San Diego Vacation

Matt, Blake and I recently returned from an amazing 10 days in San Diego with my (Ellie's) family. My brother Jake and his wife Lindsey are stationed in San Diego through the Navy and we all met up at their place, only two miles from Sea World. My parents drove down as this is part of a month long road trip for them. What an amazing and fun week it was!

We went to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, the fair, and the beach.....though I can't say we had the warmest weather. It was mostly in the sixties and cloudy, though it often cleared up in the afternoons thank goodness. I was a little worried how Blake would do with all of the activity since he is still on a two nap schedule, but he did great and loved all of the attention! He definitely is a social little boy. He had everyone laughing hysterically one night as he got them to clap after him and then he would laugh like crazy and clap again.

We also were able to meet up with our friends Ben and Kami and their little girl Summer. Matt graduated from Moody Aviation with Ben and we haven't seen them since Ben took a job in California. It was awesome to catch up with them and enjoy some time at the beach.

Here are some pictures from the trip. We were able to get some amazing in-action whale pictures with our new camera.

Blake watching the Shamu Show. He loves it!

The family at the San Diego Zoo

Classic Meerkat pose. The Meerkats were my favorite at the Zoo. They are so cute!

Amazing flamingo picture that Matt took.

This monkey was busy grinding something along that rock. He barely noticed all the people looking at him.

The Caspars and the Scheers

Blake and Summer have a great time. Aren't they cute?

Matt and Blake looking out at the ocean.

Blake's first try with a straw.

Sand sand sand!

Dinner Cruise

Last Saturday Matt and I had the priviledge of going on a Couer D' Alene dinner cruise with much of the Moody Aviation and Spokane Turbine Center staff and their spouses, along with this year's graduating class. It was sponsored by a man who funds the Spokane Turbine Center and due to his extreme generosity we were all able to enjoy a special night out and celebrate the recent graduates! The food was amazing and we all had a blast! We were extremely lucky to have my parents come and watch Blake. They drove all the way from Seattle to take care of him so we could have a night out...are they amazing or what?!

Blake turns one!

On Saturday we celebrated the unforgettable day our little Blake was brought into this world one year ago on May 15th. It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone and that he is already one! We had a barbecue with several family and friends present and it was a sunny, beautiful day. The best part was that Blake had a blast and loved all the attention! Here are a couple of videos and some pictures from the day.

Balloon Fun




Cake for the First Time!

First Taste of Cake!

Wow!!!

Mmmmmmmm

I Could Get Used to This!

Blake with Walker

Opening Presents with Daddy

More Presents!

Blake and Costa

Cookie Monster!

The Plan for Now

We thought it would be a good idea to let people know what the plan is for us as far as overseas missions and a timeline. It seems like we have been talking about going overseas and preparing for years and years (and we have!) and yet we are still here! Is there an end in sight? The answer is yes.

We plan on applying with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) but in order to apply with them, Matt has to have enough flight hours built up first. Missionary aviation can be very dangerous as they are usually flying into and out of the middle of nowhere (jungle terrain, runways that go uphill etc.). Mission organizations take the experience of their pilots very seriously.

Right now we are with Proclaim Aviation. Proclaim helps missionary pilot's prepare and build enough hours to be able to apply to go overseas. He is working (on loan from Proclaim) at Moody Aviation as a flight instructor, building his flight hours and preparing other young pilots for overseas service. He almost has enough hours! The contract with Moody goes through next Spring.

Matt is scheduled to take his big Technical Evaluation (TE) test with MAF next April. This is a HUGE deal. It occurs in Nampa, Idaho at the MAF headquarters and is a two week, vigorous test of both his flying skills and his knowledge of maintenance. The whole family will go for these two weeks. Part of the two weeks is a wholistic evaluation of us as a family, so Ellie and Blake are not off the hook for this TE!

Upon passing the TE, we will officially be MAF missionaries and will start orientation with them next July. During orientation we will be assigned our country of service and will begin preparations for our language studies. How exciting!!! Of course before leaving we will need to have 100% of our support raised as well. As far as where we will go, we are open to where God leads us, but our top two areas of interest are Africa and Indonesia/South Pacific. Anything can change however so we will see!

Though this preparation phase has taken a very very long time (8 years since Matt first began at Moody Aviation!), it's exciting to see how close we actually are to being able to serve our God overseas. On this journey we have learned a lot about faith, trust, and perserverance. It has also been a challenge for us to remember that we cannot just live in the future. While our ultimate goal is and always has been to go overseas to serve God, we need to be giving God our best every single day, even here in Spokane. So thanks to all of you who are going on this journey with us. Hopefully we can be as encouraging to you as you all are to us. We love your emails, blog posts, and prayers, and we'll do our best to return the love!

We Find a New Home for our Sweet Dog Leyla

God recently answered a prayer for us regarding an issue that had been weighing heavily upon our shoulders for many weeks. As Blake grew old enough to move around more he became very interested in our dog Leyla. It gave him great pleasure to scoot over and try to tug her tail or pat her face. Up until then she had been fine with him but she became very nervous around him and her behavior changed. It was too risky to keep her.

Though we knew this was best, we were both very sad. We've had her since she was a puppy and even planned on taking her with us to the mission field. She definitely had some irritating personality traits but we loved her anyway. After weeks of looking for the right home without any luck, we became desperate and made an appt for her to go to the shelter. You have to understand, for us this was devastating. We both LOVE animals and this option was my worst nightmare, but we had Blake's safety to think of. I cried a lot of nights thinking of what might happen to her. After many prayers, still no answer.

On the day she was due to go to the shelter a lady emailed me wanting to meet her. We drove out to her house which was about 30 miles north of Spokane. They lived on 20 acres of the most beautiful land. Hills, trees, pastures...this place was dog heaven!!! She and her husband were older with kids grown and out of the house and she wanted a dog with lots of energy that she could take on 20 mile trail rides with the horses. Perfect! They were huge animal lovers like us and had other animals that could keep Leyla company as well. Leyla learned to get along great with the other dogs (another miracle in itself). Since then she's been able to run free and go on several trail rides, running alongside the horses and chasing squirrels, swimming in ponds, all sorts of things that dogs love. We miss her dearly but at least we know that she is even happier where she's at now. What an awesome answer to prayer!

Lakehouse

After the Scheer Family visit we met my (Ellie's parents) at their lakehouse on Lake Lenore and had a nice, relaxing weekend with them. We even went to the park at Soap Lake to take some pictures with our new camera.

Family Update

So we haven't been very good about keeping up our blog, seeing as the last post was in 2008, but we have decided to commit to keeping it up now so that we can stay better connected with our friends and supporters. Blake is changing so fast and we want people to be up to date with him as well!

Blake is now 11 and 1/2 months and I'm starting to plan his 1 year old birthday party! How fast this last year has gone. I (Ellie) have been SO blessed to be home with him. I've been able to be present and witness every stage this past year. I can't say that it hasn't been difficult and exhausting. There have been times I have desperately needed a break and have often felt isolated and alone. Without family here we don't have many options for babysitters and we have sacrificed a lot financially so that I can stay home. Despite those times however, Blake is an incredible blessing and we are so lucky to have such a healthy little boy!

He is now crawling and pulling himself up onto everything and seems close to walking. He has started to walk around with his little lion walker and has pretty good balance. He's also starting to understand more and more, like what we say and how to play with his toys. Instead of just chewing on things he is more purposeful about what he does with his toys. For example, he loves to drop toys into the empty bathtub, and when he climbs the stairs he will take a toy with him and work to put it on the step above him before he climbs to the next step. Yesterday for the first time we got him to copy "woof woof" after explaining the sound a doggy makes! That made our day.

Matt is still flight instructing and enjoying his work. He has the priviledge of working with 4 great students and is giving them advanced training in the Cessna 206. Not only is he rapidly building his flight hours, but he is gaining invaluable experience in the 206 which will help immensely once we are overseas.

At the beginning of the month Matt's parents and his brother Andy were able to come and visit for Easter and we had a great time with them. As usual they were so helpful with Blake and he was spoiled to pieces! Here are some pictures from their time here.

Blake with Uncle Andy

Blake looking at the clock with grandpa Scheer

Fun times with grandma Scheer