Memorial Day Weekend

Well, our family has had a wonderful break from the normal routine as we had a fun time in Detroit.   Staying a couple nights in a hotel with a pool is always a huge hit with our children.  Then add onto that a visit to the Henry Ford museum along with a tour of the Ford Rouge Factory and you have a great weekend.  As you can imagine we saw a lot of cool things!  The factory is where they assembled the F150 and it was in full swing operation when we were there.  In the factory  we weren't allowed to take any pictures, however we did get a few from the entrance where they had a few examples of Ford vehicles over the course of time.  The museum was fascinating as we saw a range from old household items to huge industrial machines.  And of course there were amazing cars, huge trains, and famous planes rounded out our time.  The pictures to follow are just a few from our mini family vacation, as I got a little trigger happy and ended up taking probably way to many pictures.

The name "Our Pink Hotel" appropriately chosen by Jaclynn 

The boys found there long lost uncle Muggly.  Pretty close resemblance ;-) if I may say so myself.

These next few pictures are with the kids in front of a few of the cars in the foyer of the Ford Rouge Factory.

Not everyday does one get to stand in the shadow of Henry Ford.  But better yet is that we can stand in Christ's shadow everyday.

Lunch on wheels, it seemed that all weekend the kids either chose hot dogs or pizza to eat go figure.

"Where to Mama?"

Julie standing beside a crankshaft and connecting rod for a generator that was used to power part of the Ford factory many years ago.

Building an old tin Lizzie on an assembly line.

Someday I should get brave and ask someone else to take the picture so I can join this good looking family in a photo or two.

The kids favorite activity!  I think the kids could have spent the whole time at the pool and it still would  have considered it a great weekend.

It was a great weekend of family time and a time of refreshment from what has seemed at times as a very long winter.  We are now starting the home stretch here in Michigan as we are coming up to the last 12 weeks before our next big move west.  A verse (Luke 9:62) has been weighing heavy (in a good way) on my mind these past couple days and as I think and study on it I hope to share some in the next couple days in a post to come.

Blessings
The Dole Clan

Horse Power!

           Well as you probably already know by now we have moved on to the power-plant portion of my course here at SMAT.  We have been and will be studying through different course topics relating to aircraft engines.  One of the larger sub courses is reciprocating engines which powers most of the general aviation fleet.  In teams of 2 and 3 we are "carefully disassembling" various common aircraft power-plants (Lycoming & Continental).  My group has been corrected a couple times by our instructor that we are not tearing apart our engine but rather "carefully dissembling" :-).  My group has been given an IO-470 Continental engine to work on.  This engine is very similar to the IO-520's and IO-550's which are found in the Cessna 206's which makes up a large part of the MAF fleet.  Working with my teammates has been a lot of fun as well.  My teammates introduced me to the "Just look at it" video's online the other day as this has become our group's catch phrase.  Our engine is missing quite a few pieces even before we started.  We have since learned that this engine has been put together from a hodgepodge of parts which will add some challenge to the project as we will need to continue to search for more parts or steal them from our neighbor's table ;-).  This aspect of the project is not real life in engine repair and overhaul but it will give us good experience researching parts and checking their compatibly which I anticipate being the hard part of the project anyway.  The pulling wrenches part will be the easy part on this project I think.  The following are a few snapshots of our progress so far with our engine.

"For such a time as this"

For the last nine weeks I (Julie) have lead a wonderful group of ladies through the book of Ester as part of the bible study done by Beth Moore.  It was a wonderful time of learning, stretching, and great times of growth as we journeyed through the study.  I took great encouragement from how God could take a woman and her faith in her God and allow her the strength to save her people the Jews.  Beth Moore talked about how we all as believers have a "such a time as this" moment like Ester that God is preparing us for.  And that God has put us in that moment "for such a time as this" to do His will and bring Him glory.  As I am traveling through this journey with my savior it brings me great comfort that He is leading me and preparing me for what He has head of me to accomplish.

Another thing that God has really been teaching me during our time here in Michigan is to truly take the time to see the blessings that He has given me (especially through out those busy days). And over the past two weeks we have really seen some amazing blessings among some very busy times.  A huge blessing is that Greg PASTED his airframe exam and now holds a airframe licence!!!!  The kids and I are so proud of all his hard work and I am thankful that I didn't mess him up at all since I was his study partner most nights (most nights that I helped him I really had no clue what I was asking him or how to say half the words).  Now the rest of his course is focused on the different types of engines.  The very next day after Greg passed his exam we had a house full of people as my younger brother had his college graduation ceremony and my parents and grandmother came for the weekend.  I think that all we did that weekend was eat and celebrate!  And then a day after my brothers ceremony he moved in with us and will probably be with us the rest of our time her in Michigan.  Know my question is what am I going to do with a 22 year old in my house??  Actually, I feel truly blessed to have this time with my brother before I head overseas and he moves on with his life.  It truly feels like a very precious moment in time!  And then this coming weekend we are preparing to have the chance to connect with a couple who we met during our travels last year.  I feel completely overwhelmed (in a good way) of the blessing that God has given me in the last two weeks!  All I can think how to end this blog is WHAT A AWESOME GOD WE SERVE!