First Flight Test!

Josh just completed his first flight test moments ago!  I mentioned in the previous post that since Josh started his job in late August, he was selected to the flight line team.  That means that his job excitement level went up about a thousand notches! :)

After a few days of the schedule being delayed, today was his first time to participate in a flight test!  He and some of the other professionals boarded a still new, never been flown commercially before because it hasn't yet been 110% passed for readiness plane to do some in-air tests.  I don't know any details about the tests performed and for my sanity I should probably remain unknowing. 

There is a website to track flights so I have been doing that since before he took off earlier this morning.  I watched as they took off, throughout their flight, and finally landing.  I am proud to say that they landed safely!
I am so excited for Josh and that he loves his job!  It is a very challenging and time-consuming position, however I am a joyful wife that he enjoys what he is doing.  That is worth so much!

Here are some screen shots I took while I was monitoring the site like a hawk. 

Here is the flight test almost done....I was praying for a very safe and smooth landing.....

And they made it!!!!

 

I am reminded today to give thanks and praise the Lord for the many blessings He has given us.  I'm going to ponder on that for a while today (as I should every day).

From me on the hotel 4th floor and Josh at 35,000 feet, 

With love from Seattle!

Fine Dining & Future of Flight

On Wednesday night we enjoyed a great and unique Italian dinner at Pasta Freska, thanks to the recommendation from our sweet condo neighbors in South Carolina!

Fortunately we had been told how this restaurant works and I also read some online reviews.  We went in with much more understanding than some of the other diners.  The unique thing about this restaurant is that there is no menu.  The head chef comes and talks with you about what foods you don't like, religious restrictions, and allergy/dietary restrictions, then he designs your meal based on your conversation.  I wish I would have written it all down, but we are positive that there were 6 or 7 courses to the meal!  Appetizer, salad, bread, main dish, some other foods like prawn and fish, dessert.  We definitely left filling full and satisfied!  

Here we are with the chef himself:

We had a great time enjoying Pasta Freska and being surprised with each course!  After all that yummy food, we decided to walk around a two-story Target where you park in a garage.  It was very interesting to look around and see the differences!  

On Thursday night we enjoyed a Mexican dinner at  a local restaurant with Josh's flight line engineering manager and his sweet wife.  I'm not sure if I ever shared this info on the blog or not, but a couple of months or so ago Josh was one of few engineers chosen to work on the flight line as a liaison engineer, focusing on acoustics.  He now gets to participate in test flights (which makes me a praying wife for sure!).  This position requires lots of flexibility because the test schedule can change at any time.  Since it was confirmed that he will be working the majority of this weekend, he was able to flex the time and take yesterday (Friday) afternoon off.   

He had some training south of Seattle again yesterday morning, so I hitched another ride downtown.  I walked around and hung out at Starbucks (seriously, they are EVERYWHERE) for a while until sometime after daylight arrived.  I wasn't feeling coffee so I enjoyed some iced passion tea instead.....I don't even know what it was, I just asked the barista to make one of the iced teas for me.  It was yummy and refreshing....and expensive, but that's to be expected at Starbucks! :)  I definitely got my money's worth because I used their free internet for a while! 

After Josh's half-day training was over, he came to pick me up where I had decided on our lunch spot.  I was feeling pizza and had read some reviews of Tutta Bella, so he pulled up to the street where I was and I jumped in quickly and we headed to lunch!  We had no idea when we were driving to the restaurant that this would be our view when we were seated:

THE SPACE NEEDLE!  :)

After our recharge at Tutta Bella, we hit the road north to Mukilteo to the Future of Flight museum and Boeing Tour.  We were hoping to make it for the 1PM tour and we seriously arrived minutes before it began.  Thankfully we are not in a high tourist season, so they had room for us to join the group!  I know it's funny that poor Josh had to take a tour of where he works, but it was the only way for me to even get a peak of the place.  Normally I can only make it is far as the security gate where I drop him off.  I think he enjoyed the tours as well since I could finally get a look at the place.  Even though the tours had special viewing decks overhead and we weren't down in the working portion, it was neat to see.  Unfortunately they did not allow cameras or phones on the Boeing tour so I have no pictures.  The museum did allow photos so I took a few for fun!

We had a great time as tourists!  We still have many more things on our list to see, but we're doing great so far.  We are enjoying our time here very much!

With love from Seattle!

Weekend Adventures

This post is several days late, but still fun nonetheless!  For starters, we sure have been blessed with some amazing and non-typical weather for January in Seattle.  That’s a huge praise because it’s made sightseeing much easier and enjoyable!  

We enjoyed great appetizers and being "locals" while joining with many other Boeing people (from both SC & WA) on Friday night at Diamond Knot Brewery.  Josh and I also stopped at a local donut shop after dinner that night......we gave into the sweet temptation but we're happy to report that the donuts were superb!  This is how happy we were after eating them:

We finalized some plans with a few of the others and on Saturday we picked up three other Charleston guys in the Charger and headed north to Vancouver, B.C.  We had to hand over our passports when crossing the border and the officer we had was major lacking in the friendly department!  After some questioning about our purpose for the trip and asking about weapons, we were finally set free in Canada!  

I don't recall how long the trip was.....maybe a couple of hours driving, I do believe.  

I'm not sure what this picture has to do with Vancouver, other than I found it very interesting and unique!  This is a concrete truck that is painted like asparagus as advertisement for the farmers market.  Great marketing!

 

And you will recall that Vancouver was home for the 2010 Winter Olympics:

We enjoyed lunch at a very nice restaurant, Earl's:

 The "Ceasar" which is very similar to a bloody mary

We also made the long walk to Stanley Park

After a great day trip, we headed south back to where we were staying.  On the way we made a pit stop at this cool place for a treat:

And we had these amazing views on the drive back:

And were surprised with this mail for Josh's birthday waiting on us when we returned to the hotel:

We were all exhausted and had a quiet dinner at a nice steakhouse "The Keg" before bed.

On Sunday we picked up the others and went to downtown Seattle where we mainly hung around Pike Place.  I was thrilled beyond words because this is the area I had cared to visit most after years ago I read "Fish!" - a leadership book based on how the Pike Place Fish Market sets the bar on how we should all approach situations and people.  

I might be a dork but I loved the book so much I brought it:

 Sweet Josh is driving us and trying to figure out where in the world we should park

We had lunch at Pike Place Brewery and watched the NFL Playoff game

Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato......think Nutella.....YUM!

We had a great rain-free weekend!  And now that it's almost weekend again, we look forward to more adventures to come!

With love from Seattle!