whew, what a weekend

SKI had the most fantastic weekend! Started off with a 3 hour jaunt to Belton (just outside of Temple) to see my friend and former roomie Annie get married. It was a sweet wedding, with all of the music recorded by Jim (the hubby), Annie, and both of their families. He recorded Annie's Song (by John Denver--you know the one in My Best Friend's Wedding where the kids are sucking the helium and singing? I love that!), it was so incredibly sweet. I got to see Larinda, Loza, and Emily and her little boy Jacob. It was good getting to hang out with them for awhile.

After the wedding, I drove another hour south to a little town--population 1200--called Lexington. Just down a little road from the highway is a place called Texas Skydiving. Alex lives in Round Rock, and goes there every other weekend or so to jump. He has 42 jumps now, which is incredible! I got to watch him make 3 or 4 jumps on Saturday. It looked so freakin awesome. I got lots of good shots with my new camera. I wanted to go, but I wasn't feeling well, and I certainly didn't want to make my first jump feeling super nauseous. We went out to dinner with the skydiving people on Saturday night at a place called Seafood and Donuts. Weird name--good food.

Sunday morning, around 11am, I got suited up and climbed into the smallest plane I've ever been in, a Cessna 182. It was me, Gary--my tandem instructor--Alex, and the pilot. Alex is training to run camera, so he got to go up with us, which was really awesome. I was fine the entire way up to altitude in the plane. No nervousness or anxiety at all. Gary had me turn around and get on my knees so he could buckle me in, and then Alex opened the plane door. I immediately freaked. The only words that managed to escape my mouth were: "Oh God. Oh God. Oh God." Alex climbed out on the struts and I scooted up to the edge of the plane and put my feet out. They immediately started flying all over the place, so Alex helped me put them on the step. He told me later that the look on my face was priceless. Yeah! I like to call that 'Sheer Terror!' I heard Gary say, 1-2-3!! and we were flying. I could see Alex below us soaring around, which was totally awesome. Once we left the plane I was completely at ease, enjoying the ride. It didn't really feel like falling, it felt more like, well, I don't know how to explain it. We did a freefall for probably 30 seconds or so, and then Gary deployed his parachute. Let me tell ya, that harness is NOT comfortable. He made a few adjustments to the straps and it was a lot better. We could carry on a normal conversation under the canopy, so cool! I wish I had been able to have my camera up there, it was absolutely amazing. It probably took us 5 minutes or so to land--both of us on our feet. The most incredible experience I've ever had. I reeeeaaally want to take the AFF course, its super expensive though. We shall see. I'll post more photos later!

I WENT SKYDIVING!! I'm crazy/awesome. Its official.