The last few weeks Adam has been doing a lot of traveling for work – which leave the kids and me looking for fun things to do. Luckily I have an awesome friend Missy who is wonderful at putting together super awesome outings for her kids – and was kind enough to invite us along for one of them. She had set up a private tour at the UVU Flight School at Provo Airport where the kids could get a personalized experience with sitting in airplanes, learning how pilots train, and getting to see airplanes land and come in. It was very exciting!
As we were driving over to the airport I was telling my boys about a few times back in my college days when I had gotten to go up with some of my friends in a little 2 seater and 4 seater Cessna. One of those friends names was Nathan and he and I worked together right before I left on my mission (So clear back in 1999 – over 12 years ago!). He had been training to be a pilot at the time and was kind enough to take me up once and even let me fly for a few minutes – which was OODLES of fun!
So Funny enough – as we walked into the flight school I looked over and low and behold THERE WAS NATHAN! We were both absolutely SHOCKED to see each other after all these years and yet how awesome at the same time! After I had left on my mission he had completed flight school worked for SkyWest for a bunch of years as a commercial pilot and then decided to go and teach flight school at UVU- and was now the Supervisor over all the teachers there. So cool! It was so very fun to see him again. We had a ball catching up on each others lives.
After running into Nathan our guide Michael came and was able to show us a really cool map of the U.S. He showed us how the states that were more of an orange color were those with mountains and that those in the green were more flat.
Then he took us out to the airplanes where the kids could see what a real cock pit looked like. They loved pretending they were pilots! Well – all except Dawson who was TERRIFIED if he wasn’t within arms reach of Mamma the whole time. ha ha.
Branson in the 2 seater Cessna
Next the boys were allowed to go into the hanger to see the 4 seater Cessna’s. They all REALLY loved being in the back seat the most! So cute.
Harry excited about the plane!
To end the tour Michael took the kids into the flight school and showed them a bunch of simulators – but there were so many buttons they WEREN’T allowed to push so we made this part of our tour fairly quick. To conclude Michael gave all the kids little coloring packets of airplanes to color. So nice. It was such a fun day for everyone!
