discussion as a family this weekend (well, Jason didn't have a lot of input, but Eric, Zachary and I discussed things) we decided it would be best to go with the 2011 plans. SO many things could change between now and then, so we'll see how this goes... It'll be something new taking a furlough with Zachary in school since we'll be limited to go when he's on school holiday, but we can manage. The biggest challenge is always in finding a place to stay while in the States and, since Zachary will be 16, we'd like him to find a job for the few weeks we're over there (and get his driver's license!!!). Ah, I sure wish it wasn't so complicated, all this planning...

Stay tuned...