30 years ago - 1994

This was a very busy year for us! After living in the condo for a year, we finally purchased a nice little home in eastern Aurora, CO., just north of buckley AFB. We bought it for the price of what a new car is today.
We also took on a 16 year old from Holland for a year as an exchange student, miss Sandra.

Early into Sandra's stay with us, she invited some HS friends over to the house. Jeannine and I were upstairs cooking and the kids were downstairs. Something banged against the house and we thought the kids were doing it and about that time, the banging increased and we met the kids coming up the stairs and we were going down. A Colorado hail storm!

One young man had driven his dads 1968 classic Mercury Cougar over to the get together and the hail ruined it, along with all other cars. Thats what happens with 2 inch hail stones. We seen more hail in Colorado than any other place in the country.

Sandra's first Halloween

We tried to to take Sandra to as many different places as we could during her stay, and one of the things that really caught her off guard  was how far we had to drive to everything. When she turned 16, we got her a learners permit to drive and she drove a lot on trips.

During the holidays, Sandra's best friend Linda came down and stayed a week with us as she was also being a exchange student in the upper midwest. New years eve, was somehting of an event as we hosted about 10 exchange students at our place overnight. What amazed us the next morning was that after breakfast and before host parents started showing up, they cleaned the house! You would have never known what a crazy place it was the night before.

Denver International Airport (DIA)

United Airlines had a special event offer that it was going to schedule the first official departing flight to and from DIA just before it opened to the public. So, I entered my offer for 3 people and we got it!

We got to run around inside the terminal and then the captain took us on a joy ride, literally, of the front range which ended up flying by Pikes Peak, really, level with. He also would bank the plane left and right and narate for us about things below. One of those rare opportunities in life.