Flight to Heaven

Have you ever read a book that leaves you speechless, on the edge of your seat, curious, excited, and sad all at the same time?


I have, and I finished that book Wednesday by the pool.


If you haven't, I highly recommend Flight to Heaven by Captain Dale Black.

The reader begins the story by entering the pre-crash moments of a flight captained by Black. Throughout his copilot and his dialogue, and descriptions, you can tell they were preparing for the last moments of their lives. Not just the pilot and copilot though, they had a cabin full of people onboard the plane for a missionary trip to Zambia when their plane began running out of fuel.


This experience made Black recollect on the crash he experienced as a 19 year old pilot.


On July 18, 1969, Black, his instructor, and another pilot left lifted off from airport to practice flying. The third pilot flew the plane, while Black co-piloted and the instructor sat closely behind, observing and offering advice when necessary.


It was just minutes into the flight when Black said he knew something was wrong. He remembered seeing his instructor react to the failing plane, but it wasn't until months later that Black could totally recall the events of that day.

Black's wife writes, "The accident was so catastrophic that it was classified by the FAA as non-survivable. Just after taking off, the airplane slammed into the top of a 75 foot tall, 50 foot wide Aviation Memorial. The aircraft disintegrated. The three pilots collided with the solid concrete and marble structure at 135 mph, then free fell 70 feet to the ground." 

From there, the book recounts Black's experience after the initial crash and his visit to heaven. His descriptions of what he experienced were incredible. I literally found myself feeling the joy he must have felt during that time. I read page after page in wonder and excitement, before going back a few pages and reading them out loud to David.


The rest of the book documents Black's recovery and God's miracles performed throughout his life.


Each chapter left me on the edge of my seat, fascinated, and excited to hear the rest of his story. I found this book at Target for a few dollars (it's available online or through their website).


Black's love for God and his telling of God's work in his life is amazing.


Please read this book. I promise it will change your life (or at least make you think) if you let it.


I want to end this post with the same words Black has come to live his life by:

"With God Nothing Shall Be Impossible!"

Blessings to you all

Coming Soon: Book Review!

Hey everybody! I don't have time to write a long post tonight; however, I want to give you all an update and let you know I am going to write a book review on Flight to Heaven. 


It honestly was one of the best, most fascinating books I have ever read. Not only did I tear up multiple times, I found myself so interested and moved that I read pages upon pages to David, who shared in my fascination.


But! My full post will come tomorrow.


I only slept for four hours last night and worked from 6:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. today. Even though I took a short nap today, I hear my bed calling my name. :)


Goodnight world!

Inspiration

So, my attempts to be a faithful blogger haven’t been going very well. Today I posted that I wanted to be better and my sister-in-law Patti challenged me to make goals for myself. I thought in order to get some ideas of things to blog about (so I can reach my goal of blogging more regularly) I started looking at some blogs she has on her site.

If you haven’t read Lemonade Makin’ Mama’s blog, you absolutely should. A second site I visited was Nitty Gritty. This, too, was a touching blog.

I appreciated these women’s vulnerability and honesty, especially with the different challenges each has faced. I only read a few posts but it really challenges me to be more vulnerable and honest, and I hope my blog can become a place for me to be that. I want to be real and honest, and hopefully provide inspiration for others as well. :) Let’s face it, the life of a 21 year old, married, low-level manager at Target is bound to have some exciting, interesting, or entertaining stories and adventures.

:)

Happy reading everyone. I pray you find inspiration all around you. :)

Road Trip: The Final Days

I realized I never actually blogged about the last couple days of our trip. This will be brief, but David and I woke up in Couer d’Alene and drove through three states to our destination: Pendleton, OR.

We thought it was pretty cool that we saw Idaho, Washington, and Oregon all in one day.

Anyway, our original plan was to leave the Hilton and travel to Emigrant Springs State Park and camp the last night. Note: if you plan on tent camping, don’t even think about staying at a hotel, because you won’t want to go back out and unpack the air mattress, set up the tent, and fall asleep thinking a bear is going to get you (haha).

Instead, David and I decided to stay one night at the Hilton in Pendleton! :) It was SO fun! We got there and were excited to have the opportunity to stay one more night in luxury before returning home.

Our room was a bit smaller than in Couer d-Alene, but let’s be honest, it was better than a tent! :)

We ended up taking a nap and woke up to fog, sideways rain, thunder, and lightening. We turned on the weather channel and saw that there was actually a HUGE storm just outside of Pendleton that had 60-70 mph winds, quarter sized hail, thunder, and lightning. But! Then the news updated and said there was a TORNADO WARNING.

Are you serious?! A bear and a tornado?! Shoo!

We walked downstairs and spoke with the front desk gal about safe areas and stuff just in case, and she had no idea what was going on! Her and a guy standing nearby said they’ve never heard of anything like that happening so they weren’t sure what to do!

Needless to say, David and I planned our safe spot in the stairwell. Better to be prepared than whisked away like Dorothy to Oz.

Nothing actually happened though. Don’t worry. :)

We ordered a pizza from Big John’s, they had good breadsticks but their pizza wasn’t worth remembering. We watched Jingle All The Way (totally a Christmas movie) and laid low. I caught up on some blogging and David played on his iPhone before bedtime. :)

 The next morning we woke up and went to the contential breakfast. Also nothing worth remembering, but hey! Warm food and no dishes for us! :)

We then got on the road and made our 4 hour drive home to Newberg. It was good to be home, but as they say, vacation is never long enough. :)

 

Road Trip: Day Four

I failed to take a single picture today. Sad, sad, sad. (This picture courtesy of Google). :)

David and I did have an amazing day though! We woke up at Farragut after the night of the bear (I was surprisingly not as tired as I thought I would be considering the night I had). We laid in bed and tried to decide what our plan should be for the day. We could take the chance of having a full car and go to Silverwood/Boulder Beach or we could be safe and drop the stuff off at the hotel, spend the day there, and then tomorrow go to the theme park.

We decided to go to Silverwood and risk the thieves.

We repacked the car, jumped in our swim suits and headed the 15 minutes to Silverwood. We paid for parking and were happy to see that the parking lot was full of cars, trucks, and trailers full of stuff. So we were happy that our car wouldn’t necessarily be the first target.

We walked into the park and immediately searched for a locker. There were several that were already sold out, but we were lucky to find one located outside the Skeeball area (between the water and theme parks).

David and I had it all planned out. We would do the roller coasters first, and then the rides where you get wet before walking to the water park. There is nothing worse than being wet the entire day if you don’t really need to be.

The first ride we went on was called the Panic Plunge. There was no line, which was awesome, but it was like a baby brother of the Hollywood Tower of Terror in Disneyland. If you haven’t heard the story, that ride pretty much traumatized me the first time I went on it. My dad, twin sister Ali, and I went on it (in the first row) and I was so scared my eyes would literally not open and I was linking my dad’s arm so hard he had bruises for the next couple days.

Regardless, David and I hopped on, took off our shoes and rose 140 feet in the air, only to drop 120 feet moments later at 47 mph (these are the real stats. I’m looking at the website). To get an idea, check out this video not of David and I, but definitely of the ride: Panic Plunge

I pretty much looked like the 11 year old girl after the ride.

After that we went on every roller coaster in the entire park. I was pretty impressed with myself. Our favorite ride was Tremors which is one of their two wooden roller coasters. This one went just above 100 feet and the very first drop of the ride drops you 103 feet into one of the four underground tunnels at 63 mph. It was really fun and even takes your picture at the last major drop. Although it was silly, David and I passed on that memento. He looked fine, I looked like someone was pushing my cheeks back towards my spine. Paired with my closed eyes and wind blown hair, it was not overly attractive. 

David had to talk me into the scariest looking roller coaster called Aftershock. This ride was insane. It goes 191 feet, with the longest drop being 177 feet at 65.6 mph. There are three inversions, 4.5 G-Forces, a 90 degree max. vertical angle, and lasts a grand total of 1:32. It was SO scary but also turned out to be one of our favorite rides. 

After the roller coasters, David and I went to Crazy John’s BBQ buffet. It was actually really good. We enjoyed garlic mashed potatoes, pulled pork, hot dogs, salads, rolls, and various other things. It was great! 

We went to the water park next, which was freezing due to the overcast sky. We had a lot of fun though and enjoyed one of the two wave pools, the high velocity sides (I wasn’t a fan of these. After climbing 7 flights of stairs, and traveling down a slide at 55 mph left me breathless and with the world’s biggest wedgie. Sorry for the TMI, but I thought you deserve to know what happened). 

We did a lot of slides that David and I could actually enjoy at the same time on the two person rafts. We also did a big raft thing with a grandpa and granddaughter which made us go up the turns of the slides at 180 degrees. It was hilarious.

We spent about six hours at the park and it was a blast! There was a lot of carnival booths we didn’t visit, but we figured, we can do those often and don’t always get the opportunity to experience water parks and theme parks. Totally worth going to for a day if you have an opportunity.

After that, we spent the rest of the night at the beautiful Hampton Inn in Coeur d’Alene. It was in the coolest spot, we were right across from a little strip mall and had dinner at Red Robin. We weren’t surprised to see a huge line formed outside the Regal Cinemas that was across the street from our hotel and we were able to hear their cheering. We decided not to go at midnight, but are definitely planning on going tomorrow.

:) Such a fun day. :)

Road Trip: Day Three

Today we spent our last morning at Wallowa State Park. We had to admit, we are quite sad to be leaving. This is truly a place we can’t wait to come back and visit. :)

We woke up to pouring rain though and spent 45 minutes waiting it out in the tent. David and I were like a Nascar pit crew getting the tent packed up and ready to go. We spent last night getting mostly everything packed so we could make a quick exit, which was definitely helpful. 

We drove about 5 hours or so and saw some amazing scenery. We took I-90, which wraps through these incredible mountains. We actually found out that it’s a part of Joseph Canyon that the Nez Perce Native Americans used to live in. Originally we just saw them at a view point stop… little did we know we would be traveling on/through them. They were REALLY high and REALLY steep, but David drove like a champ and we had little panic going through them. ;)

We did enter Washington though and David stopped so we could be in two places at once A Walk to Remember style. It was really cute, and I was even able to snap a picture proving that we were in two different spots at once. One side read, “Welcome to Washington” the other read, “Welcome to Oregon.” Pretty cool.

About two and a half hours into our journey, we entered IDAHO! :) It was my second time in the state (the first time was when my family and I were visiting friends in Boise), and David’s first time, so it was pretty fun. We drove through various parts of Idaho and even passed the University of Idaho. We saw so many “Go Vandals” signs, it was kind of funny compared to the OSU, UO, GFU, etc. we are used to.

At about 1:15 p.m. David and I entered Coeur d’Alene (population 44,137) and a few minutes later we passed Silverwood! We were so excited to go, but we had to wait until the next day so we could the full experience.

We arrived at Farragut just before 2 p.m. and oh.my.word. It was the BIGGEST state park David and I have ever seen. There were like four different main loops (like miles apart) with a ton of sites and windy trails and stuff. Shoo. Confusing! One thing we noticed though… there were “Warning: Do not feed the bears” signs e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. Another lady that was checking in even had to ask what to do if she saw a bear, and whether they needed to log it or report it in anyway. The ladies at the desk looked at her polietely and said, “No, they just kind of roam and crawl around.”

Is this a joke? Ali kept joking with me about bear sightings before we left, and I read that as a last resort pepper spray works (of course you have to be within like three feet for it to be effective). The website I looked at said it’s also a good idea to fight the bear. Sorry, but I don’t think if David or I were to get in a fist fight with a bear we would walk away as the winners. Needless to say, I had my pepper spray handy, just in case.

We got our our site though and it was good. Not as good as Wallowa, but definitely a good spot. It was substantially smaller and very wooded. Like, very much in the trees, which wasn’t bad, but we were very much separated from anyone and everything. Except the bike trail that was behind our site that little kids on bikes seemed to enjoy. We were also pretty close to the playground so we enjoyed a chorus of kids singing songs for a brief amount of time.

We set up camp and attempted to start a fire after the camp host sold us a six dollar bundle of logs. We tried everything to get it to stay (including using up David’s bottle of lighter fluid, burning various trash and my entirePeople magazine) but it wouldn’t burn for more than a few minutes.

So we did the only thing we could think of: drive back through Coeur d’Alene to the Walmart and pick up a fire starter log. It was successful and we had a good fire for the next few hours. We read our books and had Top Ramen for dinner. It was a good day… the night; however, was a different story.

We crawled into our tent fairly early and decided to read for a bit. I was exhausted and fell asleep pretty quickly only to be shaken awake by David. THERE WAS A BEAR IN THE WOODS. A real one. David heard it growling and woke me up to verify. I didn’t hear it but I trust that it was one. It was SO scary, and I was literally shaking like a leaf. Call me a pansy, but if you were in a mesh-topped tent, in the middle of the forest, with a bear nearby and a small bottle of pepper spray, you probably would be shaking too.

David was fine throughout the entire thing, he actually managed to fall asleep fairly soon after. Not me though, I was terrified and kept begging David to have us sleep in the car before he fell asleep. That didn’t happen, partly because he was already asleep and I was too freaked out to leave the tent.

I kept waking up every time I heard the slightest of noises. Our neighbors down in another site were up until after 4 a.m. and were walking around, so I kept thinking that if there really was a bear nearby, the people probably would have let us know by screaming and running and stuff. A little morbid sounding, but comforting nonetheless.

Needless to say, it was a rough night and we were both eager to pack up and go into Coeur d’Alene to stay at the Hampton Inn hotel for following two days.

Check out all our pictures here! :)

Road Trip: Day Two

Hey everyone! Today we spent the day at Wallowa again. It’s so pretty here, and so warm! Although we are not certain, we’d guess it’s in the high 70s or so. David got up at 8 a.m. and let me sleep until 9 a.m. I have decided I don’t sleep well unless I’m in our own bed at home. I had a pretty uncomfortable night of sleep and am thinking a nap seems pretty good right now (that’s where David is as I write this). David had made sausage and pancakes for breakfast, which were absolutely delicious! I am so thankful David loves to cook. After breakfast, he went and took a shower while I cleaned up breakfast and finished most of my magazine.

Today we decided to go into Joseph and explore a bit. It’s a really cute town, very Western inspired, which we love. We walked around town stopping to take pictures every so often and browsing some cute shops as we went. There is a lot of touristy-clutter type stuff for sale, such as Ranch, Onion Ring, and Dill Pickle flavored mints… but you have to admit, that stuff is always kind of entertaining to look at.

We found this cute little soda shop attached to a gift shop that we decided to stop at. They had the BIGGEST cinnamon rolls I have EVER seen. If you haven’t seen the picture, flip through the slideshow and look it at. They were huge. I was tempted by them, but decided we could spend our money elsewhere. We did end up buying a “real” Coca-Cola (the kind they make with the syrups and stuff) and I got a Raspberry Vanilla Cremosa. :) Yum.

They also had little books saying how “life was like in _____” David and I both looked at the books from the years we were born. It was interesting to us that in 1989, rent was 425 a month, and in 1985 when David was born, gas was like, $0.30 a gallon. If only…

On our way out of that store, David saw a brochure for the Wallowa Tramway. We had looked at it online, and have heard people talk about it, but when it comes to heights, it’s hard for me to agree. He called and found out the prices, and we decided to at least go look at it.

For those of you who don’t know, the Tramway is basically a ski lift that takes riders from the base of Mt. Howard to the summit, in a 15-minute ride to the top. It’s supposed to be gorgeous but…

When we got there, I could have had a panic attack just looking at it! I kept thinking, “If my mom can do this, then I can too.” David and I passed an older couple in the parking lot that said it wasn’t scary, it was amazing, and they’d gladly do it again in a heartbeat. I looked at David after they left and we both knew we had to do it. Maybe not for the fun of it, but at least to be able to say we did it.

It. Was. Terrifying.

No one told us the “ride” stops unexpectedly. So there we were, dangling hundreds of feet (I am probably exaggerating) in a glass cage of death, swinging off a cable. Are you kidding me?! David and I agreed that was one of the scariest moments of our lives. If we had been told it would randomly stopped, we probably could have mentally and physically prepared ourselves for such an event. But no. They failed to include that in their warm wishes as they sent us up in that thing. Shoo.

The ride stopped twice on the way up and each time, we had to slow our breathing and talk to each other to keep the other one from having a panic attack.

I will admit the views were amazing. Probably one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen (apart from Walkabout). When we got to the top, David and I were relieved to have survived, and walked around enjoying the bright sunshine and awesome views of Lake Wallowa and the neighboring mountains. We took a few pictures, explored a bit (even saw a bunch of snow!), and decided to share a basket of French fries and a bottle of water at the Summit Grill. I mean, how many people can say they’ve eaten lunch at 8150 feet up? :)

The ride down wasn’t as scary. We were prepared for any unexpected stops (there wasn’t any, Hallelujah), so we were able to enjoy the scenery once more before making it down to the real ground. It really is a great few. I was hoping to see some wildlife, like a bear (when we were above them so they wouldn’t be able to get us), but all we saw were some chipmunks and squirrels.

We slowly made our way back to our campsite after exploring a bit more. We saw a river that was so flooded it had taken over the day area sites. The picnic and BBQ areas were completely taken over by the raging river. It was really interesting!

I forgot to mention yesterday, David and I decided to play the “Slug Bug” game and “See-if-we-can-see-all-50-states-in-license-plates-games.” Right now, David is ahead with Bugs 4.5 to 3 (yes we did see half of a Bug) and we have found 22 state license plates, including Hawaii and Maine. We are hoping that by the end of the trip, we will have found them all. :)

Pictures!