some pictures (winnipeg, medicine hat and home)

typical view (from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg)
lori's good friend Melodie and daughter Sayla
our good friend Al Enns saying goodbye in Winnipeg
the "coulee" in Med. Hat
by Lethbridge, AB (30 min after taking off from Med. Hat)
alberta/b.c. border somewhere
one last flight
okanagen lake
mount baker
the fraser valley (home!!)
home stretch into Abbotsford airport
one last pose by the plane
wilkommen kommittee (welcome committee)
locking up the plane one last time in the hangar
home again with dad's best friend, blackie

we're home!!!!!!!!!!! (wir sind zu hause!!!!)

Endlich mal! Wir sind zu Hause, Gott sei dank! We are home! We took off this morning from Medicine Hat and flew 3 hours to Abbotsford. From before Penticton you could already see Mount Baker, that's how clear it was (and that's how big the mountain is). From there Dad didn't need the GPS anymore, he knew where to go. We landed in Abbotsford around 12 pm and were welcomed by family and friends, it was great! Even roll kuchen and wasser melon were waiting for us, how nice, thanks mom.

It's good to be back home! Thank you to all who prayed for us while we were gone, it is so much appreciated, we needed it so much. Prayers do get answered, that's for sure. Even when we thought there was no way we would be able to achieve this trip of a lifetime, we were encouraged when we thought of all the people thinking about us, thanks. We hope we can do the same in return.

And thank you to all the people who let us in their homes! Your hospitality was amazing! Thanks for doing our laundry and feeding us and giving us a bed, we couldn't have done it without you...again, if any of you are in our area, just look us up, we're glad to have you too.

Danke fuer alles unser Brasilien familie! Alles gute!

We will get some pictures up soon, just wanted to let you know that we're home safe and sound, with our families, friends and our pets!

Check back soon for some pics....

still delayed

Dad called the weather people this morning and the weather is no good, especially over Lethbridge and on. We are staying another night here in the desert, it's better to be safe. No point in rushing our last leg (of over 30 legs). We will likely take off tomorrow.

Thanks for all the thoughts and your patience, we will come home eventually, no rush.

Later...

Here are a few statistics:

-flights (legs): 34 so far
-customs: 13 for dad and 14 for Doris and Lori
-beds: 27 different beds
-hours flying: 105 so far

hangin out in medicine hat, alberta

We took off this morning from Winnipeg around 8:45 am and flew exactly 4 hours to Medicine Hat, Alberta. It was a super clear flight up until Med. Hat, where it got quite cloudy. We landed and decided to stay the night at our dad's brother's place here (Helmuth and Hildy...thank you so much by the way :) and see if the weather will be better to fly on to Abbotsford tomorrow; too much rain over the mountains and at home.

Thanks to our Winnipeg hosts, (Enns' and Muellers'), we always have a good time in Winnipeg. It was good to see old friends again.

We hope to fly home tomorrow, it's only another 4 hour flight, we're so close to home!!

See you tomorrow...

grounded for today...

We have decided to stay an extra day here in Winnipeg, the weather might be better towards home by tomorrow. The weather is rainy here today too, so hopefully by tomorrow we can get all the way home.

SEE YOU SOON!! :)

red river in winnipeg

winnipeg!

We have arrived! We took off this morning from wine country (Virgil Ont.)...thanks to our hosts Jake and Marg Janzen and also to Harry and Lucy Huebert (and thanks for the bag lunch Lucy, it was great!)We felt very at home in Ontario, it was gorgeous there.

Anyway, we took off this morning early and flew 4 hours to Thunder Bay Ont, and hung out at the airport for a few hours to let the weather clear up a bit, we even took naps, we're so tired! Then we took off through the clouds and flew another 2 and a half hours to Winnipeg. They were both very good flights, a little bumpy at times, but nothing we can't handle. We're used to it now.

Now we're at our good friends' place, Al and Sue Enns (our former pastor from King Road) and we're just going to relax tonight, we're going to go hot tubbing, which will be fabulous. We will stay here in Winnipeg until Saturday when we will fly home to Abbotsford. Doris and Lori are going to visit some Bible School friends here as well.

Thanks for your prayers, they were well received and we appreciate them so much, more than you know!

'Til Saturday....

ontario update

We've been here 3 days visiting with friends and family. Yesterday Doris and Lori went to Toronto to meet some friends and saw a few sights. This morning the plane was checked out and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. We decided to change the oil and when they opened the hood of the plane they found a huge bird nest! Good thing we checked...

Tomorrow we are going to fly to Winnipeg via Thunder Bay...

the glass floor at the CN Tower

we're in canada!!! (with some drama of course)

We took off this morning from west Palm Beach, Florida and flew 4 hours to Charlotte, North Carolina where we fueled up, then we flew another 4 hours or so to St. Catharine's Ontario. It was a little bit of a rough flight, with turbulence and some problems with the landing gear. Our warning light came on and said that our gear was unsafe. That made us a little worried and made the ENTIRE flight not enjoyable at all. St. Cath airport came to the rescue and made sure there was nothing wrong. We did a few fly by's to make sure, and long story short, we landed safely!!! Thanks to the emergency workers at the airport, we appreciate it, more than we can say!!

our "rescuers" at the st. cath airport, thanks again!!!!
niagara falls, ontario

almost arrested in west palm beach

But we didn't! We were a little confused when we arrived at West Palm Beach Int. We went through customs all nice and fast and no rubber gloves, but then we made a mistake of not getting back in to our plane right away. That's when we got a bit in trouble, just a stern warning that's all. How were we supposed to know!! Anyway, we had a very nice flight from Provo to West Palm Beach, the clouds were very dark in Provo but we decided to go anyway, and within an hour of taking off, we had clearer skies.

We're in the United States!!!! We can't believe we've already come this far!!! Tomorrow if all goes to plan, we hope to arrive in St. Catharine's Ontario, one more customs, hopefully we will do it right. Every customs is so different from the other, we've never had everything right yet...thank goodness there's only one left. From Ontario, we will fly to Thunder Bay, and then on to Winnipeg. From Winnipeg we will fly to Medicine Hat Alberta and then home to Abbotsford, B.C.

We're not home yet...but it sure does feel good to be on more familiar territory....and with no more ocean to fly over.

provo, turks & caicos

We left this morning from St. Thomas and flew just over 3 hours to Provodenciales, Turks and Caicos. We left not knowing for sure how the weather was, one pilot said not to go but another said to give it a try. So we went and it was no problem, we made it safely. We are now in our hotel and tomorrow we hope to fly to Florida.

Ontario people we hope to be there by Saturday, we'll keep you posted.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers...

Doris and Dad swimming in St. Thomas (Lori forgot her bathing suit in the plane...but she went swimming anyway in all her clothes, the water was too fabulous :)

DELAYED in st. thomas

We have decided to stay in St. Thomas one more night, the weather isn't looking too great towards Turks and Caicos and to Florida. We hope to take off tomorrow, and if the weather still isn't great in Turks and beyond we will fly as far as we can. At the moment we are thinking of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Pray that we make the right decisions.

So no flying for us today.

We'll get back to you tomorrow....in the meantime, enjoy some pics from when we were in Grenada...

our lovely hosts in grenada, zach and jen klaassen...thanks guys!
doris and lori at the beach in grenada

safe in st. thomas

hey all...we are safe in st thomas, we took off this morning from grenada, and flew almost 4 hours to st. thomas. we are heading off to our hotel, because the weather wasn't good enough to fly on to turks and caicos. tomorrow we will fly on to turks and then perhaps on to florida. getting closer to home.

we'll be in touch....

we're in grenada!

We took off this morning from Boa Vista at 8:50 am and flew 4 hours to Grenada, we bypassed 2 customs doing this, both Guyanas, so that's nice. We spotted Grenada through the haze eventually and landed safely. We are now at Jen and Zach Klaassens...who are so nice to take us in for a month...just kidding....one night....Tomorrow we will fly to St. Thomas and if the weather permits, on to Turks and Caicos...but only to St. Thomas for now.

Thanks for the thoughts....we will be in touch....!

happy mother's day from boa vista

Oi! We took off from Manaus this morning. We went through some clouds and rain right before boa vista. We made it safely under the clouds and spotted the runway YAHHOOOOOOOO!!! There are always these dumb birds that circle around the airports and we were told to watch out for them. We made it safe and sound and now we are in our hotel and hoping to make it to Grenada tomorrow. This is our last stop in Brazil, :( so sad. That means we have to start going through customs again, what fun. We will go through fewer customs than on the way here, 5 or 6 as opposed to 8.

Mummy, we sang for you at 7500 ft, hope you have a good day, you deserve it! We miss you!!!

our cousins, Marcio, Keila and Matthias...thank you!!
the meeting of the rivers (right after take off this morning)
bring your own hammock (boat cruises down the river)
opera house in Manaus

manaus

We made it safe and sound to Manaus! We are roughly 1/3 on our way back home....we've flown 68 hours so far. Today we flew 3 and a half hours from Porto Velho direct to Manaus, it was a pretty cloudy and sometimes a bit rainy flight, but otherwise a very nice flight. We are now at our cousins place, Marcio and Keila Rempel (and Matthias)... we had a good lunch and are probably going to rest a bit.

Tomorrow if weather permits we will fly to Boa Vista and perhaps to Georgetown, Guyana or Grenada...we don't know yet...

Thanks for praying, we needed it today....!




manaus

manaus bound

Just thought we'd let you know we are taking off as early as possible for Manaus, please pray for us for a safe flight...we'll update as soon as possible when we land...

where are we?? porto velho....

In the middle of nowhere. We left this morning from Cuiaba, and had a four and a half hour flight to Porto Velho. It was an amazing flight, super smooth and no clouds. The only thing that was weird was that we had almost no communication with any control zones, so we would just contact the small airports that we flew by, which worked out great. We are getting used to the "silent" treatment from these guys. We are now in our much better than usual hotel, which even has wireless!!! Amazing! It is 33 degrees here, pretty warm compared to freezing temps in Bage, we have to get used to the heat again, but that won't take too long...:)

Tomorrow we hope to fly to Manaus and stay with our cousins Marcio and Kaela Rempel, weather permitting of course. Since we have wireless at the moment, we will leave another post tomorrow in the morning saying if we left or not. This next leg to Manaus is in the heart of the Amazon...so think of us extra hard...!

Hope everything is good over there and everywhere people are checking up on us, we appreciate it so much!

Here are some pics that you've been asking for....finally!!!!!! (sorry for the delay...couldn't do nothin about it..)

ps...happy birthday aiden...we sang for you in the plane at 8500 feet...:)


ingrit's garten
lori the horse whisperer...
dad's old driveway...where he grew up in col. nova
horse back riding in col. nova (danke diane und anderson)
checking out our slideshow (only 200 pics as opposed to 900)
got corn? at the hans penner's in medici
the "modern" churassco
so suess...(l-r) tiger, nueni, sisi, sassy and lola...
our new friends...graciele, julianna and simone
oma and ingrit martens with us by the plane

second cousins, william, stephanie and rogerio
dad getting a haircut from cousins Marly (and Hans Martens)
itaipu dam
leaving bage/colonia nova...

cuiaba

COO-YA-BAH....yes we are here, endlich mal. It was a 4 and a half hour flight from Foz, we took off this morning at 9:45 am and did a 360 over cataratas, the falls, and then flew via Campo Grande to Cuiaba. It was a very nice flight, super clear.

Tomorrow we hope to fly to Manaus, via Porto Velho, if the weather is good that is, but reports are telling us that it isn´t that great in Manaus, so we will see.


We are now at Peter and Lydia Enns, but will stay in a hotel a little later tonight...


We need to hear from you too, we miss you all, leave messages!!! :)

Check back soon...

ps...the picture is at foz, cataratas, the falls....(more pics to come soon, NO WIRELESS!!!!!!!) :(

foz do iguacu

HEY! We are currently in an internet cafe in Foz do Iguacu, across the street from our Bavarian inspired hotel. We had very good flights today. First we flew from Bage to Santa Maria, which was 50 minutes, but then we had to spend 3 hours at the airport, making the flight plan and checking the weather etc etc...Then we flew from there to Iguacu, which took 2 hours, and was an excellent flight, except for a few hiccups in communication with the lovely Brazilian controllers. We were able to make a 360 turn over Itaipu dam, which was awesome.

Wir sind jetz in Iguacu, es war 50 minuten bis Santa Maria, dann dauerte es 3 stunden bis wir wieder weiter flogen. Dan dauert es zwei stunden bis Iguacu. Es hat alles gut gegangen, Gott sei dank!

We still can´t get pictures up, but we will try asap...tomorrow we are planning to fly to Cuiaba, which is a 4 hour flight.

Hope all is well at home....

(ps...Aiden, we´re thinking about you, and hope you feel better!)

still in colonia nova

We decided to stay another day due to weather. We plan on flying tomorrow to Iguacu via Santa Maria where we will get fuel.

We hope we can get pictures up soon, perhaps from our hotel in Iguacu as the internet here in the nova is too slow, sorry about that...

We`ve had a great time here visiting our relatives and eating lots of food, too much, our meat needs have been met. Vegetarian is a side dish...

Pray for clear skies...

pictures

On the way to Col. Nova, our camera went kaput. So yesterday Doris and I went to Uruguay and bought a new one, they were cheaper there, than here in Bage, and duty free. Anyway...for all the people asking about pictures, we will get them up soon! We just have to figure stuff out...come back soon...

we´re in colonia nova!!!!

We made it! We are half way with our big Brazil trip! We took off this morning from Blumenau about 9 am, and flew 3 hours and 45 minutes to Bage. But first we circled around Colonia Nova, about 5 times, and got their attention, then flew to Bage to land. Walter Wall and Helmuth Boschmann picked us up from the airport and drove the half hour to Colonia Nova. We are now all settled in at David and Ingrit Martens and Tante Marichen...

We´d like to thank you all so much for praying for us and sending your messages, they are much appreciated! Today´s flight went very well, very smooth and super clear skies, exactly what we wanted, especially when we were buzzing 300 feet over Colonia Nova...that was fun.

Thanks again, we will stay here for about a week, and then we plan to fly on to Iguacu...

Stay tuned...thanks again, don´t forget to come back!

blumenau update

We`re planning to fly to Bage, Colonia Nova, on Friday morning. We are staying here in Blumenau a little longer than planned because of the weather. The plane got an oil change yesterday because it already had 50 hours on it.

Today, in the meantime, we are going to the beach in Camboriu...where the Walls have 2 chocolate stores...yummmm....

Check back in a few...

only a few of our people and other stuff

our lovely cousin darlene and her son...

tia irene and julia

the penner gerber penner´s and milton...(and another julia) :)

tiny villa velha (sp?)

ponta grossa airport with witmarsum relatives


funny

blumenau

self explanatory