Friday, December 28, 2007

Gerrit Sky Dives!

Gerrit Puts His Knees in the Breeze

Since a lot of our Christmas this year revolved around things at our house, it didn't seem fair to make Gerrit share all of them and then head back to school. We needed something that was just for him..

For years now one of Gerrit's dreams has been to try skydiving, and since Dave's flying puts in touch with a community of people who know about such things, we decided to find out if it was possible. Turns out it was not only possible, it was almost convenient! So, a few days after celebrating Christmas the whole family headed down to the airport in Cullman, Alabama.

The weather was spectacular, which was a relief since both the day prior and the day afterwards ended up being yucky, but Gerrit's day was perfect. After watching a quick instructional video, Gerrit was teamed up with an experienced diver from SkyDive Alabama and he got all suited up. We got a chance to watch two or three other groups come down before Gerrit's turn. In each group there were some tandum "first-timers" and several experienced parachuters. Finally it was Gerrit's turn and we watched as the airplane carried him up to over 14,000 feet.

He was just a speck against the blue sky when he first exited the airplane, but we had arranged for someone to video the whole thing from up in the air, so we all got to share the whole ride down later at home. After what seemed like an eternity, we saw the chute open and followed his progress all the way down to the landing. It was probably as much fun for us watching as it was for him doing it! Well, almost :-)

Monday, December 17, 2007

Tuck's new job

It looks as if Tucker may have finally found his calling! It's true that he's still in high school, but after working in the kitchen at Guthrie's and singing for tips at Cold Stone Creamery, he was pretty sure that the fast food industry wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

It turns out that Grissom High School has a program that allows students to work as part of their studies, so Tuck took a shot and asked his orthodontist, Dr. Dickson, if he might be interested in having a co-op student. Turns out "Dr D" was very interested and after all the paperwork was submitted, Tuck donned his mask and started what may be the coolest job ever! Dr D has been great about teaching Tuck all about the job, and has even allowed Tuck to do some of the work on select individuals (brother Philip included). He's made molds of people's teeth, created retainers, inserted spacers, and a host of other things that most guys probably never get a chance to do until dental school. But most of all he's learned that the right front-office person can make or break a practice - Cathy is AWESOME at keeping both of the guys in line :-)

Time will tell if this ends up being the start of a lifelong occupation for Tuck, but at least for now he's having a blast while learning a lot with a couple of great people.