Introducing.....

Bailey Kirkendall

6lbs 6oz

19 1/2 in

4/14/09 @ 11:47pm

36 Weeks

Family Day

A couple of months ago, KR's class had a family day where we got to go out to the airfield and watch them fly. It was pretty neat since I always hear him talk about it but had never been able to watch-and probably will have few opportunities to actually see him fly in the future. This small orange and white helicopter is the TH-67, which is the training helicopter. He has just 2 weeks left of his classes for this one, and then he will be waiting for up to 4 months for his training classes to start in the Blackhawk.

I just thought I'd post a few videos of him flying. In this first one he's just doing a take off. Whoo hoo!

In this second video he is doing what's called an auto-rotation. They simulate an engine failure and then have to control the helicopter to bring it down for a landing. It's hard to see from far off in the video, but they really do come down fast and it looks like they're falling out of the sky. :)

4th of July (2008)

For the 4th of July weekend, we decided to go to Disney World. We visited all 4 parks-Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom-in the same day. It was a marathon of sorts.

We had fun, but realized quickly that it was not the smartest day for us to have gone. Not only was it HOT HOT HOT, but of course it was one of the busiest days they have all year, and every direction we turned, we felt trapped like cattle being herded shoulder to shoulder with strangers through each park. Very irritating! We did manage to get in some great rides (our main purpose for going), but unfortunately, a lot of the big rides already had a 2 hour wait for them by early afternoon!! We were so beat by dinner time that we left the park and didn't even make it back for what I'm sure was a fabulous firework show. We must be gluttons for punishment though, because the next day we woke up early, drove to Tampa, and spent all day at Busch Gardens. At least it wasn't as crowded there and we got our fill of thrill rides!

Don't know if you can tell in these two pictures above left, but we were soaking wet from one of the rides. The Tower of Terror in Hollywood Studios (bottom middle) was probably our favorite ride of them all!

Biker Dude

KR has had his bike for over 5 months now, but I just thought I'd share some pics.

Graduation

This is another post I've put off for a long time. May 17th (2008) I finally graduated! I got my BA in Psychology from Boise State University. 6 years of school - 10 years after I first started and 4 years after I started over! Was it worth it? Yeah. I even went out with a bang and got a 4.0 my last semester. That's quite an achievement since I remember having a semester where my GPA started with a zero. I've got to give a late shout out to my sister Rachael who also graduated on the same day as me (from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Interior Design) and also earned a 4.0 her last semester! Congrats (sorry-I have to brag for you since you never blogged about it...)

My Grandma Wardle, Dad, and Margene came up for my graduation and my Mom and Brent went to Rachael's. (We need some pictures Rach!)

My brother-in-law, Richard, got his Masters on the same day too, so we had a Kirkendall family party. Unfortunately, KR was unable to be there since he was right in the middle of SERE (survival) school in Alabama.

Meet Allie

This is the newest addition to our family, Allie.

We got her at about 4 months old and she is as sweet and playful (fiesty) as can be. We felt our cat Brother was pretty lonely for a playmate but in fact he got a little more than he bargained for. She always wants to play with him, which is cute, but he prefers to have nothing to do with her and just begs to go outside. We used to feel sorry for her, but as she has gotten more courage, she constantly jumps on him and bites at him trying to get him to play, and now we feel sorry for him. Unfortunately, he has taught her how to hit and she thinks it's a game between the two of them. We hope he can tolerate her long enough for her to grow out of her kitten stage so maybe one day they can be pals.

One neat thing about Allie is that she will fetch like a dog!

In Memory of Simon

Back in September, we lost our dear sweet Simon. I let him out one morning like usual, never to see him again. We have woods behind our house and we searched them for days. We even posted flyers offering a $500 reward for his return. There is no telling how he met his fate and I have many theories, but we probably will never know what happened. He will be forever loved and missed!