Sky Diving

Husband's family arrived in town on Wednesday for his brother's wedding on Saturday. We had planned to go sky diving on Friday with his brother, Charly and his sister in-law, Rachel. However, for those of you who live in Utah, it was extremely stormy and rainy. So, Friday's plans were ruined, much to the dismay of Charly and the rest of us.

However, the wedding day was BEAUTIFUL and the bride and groom were as happy as can be. Lucky for us, the reception and all the other wedding festivities ended early in the day, so Husband, Charly, Rachel and I headed to Ogden to hopefully catch a plane ride, high in the sky.

We arrived around 5, and started the preparation for our flight - we put our diving suits on, and received some instructions. To the north the sky was beginning to darken, and we knew if we didn't head up soon, we wouldn't be able to.

I was more anxious than nervous as I have always wanted to sky dive. My dear friend, Suzy, was able to go a couple of years ago and I was crazy jealous, and then I'd hear of friends here and there who went. Again, jealous.

And here I was, climbing into a plane, ascending to sky, where I was going to be able to join the ranks of those who have jumped before me.

My tandom instructor, Farris, strapped me to him and his parachute and instructed me further as to how to best jump. As we got higher, we entered the clouds and could see snow and ice surrounding the plane. Technically we weren't supposed to jump through clouds, but we prepared to do so anyway.

Charly jumped first of all of us. He's working on certifying and he has already been 17 times so he jumped solo. His wife, Rachel, is also working on certifying, this was her second jump, however, she went solo with an instructor by her side.

I would jump next, then Husband.

As I scooted to the door, I was nervously excited. And then next thing I knew, I was falling.

It was exhilerating. The force of falling was intense. It felt like major pressure, and I had to remind myself to breathe. I didn't feel that "stomach in the throat" experience that comes from amusement park rides, which generally tends to make the experience less than desireable. And the good thing was, we jumped into the cloud, so I couldn't see a thing, but I had the wind and snow pelting my face, but I paid no mind to it as all I could think of was how cool it was!

I exited the clouds and enjoyed the incredible view of falling from 12, 500 feet towards the earth. The moment my instructor pulled the chute, I felt a moment of weightlessness as we had stopped free-falling, but the chute hadn't deployed completely, so there wasn't the jerk upward that came a moment later when we would then more slowly descend. It was amazing.

We coasted toward the earth, enjoying a spiral here and there as we headed to our landing site.

When my butt hit the earth, and I was on solid ground, I was sad that it was all over, because it was the time of my life!

Husband and I can't wait to go again...however, that will have to wait for awhile, but go again we shall!

The Red Dress

Husband's brother is getting married next week. And for this wedding I needed to find a dress.
Up until today I hadn't looked much because I had no idea what their colors were. There was some jesting about showing up in bright orange or some color that would most assuredly clash with whatever colors they had decided upon.

As luck would have it though, the soon to be bride and groom did drop by dropped off Husband's tie, which was a lovely deep red, much like unto the red of my own wedding. And I was also informed that their other color was gold.

Red and Gold.

So now I can go dress hunting. However, I decided that I most likely wouldn't be able to find a red dress, and there is pretty much no way that I would be caught dead in a gold dress. So I began searching for a black dress as black would look good with red and gold and would not clash.

I visited a few stores with now avail with even a black dress. I wasn't feeling very hopeful.

But I made one last stop before I headed home - JC Penney.

Surprisingly they had a decent selection of dresses though not many that would match. I finally found 2 black dresses that I decided to try. On my way to the dressing room, right there, hanging on the end of the clearance rack was the perfect red dress. Ahhh! Perfect!

I tried it on, and it fit like a glove. And to make it even more perfect, when I looked at the tag, the originally $80 dress was 80% off...making it $15.95!

I aslo tried on both the black dresses, the first one was so-so. But the second was quite cute, fit well, and, dun dun da dah! was originally $98 but was also on sale for $20.

Double score!

So I headed to the checkout, feeling pretty good about my findings.

But wait!

When Rebecca rang up the dresses at the register, they were $10 and $13! Oh blessed day!

So when I left JC Penney, I had 2 dresses, valuing $178.95 for $23. And a dress for the wedding.

I can't wait to dress it up with my red lipstick. Dubonet here I come!