See you soon!

I finally got the whole passport fiasco sorted out, and was able to take my business trip down to Brazil. I only stayed a week, but overall it was a pretty good trip. I finally got to see one of the completed aircraft that I have been working on, which was VERY cool. The country was quite different than the US, but I look forward to heading back later this summer. Chance are I will be staying a bit longer next time, so hopefully I will be able to take a weekend or two and travel the countryside a bit. I've made a few good friends down there, which helped out a lot during my stay. They were able to show me around to some of the more interesting places in their city that I would have never found on my own. I tried all sorts of new things, from Brazilian chocolate, coffee, and barbque.....to their cachaca, which is the national spirits distilled from sugar cane. All of it was delicious! I did pass on the grilled chicken hearts, though. (ick!)

Project Rodeo is moving right along. I replaced the oil valve I needed to in the bottom of the motor, so now I just have a LOT of cleaning and assembling to do. We're going to get plates for it when we're in Ohio, so the plan is to have it running when we get back so we can start driving it.........finally!

I think that's all for now....see you soon!

Always an Adventure

So Jessie tells me that I am quite an 'exciting' person to sleep next to. Generally, I guess I do a lot of thrashing about, along with a good amount of blanket and pillow stealing. I sleep like a rock, so I'm totally oblivious to all of this. Apparently last night I startled Jessie quite a bit when I suddenly jumped up from a dead sleep, and then promptly hid my head under the covers. I then proceeded to tell her that I was being chased by "big scary bugs" and fell back asleep.

I sure am thankful my wife loves me............=)

Update

Things are going well in the Stuffel household. Jessie has been back from training for two weeks now, and has continued working her previous job in the squadron. And after not having a kitchen for six long weeks, she's been backing up a storm (which has made her husband quite happy)! We even harvested all of our garden carrots, and made some delicious from-scratch carrot cake cupcakes. =)

Fresh Carrots!

Work is going well for me. We are getting ready to transfer the program I have been working on to our Brazilian facility, so there has been a whole slew of different Brazilians coming and going over the past few weeks. I finally got my passport and visa back from the Brazilian Consulate, so it looks like I will be heading down there sometime in March. It will only be for a week, so I am looking forward to a experience since it won't be a overly-long journey.

The Rodeo project is coming along quite nicely too. I've been spending nearly all my free time in the garage lately, trying to get our new vehicle all back together. I'm nearly done with phase 1 of the project, which was repairing the top-end of the motor. Sometime this week, I should be able to start the second major phase, which will be replacing an oil pressure valve in the bottom of the motor, as well as pulling apart the front suspension and drive train. After that it should be as good as new (I hope)!

And the most exciting news as of late, if you haven't heard already, is that we will be coming home to visit soon! Jessie and I booked some tickets from April 8-16, so if you are free that week let us know. We'd love to visit with as many of you as we can while we're in town for the week. See you soon!