Fall is in the air!

Since it's true that fall is in the air, this is a good time to recap really quickly the last big summery thing we did. On August 30 we took a much-awaited daytrip to Schlitterbahn, one of the state's claims to fame, in New Braunfels. Theme parks here are only open in the summer (can you imagine that happening back in Orlando?), so we caught one of the last available weekends. The park is divided into two sections with a shuttle between them, and this picture is of the famous watercoaster called the Master Blaster. It was our first watercoaster ever, and it was really great once we finished the two hour wait on the swaying and wobbling (and poorly constructed) tower. I don't like being up high to begin with, so PC spent most of the time reassuring me that the tower was not going to collapse while we were on it. I wonder how much more I would have enjoyed the ride if I hadn't been so excited to get off the tower! Oh well, it was still fun. We shared a few chuckles about the Texas definition of a theme park versus the Orlando definition. There's another watercoaster there called Dragon's Revenge that they advertised on TV over the summer, and we were pretty amused to see the styrofoam mockup castle and cheap looking sign that said "Dragon on the loose" or something to that effect. Don't get me wrong, Schlitterbahn is pretty good at water rides, but it's no Blizzard Beach! We liked the other side of the park a whole lot better because it was fed completely by the natural waters of the Comal River, and full of tube chutes that scrape your butt against rocks and send you down precipitous drops. People were flipping over, swimming underneath others' tubes, and doing all sorts of rowdy things that made me nervous...apparently that kind of behavior is allowed at less civilized theme parks. Oh, and I just have to mention how unmagical our encounters were with the sarcastic high schoolers who staffed the park. I never missed perky Disney cast members so much! Ah, but it was a truly Texan experience full of local color, and I'm very glad we had the chance to go. I wonder if Nemo was with us yet on that day. I remember feeling weird and tired but not saying anything about it because I didn't want to ruin our big Schlitterbahn trip, and it was exactly two weeks before the events of my first blog post. Hmmmm...
Anyway, in other news concerning the fall, we are REALLY excited that the holiday season is approaching because that means our big trip to Orlando is approaching too! But my diligent PC has miles to go (nautical miles, to be exact) before he can really think about Christmas vacation. He's spent the last couple of months learning the basics of navigation, how to get from one place to another in a plane, and how to direct the pilots (the nav students like the idea of being the pilots' bosses). He scored in the nineties on all his tests, which number about five or six by now, and made it successfully through five flights, five simulators (sims) and one checkride. Now he's advanced to the next section of training, learning how to use radar to fly around the weather. In the coming week he has a test, a flight, and a sim to look forward to! The next checkride is rumored to be the hardest and will probably fall right after Thanksgiving, so it's a good thing we're staying in town for him to study. You can go ahead and start praying for him to come safely and successfully through all this if you'd like. Thanks. :) I wish I had a picture of him studying to post with this, so I'll keep my eyes open for his next studious moment and publish it for the world to see. That's our news for now, Nemo seems to be doing well and decided to make today extra gaggy for me. Wow, I actually gagged just now. It's getting to be dinnertime and I have no desire to see, touch or smell any kind of food. A few weeks ago I struggled with insomnia for nights on end, and now I'm exhausted but don't know how to stop having horrible dreams. We ask God to give me good dreams at night now, and He's definitely helping me deal with them - I can't blame God for my wacky and worrisome brain, He's using it to teach me alot about how to trust Him regardless. Well, that's all for now, I sense that we may be going out to dinner tonight!