365 days

Hey, look at that.
I just happened to type in my blog address this evening, and it has been exactly 1 year since my last posting!

I'm quite busy this evening, and don't have time to say much, so this is it!
Thanks for checking in on us "-)

New year, new home!

Well the Abrols are moving house again in 2008. Hopefully this will be the last move for a while. This time, instead of renting, we have bought our own place. Here are a few pics of the joint.....

This is Granny, Gwen & Torben. Not our furniture, but it is the living room.

Here Autumn poses in the kitchen.

And again in the guest bedroom!

And again in her new bedroom.....


And once more in the unfinished part of the basement.

More pictures will be provided once we actually move. In the meantime, show me some boxes!

Happy New Year

Wishing all readers a Happy New Year from the Abrol family!

In case you didn't get to view our Christmas Newsletter this year, you can head over to this page on our site and catch up with our news.....

Cross Country Flying

Well we reached that part in the syllabus where I had to fly a 2 hour cross country trip. So my instructor and I poured over the charts and decided to go to Rocky Mountain House and Wetaskiwin.

Shortly after departure from Cooking Lake we were asked by Edmonton International controllers to fly directly overhead the airport at about 2000ft above ground level. This is what it looked like outside my window!


We had magnificent visibility, although there was some haze that lay in front of the Rockies.

I performed a perfect landing at Rocky Mountain House despite the icy runway. So gentle you couldn't even feel the touchdown. I wish I could do that every time!!!

We also got treated to a high speed flyby as we waited for departure at Rocky Mountain House. A Citation 500 sped past just a hundred feet over the runway. Below is a picture of Cody, my flying instructor.

Showtime

Tonight we went to Broadway! Actually, Broadway came to Edmonton. We got to enjoy the Billy Joel musical "Movin' Out".

Lots of great Billy Joel songs which Robin thoroughly enjoyed, tons of dancing that Emma totally loved. I would have to say the show was more of a Rock ballet than a musical. All songs & dancing, no speech. All in all a great night. Many thanks to the donors of the tickets :-)

Edmonton is a great place. The musical was in the Northern Jubilee Auditorium and it only took us 17 minutes to get there from our house. Sometimes city life has its advantages.

In other news, family continue to grow. Since the last post their ages have all increased - 3,5, & 7 has given way to 4, 6 & 8!

So that is news for tonight.....

Flying lessons

Since being interested in aviation and having my 1st flying lesson at the age of 12, I have now decided to being flying more regularly. I am taking lessons at Cooking Lake aerodrome about 25 minutes East of Edmonton by car.

Anyway, as I was playing on the web, I found this photo of C172 C-FEAR the aircraft I do most of my training in! So I thought I would post the pic. CLAA written on the chocks stands for Cooking Lake Aviation Academy which is the flight school handling my training.

The training has only just begun. I did my 1st take off yesterday. Had to laugh at myself as I weaved about all over the place as soon as I got airborne. Still, the instructor didn't take over, just talked me through it and soon we were in a nicely established climb and heading off to the training area. Torben sat in the back for the 1 hour training flight and really enjoyed himself. Says he knows how to fly now as he could hear the instructor talking to me.

Here we go again

Well here is the final installment of our 3 part series, Casual Conversations about Important Matters. This one was different again! Basically we had an unscripted open conversation from the platform, rather than a monologue or preaching style.

When I say open, the congregation were free to participate in the discussion - it wasn't just Omar & I.

Unfortunately the recording misses off the first 5 minutes or so of my introduction to the message, but begins with Omar's recap of what has been discussed during the series. Enjoy!

http://brol.org.uk/nwr/070715-RA&OR-2.mp3 (15.6Mb)