SKYDIVING!!

Last year for David's birthday, October 2nd, I told him that I wanted to take him skydiving. I also told him that if he wanted to take me skydiving for my birthday then I would willingly accept that as a gift! So we decided that we would go sometime in May or June of this year, after the weather got warmer. Well, due to a busy spring and summer we never got around to booking our jump. I knew we had to go before David turned 30 (I wouldn't feel like it could count as his 29th birthday gift if he wasn't 29 anymore!) so last week I called and booked our jump for 2pm on Saturday, September 20th. Things were moving a little slow at the drop zone so it was actually about 5pm when we made our jump. It turned out well, though... with the sun lower in the western sky the world looked amazingly beautiful from the air!

Here we are waiting outside the skydive center. That's the plane to the left of us, getting refueled.

There were 12 of us packed into the plane, including the pilot. A 19-year-old student did a hop-n-pop (hop out of the plane and pop your parachute almost immediately) at 4,000 ft. It was a clear, beautiful day, so David and I decided when we got to the drop zone to pay an extra $10 per person for the "extra high" jump with 20-30 seconds more of freefall. So we were at almost 14,000 feet when we left the plane!

David and his jump master, Brian.

That's me in freefall over the Pennsylvania countryside! The runway at the skydive center is to my right.

Me with my jump master, Chris. Chris is from Australia and has been skydiving for 6 years. The past 3 summers he's come to Skydive Philadelphia to be an instructor. He even let me steer the parachute for a while!

This was an amazing experience! It's hard to come close to describing the freefall... it's not at all what I thought it would be. There was no sense of speed or falling and there wasn't the leave-your-stomach-behind feeling like you get on a rollercoaster. It was just like floating... with a lot of wind rushing at you!

I hope to go again some day! And I would definitely recommend to anyone!

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"If riding in an airplane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming. If you want to experience the element, get out of the vehicle." - a great quote from The Skydiver's Handbook, by Dan Poynter & Mike Turoff

Sisters & Best Friends

Hiking Watkin's Glen

David and I spent Labor Day weekend with my sister, Alenna, and her family. This was our first, of hopefully many trips, to their new house in NY! Saturday was a beautiful day and we met my aunt, uncle, cousin and her family to go hiking at Watkin's Glen. Thankfully we were able to start at the top and hike down, not up, the 800+ steps through the glen. Seth and Aiden kept signing "more, more, more" to the many sights around them... it was so cute! We all had a wonderful time.

Carolyn, Pam, Seth, Luke, Alenna, Aiden, David, Dan and Aunt Joan hiking the glen.

One of the many GORGEous views of Watkin's Glen.

Aiden and Alenna... with Seth and Pam in the background.

Seth started to get really tired about 1/2 way through our hike. I asked if he wanted to rest his head on my shoulder and 3 minutes later he was completely asleep! Alenna and Dan both offered to carry him, but having him asleep in my arms was so sweet and I didn't want to put him down. So I carried him for the rest of the hike (and my arms were sore the next day as proof!), but it was worth it!

Our First Anniversary

One year ago, David and I said "I do"! They say that the first year is always the hardest, but if that's the case, then we've been blessed... 'cause this past year has been great. As I think back on this past year (or even the past two years, since David and I have been together), I think of something Carla said to Turk in "Scrubs" (my favorite show)... "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but you've managed to erase them all, because each and every one of them has lead me to you."

We went to the Blue Ridge Mountains for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. We stayed at a wonderful Bed & Breakfast, visited the local wineries, climbed to the top of Old Rag in the Shenandoah National Park (the picture above shows the view from the top!) and relaxed. It was a great get-away weekend!

Guest Bathroom Pictures

This project has been stressful at times, but all in all it was a good experience. It truly was a joint effort... it was David's idea to add a chair rail to the bathroom, but I picked out the paint color, he bought the mirror and I chose the shower. And, in the end, I think the whole thing came together really well!

Our Toy Story!

Even though we didn't have enough time to go into any of the amusement parks at Disney, we did enjoy taking pictures at the All Star's Movie Resort!

Home Renovations

As I type this, the bathroom in our house is being demolished! David and I have been talking about remodeling various parts of the house since last summer, and this weekend we started! The first project is turning our very large bathroom into 2 smaller bathrooms (one which will be attached to the master bedroom, and one which will be a guest bathroom) and a walk-in closet. Thankfully David knows how to do electrical work and plumbing. And thankfully David's father and friend, Bryan, are here to help today. So hopefully this project will be taken care of in a few weeks!

One half of the bathroom. This part won't be taken out until we finish making the new guest bathroom.
The shower will stay until after the new guest bathroom is made, too. At that time It will be replaced with a tub/shower in the master bathroom.
It's a warm day for mid-April, and it's hard work ripping out a jacuzzi tub!
David and Bryan taking the window out of the wall.
No insulation in the walls! No wonder it costs so much to heat the house in the winter and keep it cool in the summer! Thankfully insulation and new siding are some of the other projects that we're planning for this spring/summer.

A Few Honeymoon Pictures

Walking along the beach on our first morning in St Lucia. The beach was barely there (due to erosion and the large waves that they were experiencing) but it was still a nice walk!
We went scuba diving on Wednesday and had a great time! Hopefully we'll get to do this again in the future!


Relaxing in a hammock with my honey...

From the resort where we stayed we were able to see cruise ships heading in and out of Castries harbor on a daily basis.
This was our favorite restaurant! The Mahi Mahi that they served here was delicious!

Upcoming Honeymoon

David and I have been married for almost 8 months, yet we're just now packing to go on our honeymoon! We took a long weekend to the Pocono's (what we affectionately called our "honey weekend") right after the wedding, but we decided to save our money for a tropical vacation when the weather was cold in NJ. So in less than 3 days we'll be flying to St Lucia for a 7 days / 8 nights stay at one of the Sandals Resorts. I am so excited that I'm counting down the hours! Better go start packing instead of blogging...