jim's Aeonity Blog

Our First Anniversary

Yestarday was our first Anniversary (Lyndsey and I). I have been planning our Anniversary for the past 3 months. The day started off great, I could not sleep and was awake at 5:00am. After showering and getting cleaned up I woke Lyndsey up and told her she needed to get ready so we can goto her Anniversary present. On the way there, it seemed like we were going to the middle of no-where and she thought I was kidnapping her and taking her to the middle of no-where, I than asked if she liked dirt biking (knowing she does not and would never go dirt bike riding.) She then gave me a little look like "oh my gosh is he serious?"

We continued on our journey to the "middle of no-where". We arrived at the Ft. Lupton Airport in Colorado, when she saw the airport she asked, "How are we going dirt bike riding at the airport?" I told her it was going to be a priviate flight tour instead. After I went inside and asked for Directions to Hangar 34G. Once we got to Hangar 34G Lyndsey finally realized what her present was. I was taking her Sky Diving thrrough Mile High (MILE-HI) Sky Diving. Lyndsey nearly peed her pants once she found out what we were doing. She had no clue, as I have always told her, "I would never sky dive." Well I guess I was lieing but really the only reason I did Sky Dive was because of her.

At anyrate we get in to the place and pay for the Sky Diving trip (not very cheap) and paid for a videographer for her. Then come the wait, I was actually very calm, since well I knew about it for 3 months. Lyndsey was really nervous and anxious. After we met Lyndsey's instructor and he went over the basics it was time to wait again, as the guys who jumped into the CU Stadium for the Boulder Boulder marathon in Boulder, Colorado were using the plan right then. About 15 minutes later it was time to suit up. the suits they have are pretty comfortable but the harnesses are what were uncomfortable because they had to be very tight.

15 minutes later we were on the plane and flying around the airport to get to 12,000 ft, which is the altitude where we would be jumping from. The ride in the plane was noisy, but it was fun. We watched one guy jump out of the plane at 4,000 ft, he was a "low" jumper. After that no one else jumped out until the 12,000 ft mark. Lyndsey and I were the last ones to go, I went first so the videographer could get me jumping out of the plane. Lyndsey told me later on the ground that watching me jump of the plane was the scariest part of the whole trip.

I am now diving through the sky, it was insane, my instructor flipped me upside down so I could see my wife exiting the plane for a brief moment and so I could see how fast we were going by how faraway the plane was getting. It was awesome. He summarsalted us so now we were right in the wind looking at the ground. It was very hard to breath, I found that putting my chin up a little bit provided me more an easy way to breathe through my nose. After what seemed like 5 seconds of free-fall my instructor told me to pull the chord, all I could think of was, "already?" Once the chute was open and I could hear again I asked the instructor how long we were in free-fall for. He told me around 45 seconds. I could not believe that. It seemed only like 5 seconds of that awesome feeling.

Once the chute opened up, the initial tug was not bad at all. Maybe because I was attached to someone. What did hurt was the constant tension on your legs from the harness and your armpits, I later found out I had bruises both places. Now we are parachuting at about 1,500 ft I see Lyndsey above me, and not long after she was below me, her parachute was open also, for some reason they just went down alot faster than we did. We took our time and I got some practice in on how to "flare" the chute to make it stop and how to properly land without jacking up your ankles. It is the best feeling floating over the earth and the view was spectacular. Seeing all the little specs that were cars and the tops of all building and miles and miles around you.

When we landed it was not nearly as bad or scary as I thought it would be, that actually seemed like the easiest part of the whole trip. When I landed on the ground not a few seconds after I get un-attached from the instructor my wife gives me a big hug, and tells me how it went for her.

After the sky diving I decided that we would want something "Relaxing" to do. So I took Lyndsey to the Boondocks in Thornton, CO where we rode Go-Karts, ate lunch and played 2 games of Putt-Putt with a few arcade games on the side. After 3 hours of that we were getting very tired and decided to go to her mom's house where dinner would be served. Once we were at Lyndsey's moms house, after telling her what her daughter had just done, Lyndsey fell asleep almost immediatley. We had a delicious turkey dinner and than watched Man on Fire. After which Lyndsey and I went home as I had to work today and she has school.

She told me that was the best day she had ever had and would never forget the expierence, although she has no urge to jump out of a plane again, she loved the expierence and is happy to cross that off of her "ToDo Before I Die" list.

As for me, I would love to jump again, now all I have to wait for is someone to ask me if I would go sky diving with them, maybe it will never happen again, hopefully it will. Either way I will be happy that I did achieve this great feat, of overcoming my fear and letting go to have probably the greatest expierence of my life which I will always cherish the memories of.

Thanks for Reading,
--Jim