Why I LOVE Michael's job...

Michael's students got done with their initial training a few weeks ago and were sent back to Japan to do some more training there and then will get sent back here in a few months to finish it all up. So, you might be asking yourself....what is Michael doing while they are gone??? Well, he does have to do some upgrade training to teach the next phase of his student's training (when they come back, they will be flying a multi-engine plane instead of a single engine plane). Unfortunately, when he got hired, Michael didn't have his MEI (Multi-engine instructor rating).....FORTUNATELY, he works for an amazing company that paid for him to go to Long Beach last week and get his MEI. WHAT?!?!? Do flight training companies actually pay for their instructors to get more training??? I didn't think it was possible!!!! (Just a few months before we moved to CA, Michael had to do some upgrade training for his job doing flight seeing tours over the Grand Canyon so he could upgrade to be a captain and it was all on us....all $3000)

Since he did his training in Long Beach, the kids and I decided to tag along so that we could play on the beach while he did his thing. We actually really liked Long Beach. Everyone we had talked to said that it was a dump and all industrial but we stayed in downtown and thought it was really cool. The beach was just a short walk from our hotel, so Emma and Lucas and I decided to go check it out....
The kids LOVED the beach!! This was Lucas' first time and he couldn't get enough!! He kept trying to crawl into the waves and eat up all that yummy sand. Emma kept running back and forth between the sand and the water. She didn't want to get wet but she really wanted to play with the really wet sand so she would dash out, get the sand and then run like crazy to miss the waves as they were coming in!! I had so much fun just watching them play.

Oh, and did I mention that not only did they pay for his training, but they also paid for our hotel (we tried to stay on the Queen Mary but they didn't have any availability), gave us a per diem, paid for mileage and he also got paid his regular wage while we were there!! Is this what is is like to have a REAL job????? I LOVE IT!!!!!