Do I have any readers left?

Hoo-boy! I bet most of my early readers have moved on, since I don't post much these days! Not that there's nothing noteworthy going on, quite the opposite! Just get bizzzeeeee!

Let's see, I have to update yall so much.... expecting grandson #4 in late October;

Entered my first aerobatic competition --- and placed third! 13-time U.S. aerobatic champ, Debby Rihn-Harvey was the chief judge and had some very nice, encouraging words when I received my 3rd place trophy;

Entered my first air race too! .... the 2008 Air Race Classic. I think this was officially the 32nd annual ARC, but it began in 1929 as the first all-woman transcontinental air race. Eventually it earned the name "Powder Puff Derby", from Will Rogers, who called it that after seeing the racers powdering their noses just before starting their engines.... anyway, Amelia Earhart was one of the early racers and organizers. So this year I entered. These days a team of two pilots is required, and must have either an instrument rating or 500 hours minimum. I met a racer who was looking for a partner, named Caroline Baldwin, from Silver City, NM. This was her fifth race. This year's race began in Bozeman, MT and ended in Mansfield, MA, with six stops in between at Miles City, MT, Aberdeen, SD, Mason City, IA, Decatur, IL, Frankfort, KY, Franklin, PA, and on to the final stop in Mansfield. I am going to have to do a separate post on this air race because there's a lot to it - all the pre- and post-race banquets, festivites, seminars, and other activities, and all the cool stuff about air racing, how to do a timing line, etc. We finished 18th of 33 race teams, which isn't bad but isn't what I hoped for. But I learned a lot and had a blast. We didn't race our Cheetah, we raced Caroline's Cherokee 180.

Meanwhile, we've just finished our first year as columists in the Liberty Gazette, a local weekly newspaper which features our column usually on page three, "The View From Up Here." I know, it's a dorky title, but all I could come up with suddenly.

Oh - and the Fly-In! We held this BBQ benefit fly-in for a local family and boy oh boy was it a huge success! Now there's another post all to itself! Just briefly, there's this local family, he's a state trooper, and they have a toddler-aged girl, and then were expecting twins. Well the twins came very early. Faith and Hope. Faith did not survive and Hope weighed one pound at birth. She spent several months at the hospital and was finally discharged last month, and is doing well. But the family obviously had lots of expenses not covered by insurance. So we did this fund-raiser. We had Boy Scouts serving BBQ that was cooked by cook teams including three area fire departments. The Liberty County Sheriff was a HUGE help with everything. The local radio station broadcast from the airport and we had a live and silent auction with all kinds of cool stuff. Okay, I'll have to update more on that one.

I am slowly getting to work on my commercial pilot certificate. There's this darned thing called work that gets in the way.... but I noticed it pays for the flying addiction so.... until I can earn a living flying.... :-)

If you've made it to the end of this post, congratulations! Rusty's been bugging me to update my blog. I just tend to run out of time.

Oh - the book. This takes way longer than I ever thought it would. I keep thinking we're almost finished. I really think we are though. I have been working with a graphic designer for the cover. We've decided to use Jessie's picture as the cover - I love it. And we've changed the title to, "When We Move to Heaven: A family love story". Once the cover design is finished I can submit it all, along with the manuscript, to the publisher and they'll take 60-90 days. I have a website going up that will probably be ready before then. It will be www.whenwemovetoheaven.com. But don't look for it now, it's not up yet.

I sure miss Brother Jim. I wish I'd been there the moment he met my family.

Love to yall.