Day in the Life of a Flight Instructor

This video is almost a year old, but it shows a little more of what Mat does in his job as a flight instructor. I am so proud of him. He loves flying more and more each day. Now to see his students learn from his enthusiasm and strive to do their best, it just puts a smile on my face.

As a flight instructor, the most stressful, exciting, nerve racking moment is when you let your students do their first solo flight. The day of this flight, Mat was a wreck. He didn't sleep so well, he couldn't eat, he just wanted to have the day to be over. Spencer (his student) is still an amazing student! He has done so well in his training. The video is long, but it's neat!

We're BAAAAACK!

So...we're back!

After taking a year off from blogging and determining if it was something we wanted to continue with...here we are! A lot has happened in the last year, most of which, we don't have pictures to show.

To recap this past year, here's the short version:

Mat continued to Flight Instruct through UVU (he's up to 11 students and working a ton!)

Jen finished her Associate's Degree

Mat went backpacking/camping/fishing almost every weekend last summer

Jen had emergency surgery to remove her appendix

We went to Oregon...three times!

We got to see Tucker & Mary (Mat's brother & his wife) over Christmas

We welcomed our second niece to the world, Jennifer Charolette Belle (she's adorable!)

Jen switched jobs to work at an elementary school (She LOVES it!)

Now that we're caught up, we hope to keep up on blogging a little more now!

Mat's Graduation!

After four long, hard working, dedicated years...

this day has finally arrived!!

I am so proud of my husband!

I don't know if you can see it but he did get his "wings" as well! (look at the green sash...)

We have had a wild party weekend celebrating Mat's amazing accomplishment!

We've had lots of family, tons of food & so much fun!

March....in a glance

Mat thinks it's funny that I'm once again trying to accomplish my goal for 2010 and that is a blog post for each month in the year. It's now the 1st of April and I'm finally posting, completely missing the month of March. Needless to say, March was a busy month. It held many triumphs and trials, but we won't go to far into that....here's a quick recap over the big things....

March

At the very beginning of the month, we lost a dear friend of ours to his battle with cancer and travelled to Preston, Idaho to be at the service. The service was beautiful and really fit who he was. I was going to post some of our cherished memories of him and how his family had touched our life, but feel that they are almost to personal to share in the blogsphere. (Laura, we'll be sending them your way though....:) ) Although, we will say, he was a friend that lived life to the fullest, had immense faith and cherished his family so much. We feel truly blessed to have known him, even for a short time, he has left a HUGE impact upon our lives.

Now as we are nearing the end of the month, Mat received THE news! He has accepted a JOB with Utah Valley University as a FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR! We are officially STAYING in Utah! We are both so excited! I am going to emphasize at how much this has been a challenge to hold out for. Mat received a few other job offers, but we both really felt Utah Valley University was going to be the ultimate option. Mat knows the program, he knows the chief instructors and he knows the airplanes. All in all, they made us wait through a three interview process, but it finally has come through! It feels good to say that we are staying.

This month has flown by with a lack of pictures. I have been slacking on picture taking lately in general. That all will change come April. We are both anxiously awaiting April....graduation, family visits, friends having babies...so many things!!