Flight to Washington pt. I

I am currently working on my commercial license and I have been busy trying to balance being a stay-at-home dad, flying,a full load of classes, work and my church calling. About 2 months ago my flight instructor, Matt, and I were discussing how I would accomplish some of the flight requirements for my license. I told him that I really wanted to fly back home to Washington and fly into the little airport in the town my parents live in. He thought it would be fun, but he is also as busy (if not more) as I am, and said it would have to wait until the end of the semester. We decided on a date at the end of April and hoped for great weather.

We got to the week before the flight, and Matt and my eyes were checking the weather forecasts a dozen times a day. We were checking the forecasts for 3 cities too... Provo, Boise (a halfway stop for the trip to Washington) and Prosser (my "hometown"). We were actually biting our nails all week long because of precipitation. That was surprising, because of the (for you weather buffs) relative high pressure over the entire area, Provo included. In fact, Provo was looking the most threatening as far as cloud cover and precipitation (For those of you who don't know, we can't fly through clouds in UVU planes because of insurance risks, even though Matt and I are technically certified for flight through and in clouds).

Our day of anticipation came and Matt came to our house for breakfast and to be my ride out to the airport. We had a delicious breakfast bagel, did a last minute check of the weather, called in our flight plan (again, FYI... we have to call a "flight briefer" and give them our planned route so they can work us into the routes of all the other air traffic out there. They also give us a weather observations, forecasts, special notices for airmen, etc), and brought all of our maps, charts, calculations, info manuals, emergency gear and overnight clothes. As you can see, a lot to prepare for!

This is an example of a "sectional chart". It is one of two types of maps I used to plan my route to Washington and back. 

Matt and I got out to the airport, dispatched our airplane (334TS), and printed off some last minute weather reports for the flight. On a side note, I have to tell you about our plane from a plane nerds perspective. Our plane is a DA42 Twin Star. It's a twin engine, carbon fiber airplane with turbo charged diesel engines. In normal planes without turbochargers, performance decreases dramatically as you climb. In our turbocharged aircraft you can keep climbing to significant altitude without degraded performance. Well, our specific plane, 334TS (you have to say it like this... three three four tango sierra) was fresh off of a visit to the Diamond Aircraft factory to get a new set of engines... upgraded engines! The old ones had a lot of problems, but were still great. They produced 135 horsepower and were a great upgrade from the single engine planes I've trained in as far as speed and climb performance. Let's be honest, those are two of the funnest parts of flying... horizontal and vertical speed! Well, these new engines have 168 horsepower each, and have bigger turbos too. What does that mean? Better high-altitude performance... more on that later.
Matt and I did our pre-flight inspection and walk around. We had all the tanks topped off (we have four fuel tanks... one 25 gallon tank in each wing, and one 13.5 gallon auxiliary tank in each engine nacelle. About 77 gallons total... enough for almost 6 hours of non-stop flying) with Jet A and got settled in the plane.

The weather looking east. Normally you would have a beautiful shot of Mt. Timpanogos here.

The weather looking west. Much better, with some holes in the clouds to shoot through.

A great view of the new engines and fresh paint job.

334TS. You can see here that the flaps are down for part of the pre-flight check. Matt is in blue.

Matt and I did all of our necessary preflight prep, including hooking up the oxygen (we would be flying at 18,000 feet to stay out of the clouds, pick up favorable winds, and... just because we could! Above 12.500 in an unpressurized aircraft it is required to be on oxygen per Federal Aviation Regulations), getting local weather conditions and other info from the tower and taxiing to the runway.

This is a boring video of us leaving the parking spot...

Our departure out of Provo (KPVU). If you listen carefully, you'll hear Provo's tower controller begin to address us at the end of the video.

More to come on the rest of my trip...

I love to laugh! long and loud and clear!

just had to share :)

3 Months!

I cannot believe how quickly these last 3 month have gone by!  It has been nothing but wonderful.  Lynlee has really started to get interactive these last few weeks.  It is so much fun.  She laughs, and plays all day long.  So, here are some of the photos from today:

 

dark blue eyes, just like Mommy!

 

Lynlee has started getting really excited about looking around her.  One of her favorite things to do is just to lay on the ground and look and look.  We figured out how to hang toys above her on a wooden dowel so that she has something to entertain herself with.  She can lay on the ground and reach (with her feet) and kick for an hour at a time and stay completely happy.  It is so cute.  Today she was up to her usual routine, so Dane took a video:

Apparently all that kicking really wore her out because when he looked over at her a few minutes later, he found this:

Spring Break in St. George

My oldest sister, Elizabeth, turned 40 on April 13th.  So, to celebrate, my mom invited all of the girls in my family to spend a long weekend at my parents' vacation home in St. George.  Sisters flew in from Texas, Seattle, Iowa and drove from Vegas, Provo and Salt Lake to get together.  All 7 of my sisters were able to make it along side my mother, and her mother as well.  We had a blast. 
Most of our time was spent hanging out with the 4 babies, talking, eating great food and shopping.  Right before I drove home Sunday, we went to church and had to get a picture with all of us! (Actually one is missing.  Sarah had to drove home on Saturday.)

left to right: Kathy, Emily and Zoey, Joanne and Max, Leslie Ann and Will, my Mom, Me and Lynlee, Grandma Pope, and Elizabeth.

Here are all the 4 babies with their mommas: Me and Lynlee, Leslie Ann and Will, Joanne and Max, and Emily and Zoey

4 Generations: Lynlee with me, my mother, and my Grandma Pope (mom's mom)

Lynlee is getting big!

Lynlee has been getting so big recently. I didn't feel like I had a good comparison until my sister, Emalei, showed me this picture she took last night...

Compare that to this picture I took when Lynlee was only 2-3 weeks old...
We love our little growing lady!

Welcome Spring!

Today was the first day of spring break, and oh, it has been wonderful. I have had a chance to get caught up on cleaning, grocery shopping, and have been loving the warm weather. The windows have been open all day and I love the smell and feel of fresh air in the house. MMmmmm. So great.

I have also been able to catch up on some unfinished projects. One of them was for our front door. We have a house number, but it is basically hidden by a tree and it makes our place really hard to find. So, we have been talking about putting something a little more recognizable on the door for a while. Had a great idea, but just never had the time to sit down and take care of it. So, thanks to my X-acto knife and a little help from my cricut, this is what you will see when you come visit us from now on:

Don't you think it will be easier to find our place now?
(And for those of you wanting to know, contrary to popular belief, we didn't move here just for the house number.) :)

Weekend updates

I just wanted to post a few updates from the weekend. First, I had an awesome April Fool's day on Friday. I decided that goofy holidays like that should always be on Friday. The faculty at my school rotate who brings treats for our monthly training meetings and I was super excited that it was my turn with some other teachers. I brought mini hamburger.

April Fools! They are cupcakes with green coconut shavings, red frosting and brownie patties. The other teachers with me brought fake meat loaf (rice krispy treats) and kitty litter cake. They were all quite tasty.

Dane and I were able to spend the weekend at my parents' house and watch general conference. It was a much needed, very restful weekend. Lynlee got to hang out with a lot of family, including her cousin, Zoey. Here the two girls are with their daddies!

Last night before bed, Dane and I put Lynlee in her pajamas and were happy to see that she has graduated to her medium ducky outfit. And by medium, I think I need to give a little bit of an explanation. We bought a little newborn outfit for Lynlee before she was born because we saw it at the store and couldn't resist. She is wearing it in this picture. Then at 2 baby showers, we were given the exact same outfit but in 2 more sizes: 3-6 months and 6-9 months. We laughed and were thrilled to know that for the first year of her life or so, Lynlee with be able to sleep in duckies. I hadn't realized how much she had grown until we put the newborn size outfit next to her:

We are proud of you, Lynlee, Keep growning.