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!